Sandy Hook Shooting Speech Analysis

On December 14, 2012, our president Barack Obama presented a speech in the White House’s briefing room (Slack) about the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. During this speech, Obama was trying his hardest to let America know the government was going to do everything capable to find the person who took these children’s lives. He, also, granted condolences to the family of all children involved, survivors and deceased.

As much as it grieved Obama to present this speech, he knew he needed too. The country needed questions answered. They wanted to know if the shooter had been caught, what President Obama was doing about this shooting, and what Americans need to do about the situation. Obama was able to answer all of these questions.

Obama made sure to include the parents who are at home without their child now due to this crime. He, also, mentioned his personal family life by saying, “This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter and we’ll tell them that we love them, and we’ll remind each other how deeply we love one another” (“Barack Obama”). This made everyone understand how serious the shootings are. If the president is scared for his kids, then most people in the United States will be scared too. The president is one of the most protected people in

“The majority of those who died today were children -- beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own” (“Barack Obama”). This would instantly make parents and older kids upset. Who would not be upset about five to ten years olds not getting to live their lives for any reason? However, even if Obama had not put pathos into his speech, people would still be saddened at the fact that someone that little would never get to grow up because a man wanted to shoot up a school.

Obama was not only worried about his country, but saddened for those lost and the emotions were obvious. There were moments when he stammered over words, however, this could have been due to lack of time spent on the speech. This speech was not planned. This caused the speech to be slightly wordy in some areas. However, there were moments were he choked up and if one was to watch the video of the speech, Obama even teared up at one moment. This proves most of the slight mistakes made were due to emotional