Stutts, Ergasheva 1
Torey Stutts, Sevara Ergasheva
Dr. Blair
UWRT 1102-016
“Assignment #2: Final Draft”
03/16/15
Nothing Else Matters
Throughout the history of the United States, there has never been a single President who
has not been criticized for his actions as a leader of the nation. Bill Clinton was accused of
sexual relations, Bush was criticized constantly for the ways he handled 9/11, and now Obama is
currently receiving all the heat. From the healthcare plan he has implemented, to his current
efforts on imposing gun control laws, Obama is constantly under scrutiny. In 2013, Wayne
LaPierre, Vice President of the NRA (National Rifle Association), responded to Obama’s State
of the Union address with nothing but negative assumptions. Wayne LaPierre provides his
audience with slanted views, regarding Obama’s agenda, by using bandwagon techniques,
begging the question, and making hasty generalizations.
Two months prior to the 2013 President’s State of the Union Address was the Sandy
Hook Elementary school shooting. On the morning of December 14, 2012, twenty kids and six
adults were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary by a 20 year old gunman (Sandy Hook
Shooting: What Happened?). This incident was followed by a White House Press Conference in
which Obama stated that the tragedy “should be a wake-up call for all of us to say that if we are
not getting right the need to keep our children safe, then nothing else matters.” (LaPierre par 3).
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LaPierre reiterates the instance in which Obama says “nothing else matters”. Two months later,
Obama then made his State of the Union Address in which LaPierre points out that “the president
made not one mention, in his entire speech, of the need to improve security for our school
children.” (LaPierre par 8). LaPierre makes the hasty generalization that because Obama failed to
mention the words “school safety” it translates into our President not caring about the protection
of children in school systems across the nation. What LaPierre’s audience might not know is that
in the State of the Union Address, Obama does mention school safety. Though the President
might not have said the exact words “school safety” he does state “Of course what I’ve said
tonight matters little if we don’t come together to protect our most precious resource, our
children” (Obama). Not only has LaPierre made a hasty generalization that Obama doesn’t care
about the safety of school children, but he has basically lied to his own audience in stating that
Obama mentioned nothing about children.
Another assumption which LaPierre makes is that Obama is using the Sandy Hook
shooting as a political opportunity for him to propose gun control laws. This could easily be
refuted, as there are instances of Obama proposing gun restrictions prior to the school shooting.
Paul Bedard, a journalist for “US News” published an article in 2011 speaking of Democrats
opposing Obama’s gun control treaty; it was “an Obama-backed United Nations effort [that]
could bring international gun control into the United States and slap America's gun owners with
severe restrictions.” (Bedard par 1) Therefore, LaPierre is making another hasty generalization
in which he is assuming that Obama is using the school shooting as an opportunity to impose gun
control, when in reality Obama had gun control on his agenda before the shooting even took
place.
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“If re-elected, President Obama [will] set about dismantling the Second Amendment”,
LaPierre writes (par. 10). This was a prediction he says he made a year before the 2013 State of
the Union Address. LaPierre is once again, overreacting and creating a slippery slope by
assuming that just because Obama is trying to put restrictions on guns, he must be trying to get
rid of guns completely and strip away the citizens of their Second Amendment rights. Wood
describes slippery slope as the following, “A scare tactic that suggests that if we allow one thing
to happen, we will immediately be sliding down the slippery slope to disaster” (Wood par. 22).
LaPierre even states in one of his own articles that Obama says “I will not take your guns away”
(LaPierre par 1). He realizes Obama is not necessarily trying to revoke the second amendment
from citizens, but LaPierre still creates a slippery slope by saying Obama is trying to “destroy
our rights” just because he wants some gun control (LaPierre par 10). LaPierre takes Obama’s
gun control proposal, calls it an “anti-gun agenda”, and creates a slippery slope which he sees as
ending in a disaster (LaPierre par. 12). Wayne LaPierre creates this image by stating gun control
would cause “Bans on millions of commonly owned rifles, shotguns and handguns” and “import
bans … a federal database to track firearms and their owners … in other words, the national
registration of every single owner in the country.” (LaPierre par. 12). Though LaPierre paints a
vivid image of what could end up happening to gun owners in America, these are only a slippery
slope of assumptions and “scare tactics” to make Obama look deceitful in his intentions to keep
America safe (Wood par. 22).
Aside from making hasty generalizations and slippery slopes, LaPierre keeps reiterating
how Obama said “nothing else matters” while referring to school safety at the White House Press
Conference, preceding the school shooting. This results in LaPierre begging the question by
constantly repeating the quote throughout his speech. According to Nancy Wood, begging the
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question is defined as “a claim that is simply restated, over and over again” (Wood 6) and that is
exactly what Wayne LaPierre does throughout his speech. He mentions Obama’s statement of
“nothing else matters” a total of 4 times throughout his speech. LaPierre keeps begging the
question and restating that Obama said “nothing else matters” after the school shooting occurred,
to point out that Obama then later on failed to mention anything about it when it came time to
make the State of the Union Address. It could be said that LaPierre might have taken Obama’s
words and twisted them and maybe even took them too literally. LaPierre has little evidence to
prove that Obama is doing nothing about school safety, when proposing gun control laws could
actually be Obama’s own way of taking action. In fact, just five days after the Sandy Hook
incident, “President Obama made remarks on his administration’s plans for gun control”, states
Washington Post, he will “use all the powers of [his] office to help advance efforts aimed at
preventing more tragedies like this.” (Washington Post par. 20).
Throughout his whole speech, LaPierre hints of using persuasive techniques to slant the
views of his audience, the most prominent of them being bandwagon. “Advertisers know we tend
to feel comfortable doing what others do; we want to be on the winning team”, says Ann
McClintock in reference to the bandwagon technique (McClintock par 21). Towards the end of
his speech, Wayne LaPierre consistently says phrases such as, “It will be our names” (LaPierre
par 19), “It’s what we want” (LaPierre 21), and “WE WILL STAND AND FIGHT” (LaPierre
par 24). All of these quotes from LaPierre wreaks of bandwagon techniques, as he is trying to
sway the public audience into joining him and the NRA to fight against gun control. LaPierre
creates a sense of unity to try and make his audience “build under pressure to conform”
(McClintock par 21) to his beliefs towards Obama’s agenda.
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The President will always be criticized by many, Wayne LaPierre being an obvious
example. Not only will there be criticisms made, but some lies may even be told in the process of
trying to persuade the public. Wayne LaPierre provides his audience with slanted views,
regarding Obama’s agenda, by using bandwagon techniques, begging the question, and making
hasty generalizations. When it comes to LaPierre, it seems that portraying Obama as America’s
villain, while using fallacies throughout his language, is his only real intention. Nothing else
matters. Thus, relying on just one source may not be the best option, as you will always come
across differing opinions/views. Gaining outside sources/knowledge to investigate a
controversial topic is important in order to understand the big picture.
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Works Cited
Bedard, Paul. "Democrats Oppose Obama-U.N. Gun Control Treaty." US News. U.S.News &
World Report, 26 July 2011. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
LaPierre, Wayne. "Wayne LaPierre: Obama’s Obsession with Our Gun Rights." The Daily
Caller. N.p., 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.
McClintok, Ann. “Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising.” The Longman Reader. Ed.
Judith Nadell. New York: Longman, 2003. 304-311. Print.
Obama, Barack. "State Of The Union Address." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 24
Feb. 2015. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.
"President Obama's Remarks on Gun Control, Fiscal Cliff, Dec. 19, 2012
(Transcript)." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 11 Mar.
2015.
“Responds To State Of The Union Address”. Wayne LaPierre. Feb 14, 2014. Web. Accessed Feb
24, 2015. Transcript.
“Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting: What Happened?” CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web.
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11 Feb. 2015.
Wood, Nancy. Essentials of Argument. Upper Saddle River: Pearson / Prentice Hall, 2006.
Print.