College Rhetorical Analysis Essay

In this lengthy article â€Å"Guns Don’t Kill People, the Mentally Ill Do,† that was published in the Townhall Daily, the author, Ann Coulter, argues about a major prevailing issue today, gun control. She believes the problem isn’t the guns themselves, but the mentally disturbed people. Coulter credits the declining mental health system as the main setback. She supports her argument by providing tragic examples from mass shootings that took place in the past. One example was the 2011 shooting that took place in Tucson, Arizona where the shopping mall shooter, Jared Loughner was so obviously disturbed that he stated â€Å"If I stay long enough to make the yearbook, I will be voted the Most Likely to Commit Murder.† She also explains the most recent shooting that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary. The shooter, Adam Lanza, first shot his mother on the morning of December 14, 2012 because she supposedly was trying to have him committed to a mental institution, which is what triggered his rage. After he cold-bloodedly killed his mother, Lanza progressed on to Sandy Hook Elementary and proceeded to murder twenty children and six administrators. Coulter is a conservative columnist and political commentator who has mostly written about government and legal issues. A number of her articles are targeting a particular audience. For example, liberals, Barack Obama, the National Rifle Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) just to name a few. Seven of Coulter’s best works are on the New York Times bestsellers list. Similar to this article, some of her previous works are written about gun control issues and targeted toward Obama and the Senate Democrats. Obviously, this is not the first time the issue has come up that Coulter has written about it. Some of her best works on gun control include â€Å"Ending Gun Violence Requires Commitment, Not All of it Voluntary,† â€Å"Negro’s with Guns,† and her most current article â€Å"Guns Don’t Kill People, the Mentally Ill Do.† What motivated Coulter to write this article were the many cases of mentally disturbed people carrying out mass shootings and the world glorifying the murderers with press, while the NRA was taking the blame. She states, â€Å"Innumerable studies have found a correlation between severe mental illness and violent behavior.† She provides evidence from these studies with statistics. For example, â€Å"Thirty one to sixty one percent of all homicides committed by disturbed individuals occur during their first psychotic episode.† She adds, â€Å"Which is why mass murderers often have no criminal record. There is no time to wait with the mentally ill.† Coulters purpose for writing this argument is to persuade her audience that closer tabs need to be kept on people who are suspected as being the least bit mentally disturbed. She believes if it is made easier to emit people into mental institutions, there would be less violence. Coulter also argues that if one is suspected as being mentally disturbed, it should be simple for them to be evaluated by a psychologist. Coulter’s intended audience is the general population, Barack Obama, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Throughout various parts of her argument she pleads to individuals working in the mental health field to put more effort in separating mentally disturbed people from civil society. During a time like today, where mass shootings have happened within the last few months, are people more prone to pay attention to gun control issues. Especially on the forum that this article is published on. Most people that comment on â€Å"Guns Don’t Kill People, the Mentally Ill Do† are supporting Coulter’s argument. This argument first appeared on January 16, 2013 after Coulter did some researching about mass shootings i n the past. It responds to the most recent shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. Coulter states, â€Å"Enough is enough, the public needs to know and understand the danger behind mentally ill individuals.† Her main claim is that there aren’t enough precautions being taken when it comes to suspecting someone of being mentally disturbed. There are several reasons given in support for her claim. Seung-Hui Cho, who committed the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, had been diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder as a child and placed under consistent treatment but the college was prohibited from being told about Cho’s mental health problems because of federal privacy laws such as HIPPA laws (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Another example is when one of Loughner’s (Tucson, Arizona shooting) teachers, Ben McCahee, filed numerous complaints to the school against him, hoping to have him removed from class. McCahee stated, â€Å"When I turned my back to write o n the board, I would always turn back around quickly to see if he had a gun.† Coulter goes on to say, â€Å"Committing Loughner to a mental institution would have required a court order stating that he was a danger to himself and society.† Ann Coulter adds to the examples when she informs the audience of James Holmes, the Aurora, Colorado shooter. He was under psychiatric care at the University of Colorado long before he shot up a movie theater. After Holmes made threats against a professor, he was asked to leave the campus, but he wasn’t committed. Coulter claims â€Å"People knew he was deeply troubled and just pushed him into society to cause havoc elsewhere.† Finally, when talking about Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, she states â€Å"Connecticut’s laws are so restrictive in terms of the proof required to get someone committed that Lanza’s mother would probably not have been able to get him help even if she had tried.† The article, â€Å"Guns Don’t Kill, the Mentally Ill Do† was found on a website as an essay. It is a lengthy article that includes an intro, a thesis, support paragraphs, and a closing paragraph reproving the thesis. Coulter represents herself as a respected columnist who is very educated on laws, especially regarding civil rights. â€Å"A Connecticut native, Coulter graduated with honors from Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences, and received her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of The Michigan Law Review. She is the legal correspondent for Human Events and writes a popular syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate. In 2001, Coulter was named one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals by federal judge Richard Posner. After practicing law in private practice in New York City, Coulter worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she handled crime and immigration issues for Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan. From there, she became a litigator with the Center For Individual Rights in Washington, DC, a public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of individual rights with particular emphasis on freedom of speech, civil rights, and the free exercise of religion.† Ann Coulter is a very trusted columnist. She uses facts based on mass shootings in the past and provides evidence by using statistics and quotations from insiders. Although Coulter doesn’t invoke an emotional response, she bases much of her article on morality. â€Å"Guns Don’t Kill, Mentally Ill Do† is a satirical piece due to her ridicule to the ACLU throughout her argument. In conclusion, Coulter argues that there is much more precautionary steps that can be taken when someone is suspected of being mentally ill. She closes the argument by stating â€Å"It is nearly impossible to have mentally disturbed people separated from society because the ACLU has decided that being psychotic is a civil right.† She adds, â€Å"Consequently, whenever a psychopath with a million gigantic warning signs commits a shocking murder, the knee jerk reaction is to place yet more control on guns. By now, guns are the most heavily regulated product in America. It hasn’t worked. There are still subway tracks, machetes, fists and bombs.† For example, the most deadly massacre at a school in United States history was at an elementary school in Michigan in 1927. It was committed with a bomb, by a mentally disturbed man.