Guns Ethos Pathos Logos

The debate on Monday was about whether the government should restrict guns in the United States. My team argued that guns shouldn’t be restricted in the United States, and we lost the debate because of implicit bias and insufficient use of pathos. During the debate, we covered all three elements of the rhetorical appeals: pathos, logos and ethos. In the beginning, Jiale talked about the Second Amendment, stating that United States citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. She then applied this concept with a historical event of the independence war with Britain. From referring to the history, this established the ethos of our group. Audience knew that we have done research about the topic and our arguments are reliable. During the debate, we paid close attention to other

As our argument progressed, the rhetorical appeals, logos and pathos, served to strengthen our argument during the clash. The opposite team pointed out that guns could pose a threat to public safety. I responded by explaining there are many ways to cause danger in public, and guns are only one of them. Without guns, criminals can use other weapons such as knives or homemade explosives. All of these explanations led to my point that gun control cannot effectively eliminate criminal behaviors and therefore cannot assure public safety. I use my reasoning and logic to prove the other team’s point invalid. Next, the opposite team raised a question that as time as changes, the Second Amendment, which was established in the revolutionary era, was no longer applicable in the