Analysis Of Enough Of Just Shock, And Tears After Mass Shooting By Leonard Pitts

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“Enough of Just Shock, Prayers and Tears After Mass Shooting,” by Leonard Pitts, was published in the Miami Herald on Oct. 3, 2017. Pitts’ editorial focuses on the response in America and around the world to the mass shooting that killed 59 people and injured over 325 people just two days prior at a country music festival in Las Vegas. Pitts begins his essay by remarking on how routine mass shootings and our response to them have become. He describes how all politicians announce their shock and sadness, and then those on the left call for gun control and those on the right argue that now is not the time for a debate on gun control. All over the world, lights are dimmed at major landmarks, and people on social media declare “we are with” whatever new city has been attacked, and people everywhere offer “thoughts and prayers.” Pitts then …show more content…

Pitts believes that many of our elected officials are bought off by the NRA. He says, “We may elect them [our politicians]. but we don’t buy them. The NRA does that.” Here he wants readers to feel contempt for politicians who allow themselves to be bought off by a special interest group, implying that these politicians are corrupt. Pitts also tries to evoke anger and shame in readers who “let them get away with this,” asking “Why do they pay no price at the ballot box?” He targets not only the politicians but NRA members themselves who “so willingly swallow the lie that the Second Amendment cannot co-exist with reasonable regulation.” The phrase “swallow the lie” is harsh; it implies that people who believe that the Second Amendment rules out all gun regulation are gullible, even stupid. This appeal will be more successful with readers on the left, who are less likely to be members of the NRA. NRA members, however, may object to being portrayed as weak and

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