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Tyler Williams
English 1010
Professor Anderson
Rhetorical Analysis
9 September 2014

We Need To Move Away From Assault Weapons Bans

Do we need to stop focusing on weapons bans and focus on other
public safety measures? What will save more American lives? Lois Beckett a
reporter for ProPublica believes rather than focusing on weapons bans but
shifting focus on public safety measures will in the -long run save more
American lives. I believe that all American citizens should have the
unalienable right to bear arms. Instead of focusing on taking away that right
we need to educate the American people and focus on public safety
measures that will in the long run save more lives. As I began to research
this I wanted to find proof and evidence. I wanted to find cold hard facts to
see if this argument proved to be hollow or not. I did a google scholar search
and found an article by Lois Beckett on www.propublic.org titled Why Gun
Control Groups Have Moved Away from an Assault Weapons Ban. The article
gives facts and real life examples of people that have shifted their focused
from an assault weapons to focusing more on public safety measures. The
author Lois Beckett has her AB degree in social studies at Harvard. She is a
reporter for ProPublica an independent non-profit newsroom. She has been a

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reporter for ProPublica since 2011. In 2011 she won the 2011 Livingston
Award for national reporting. She is also a frequent guest on national T.V.
programs such as C.N.N. The author has two main purposes in this article.
One is to inform the audience of gun control by giving facts and real life
examples. The other is to persuade the audience to consider changing their
views of gun control specifically moving away from gun bans. The author
achieved their purpose by using exemplification and narration strategies to
effectively show with facts and real life stories that we need to shift our focus
from an assault weapons ban to public safety measures that will save more
American lives.

According to the author pushing for an assault weapons ban isnt the
best way to prevent gun deaths. The author uses an exemplification strategy
or displaying facts to effectively prove that the decade long ban from 1994 to
2004 found no evidence that the ban saved any lives. For example in this
statement: A 2004 Justice Department-funded evaluation found no clear
evidence that the decade-long ban saved any lives. The guns categorized as
"assault weapons" had only been used in about 2 percent of gun crimes
before the ban (Beckett). This fact explains that there was no clear evidence
that the decade-long ban saved any lives, also assault weapons have only
been used in about 2 percent of gun crimes.

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This strategy exemplification or the use of facts helped the author

effectively inform the audience. Now the audience is more aware of how
much assault weapons are used in gun crimes and they are also aware that
there wasn't clear evidence that the 1994-2004 gun ban saved American
lives.

In the author's opinion gun control groups need to move away from an
assault weapons bans and focus more on other public safety measures
especially safety measures like background checks. The author uses a
narration strategy or a real life example of a woman named Shannon Watts,
a mother of five who shortly after the Sandy Hook shootings and a former
public relations executive, started a Facebook page called One Million Moms
for Gun Control. She says "We all were outraged about the fact that this
man could use an AR-15, which seemed like a military grade weapon, and go
into an elementary school and wipe out 26 human beings in less than five
minutes," Watts said. (Beckett) Shannon Watts at that time heavily
supported an assault weapons ban. But later she said "Ultimately, what's
going to save the most lives are background checks." (Beckett revised).
Although she hasn't abandoned the issue she now believes that safety
measures and policies such as background checks will save the most lives.

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The narration strategy the author uses effectively informs the audience
and gives a first- hand account of a woman who was in heavy favor of an
assault weapons ban and who later shifted her main focus from an assault
weapons ban to mainly focusing on public safety measures specifically
background checks.
We can conclude that the author's main argument is that whereas
some gun control groups were mainly focused on gun bans particularly on
assault weapons have shifted their focus to other public safety measures
specifically background checks. This issue is important because if we don't
focus on the things that will save most lives such as gun safety then we willbe distracted. We need to be united in helping each other be aware of gun
safety and other safety measures that will save more lives, so we can
produce a better environment for us, our families, and the American people
to live in.

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Works Cited
Beckett, Lois Why Gun Control Groups Have Moved Away from an Assault
Weapons Ban. http://www.propublica.org/article/why-gun-control-groupshave-moved-away-from-an-assault-weapons-ban. 9th September 2014.