In America all of its inhabitants have certain rights protected by the government under the United States Constitution. One of those rights states that people have the right to keep and bear arms. Recent tragic event that have happened in the United States have brought up the question and many arguments on whether guns should be eliminated or if they should continue to be sold. In order for these arguments to be fair there are certain rules that they must follow which Patricia Roberts-Miller, author of “Characteristics of Demagoguery” and “Democracy, Demagoguery, and Critical Rhetoric”, talks about. In her texts she takes a look at what aspects a public debate must have so that it is not only good but that also allows for democratic decision making. Her article also takes a look at certain forms of persuasion that are flawed, manipulative, one sided along with many other details that can make an argument weak. Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association Vice President, gave a speech a week after the Sandy Hook incident in Newton, Connecticut where twenty six students and staff were fatally shot. He gave this speech to reach out to anyone across the United States that has children and cares deeply for their security. In his speech some of the main claims that LaPierre makes are that the only way we can prevent tragedies similar to the one that occurred in Sandy Hook is to train and post people with guns at schools to protect the children. He sees that the only way to protect children from a bad person with a gun is to have a lot of other good people with guns in the same vicinity. Throughout this
text I will take a look at LaPierre’s speech while using Roberts-Miller’s text as a lens in order to see how and to what extent certain elements of demagogic discourse I can identify in his speech.
In Roberts-Miller’s text she gives many examples of the types of demagogic discourse that many people use in speeches, just like Wayne LaPierre did. LaPierre uses many if not all of the types of demagogic discourse that Roberts-Miller mentions in her article. A very prominent element of demagogic discourse that LaPierre uses is that of polarization. Roberts-Miller gives a definition of polarization when she states, “Demagogues polarize a complicated (and often frightening) situation by presenting only two options: their policy, and some obviously stupid, impractical, or shameful one” (Roberts-Miller, 462). Some examples of polarization in LaPierre’s text are when he states, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guywith a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away … or a minute away?” (LaPierre) and “If we truly cherish our kids more than our money or our celebrities, we must give them the greatest level of protection possible and the security that is only available with a properly trained— armed —good guy” (LaPierre). In this quote he insinuates that our country cares more about protecting our money [in banks] and our celebrities than we do our children but believes that having guns around them in schools will protect them. In LaPierre’s speech his main focus is the children of this country and the amount of safety provided for them at schools. Therefore he uses polarization to provide his listeners with just two options; we as a whole nation either position armed “good” people at every school in order to prevent a incident like that of Sandy Hook’s from happening again or we allow for the children to die because they did not have security. Because LaPierre uses polarization in his speech this poses a problem because according to Roberts-Miller it creates a division between the listeners
into two categories, the in-group and the out-group, allowing for no middle ground. In this case the in-group would be those who have been persuaded by LaPierre and the out-group would be those who do not agree with his solutions. Those who agree with LaPierre will then grow to dislike those who do not because they have been convinced that there is only one solution to prevent tragic incidents where children are having their lives taken away from them in a terrible way.
Another element of demagogic discourse that LaPierre uses in his speech in order to persuade his audience to want to have “good” people with guns at their children’s schools is that of scapegoating. Roberts-Miller gives scapegoating a definition when she writes, “Individuals (or communities) can deny responsibility for a situation by projecting that responsibility onto some out-group. This is an attractive way of seeing a situation both when the causes are complicated (and there is no clear villain) as well as when the community does not want to hold responsible the individual or group who caused the situation…” (464). At the time that LaPierre did his speech it had only been a week since twenty six students and staff were fatally shot using a rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Being the Vice President of the National Rifle Association there is many reasons why LaPierre would not want the blame of this incident to fall back on them so therefore he turns to scapegoating to put the blame on others. An example of this is when he begins to blame the media for having some form of influence on people to commit these sort of atrocities. He says that they [the media] promote the “filthiest form of pornography” and that they bring a “toxic mix of criminal cruelty” into homes causing people to go mad. LaPierre goes on to say that the media are “silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirtators” who “demonize lawful gun owners” and make the world believe fallacies about
them. Here LaPierre is trying to make people who take full advantage of the second amendment as victims to this and making the media seem as the true culprit. He also blames politicians when talking about measures that this country should take to protect the children he states, “…politicians have no business — and no authority — denying us the right, the ability, or the moral imperative to protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm” (LaPierre). This argument would work if a politician had actually denied citizens the right to protect their families but he is very unclear on who has actually done that. According to Roberts-Miller using scapegoating poses a problem because the leader of the group, in this case would be LaPierre, removes himself from the problem and lays the blame on others. Overall the use of scapegoating seems like good way for LaPierre to make his audience believe him but if his audience really looked into statements like the ones he made in his speech they could possibly debunk them.
LaPierre’s speech has some strengths but also has weaknesses. One of those weaknesses is in the form of straw men which is an informal fallacy based on the a false representation of an opponents argument. After saying that the only way to prevent tragic incidents from happening at schools is by putting “good guys” with guns at each of them LaPierre says,
“Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you'll print tomorrow morning: "More guns," you'll claim, "are the NRA's answer to everything!" Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the word "gun" automatically become a bad word?
A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting the president isn't a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States isn't a bad word. And when you hear the glass breaking in your living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won't be able to
pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you”.
This statement poses a weakness in LaPierre’s argument because not only does he assume that those who are against guns will say such statements but the statement as a whole is not supported by evidence. He does not provide evidence to support his claim that the word gun has become a bad word and with this he once again assumes that the people of this country think that guns are evil and that they should hold no place in this country. Another weakness in his statement is explained by Roberts-Miller when she writes, “This is the point at which van Eemeren and Grotendoorst discuss pathos appeals, which they do not reject out of hand. Such appeals, they say, are fallacious if “the purpose of exploiting the audience’s emotions is to play on prejudices of the audience that are not directly relevant to the stand- point being defended”” (470). In LaPierre’s speech he states, “…And when you hear the glass breaking in your living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won't be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you”. In that quote he is trying to instill fear in his audience by making them imagine this scenario in their heads and basically saying that there is no other way for a person to protect themselves from an intruder without a gun and that all that they can hope for at that time is for someone, a “good” person, with a gun to protect them. Because LaPierre did not provide evidence for the claim that he makes and he messes with the listeners emotions to be able to persuade them easier poses a problem. Because according to Roberts-Miller an argument that exploits the audiences emotions is not fair which in turn makes his argument weaker because he does not allow for a reasoned debate.
Overall, Wayne LaPierre’s speech brought great attention to certain issues that should be addressed in this country but that does not mean his argument was solid. Throughout his speech he provided listeners with only two options one of which would seem illogical for a sane person to chose, blames others such as the media for influencing people to commit horrible atrocities, and assumed that people who do not agree with him would say certain things about claims that he made. In looking at LaPierre’s argument I learned that I should pay attention very closely when someone is trying to make an argument because I can then evaluate their arguments and use knowledge that I have learned from Roberts-Miller work to disprove their claims. It is important to know how to decipher peoples arguments because it can help one learn how to clearly understand them and know when a orator is trying to take advantage of the listener by using demagogic strategies.
