Rhetorical Analysis Of When I Shoot A Student

Rhetorical Analyses of “When may I shoot a student”

When the professor Greg Hampikian decided to write “When may I shoot a student” He was trying express his own opinion to the Idaho State Legislature about the bill that allows for guns to be on the college campus of Boise State University. Greg tells us why he thinks this bill is really not needed by saying “I think we can all agree that guns don’t kill people, people with guns do.” He goes on to make many different examples of how the bill might be misunderstood and why it would be pointless to add the bill that will allow people to have a gun on campus. Greg is wanting to know why the Idaho State Legislature would create a problem when there is not a problem in the first place. Greg goes on being ironic when he is pointing out that the only crime on the campus is when students cheat on a test or experiment with drugs, he even go as far to say that the campus has a murder rate of zero.

Professor Greg Hampikian uses logos and writes his letter in a sarcastic and ironic attitude to help get his own point across.

He even tries to tell the Idaho State Legislature that there is no problem in the first place. When Greg reminds the students the Shared-Values statement, which reads “Boise State strives to provide a culture of civility and success where all feel safe and free from discrimination, harassment, threats or intimidation”. He uses this to show that guns make the students feel unsafe or threatened when around guns. This bill would go against the Boise State University's own rules and cause problems when keeping the peace at the Boise State

University.
During “When May I Shoot a Student” the Professor Greg Hampikian uses pathos to show his opinion in a sarcastic and ironic way to depict why the bill is outrageous. The way this letter is written goes to show how ineffective the bill is proven to be. Greg’s sarcastic and ironic remarks help prove that the bill is just exaggerated. Greg uses the same exaggeration and creates examples on how he might respond when met with a situation in the classroom. Gregs uses the statement “when may I shoot a student” many times during his letter sarcastically to make the reader feel a wide range of emotions when the statement is read literally. The emotions from this statement could be sadness, disgust, and even fear. Greg uses this to influence the reader by using the fear of losing something or someone.
In conclusion, Professor Greg Hampikian provides many good examples and makes the ideal point that implementing the bill would actually increase the amount of crimes that involve guns on the Idaho campus. However, rather than working directly with the Idaho State Legislature to not pass the bill, he believes that the bill will pass, and is being ironic in his letter to attack the bill itself and the Idaho State Legislature.