Doing personal research has always been a very rewarding pastime for me. I mainly research subjects pertaining to my potential careers as an electrical engineer and the current discoveries and accomplishments in the field. With my interest in firearms growing since my matriculation at Virginia Military Institute, the several activities and papers that we were assigned in ERH 102 gave me the perfect opportunity to learn more about the various laws and restrictions on these weapons through detailed training in rhetoric. However, even though I was successful in my advanced placement English Language and Composition class in high school, the skills taught in that class, mainly analysis and interpretation of literature, were difficult to transfer to ERH 102. Because of my familiarity with the analysis of writing, my first paper showed that I was not fulfilling the requirements of the prompt. In the process of writing my first paper, instead of first developing my argument through initial research and then adding sources to my essay to complement the backing of the thesis, I mistakenly used analysis of the sources to prove my argument. Through this inadequate technique, the essay lost credibility and my audience could no longer trust my argument.

In my first essay, I was tasked with developing an argument which should be constructed around the beliefs opposite my own, the opinion that gun violence in America could be reduced through national legislation to regulate the sale, type, and magazine capacity of firearms. I was also required to supply at least three peer-reviewed sources in addition to two sources from any media. In the initial production of this paper, I made a significant error by not having my own defined argument over federal gun control. Instead of approaching this assignment with an argument already in mind, my essay inevitably became a long list of points from writers with their own arguments. In the first body paragraph of my first essay, MAJ Garriott commented, “Also, by this point, you haven’t made any of your own arguments. You’ve been summarizing Sharmilla” (qtd. in “The Lack of Movement in the Gun Control Movement” 2). This comment highlights the weakness of my argument in that I was used to analyzing text and writing about its significance rather than having an argument already in development and simply including it to enhance my thesis and ethos. The following body paragraphs did not stray from this description, and in the conclusion, MAJ Garriott asked, “So what’s the argument, after all this?” (qtd. in “The Lack of Movement in the Gun Control Movement” 3). I had heard of the so what question in her class before, but when actually confronted with it, I understood that my rhetorical argument skills were not nearly as strong as I thought. This comment signifies that the whole essay was essentially confusing in nature and my thesis was not concrete enough.

After I had become familiar with the errancy of my first essay, it was finally time to continue my development in rhetorical arguments in my second essay. This assignment, much like the previous one, was to develop an argument of my personal opinions on how to best reduce gun violence in the country. I decided to focus on my approach more heavily this time; I performed research to initially form the basis for my argument. Then, after writing out the base of my paper, I then found the sources that would best complement the argument I already had. However, this was still by no means the perfect paper. In an effort to find sources, my essay still found its way to be slightly confusing in some areas. In the peer review of my second essay, Cadet Szczepanik noted the issue with my thesis in the way that it connected with the rest of my essay: “Your thesis is pretty clear. The only thing I can think is that at first I questioned if you wanted to get rid of all gun regulation legislation or if you simply wanted to modify what is already there” (“Peer Review 2” 1). As I developed my essay, I came to the opinion that there should be national legislation and licensure of guns for the best possible solution to reducing gun control. However, I failed to return to my thesis to include my revised belief. Near the end of my conclusion, MAJ Garriott noted a contradiction in my essay: “If we follow your logic to its conclusion, then there shouldn’t be any laws because none of them stop crime” (qtd. in “A Different Approach to Reducing Gun Violence” 3). Again, in the process of finding sources to support my thesis, the points I used seemed to disagree with the argument I had originally intended. The result of this fatal error left my essay in disarray and my audience was once again confused about my argument. In the letter from MAJ Garriott that followed the final draft of my second essay, she stated that there were three main issues that needed to be addressed in my essay, which were to clarify the purpose of laws to improve my logical reasoning, find more evidence to support my argument, and avoid fallacies (qtd. in “A Different Approach to Reducing Gun Violence” 4). Receiving specific feedback was only able to help me reflect on my writing and research style so that I could still see the room for improvement. However, overall my essay was much more developed and coherent, which resulted in greater success in class.

Throughout this class, unlike previous English classes in high school, I have been able to see my improvement first hand through peer-reviews of my essays, meetings with MAJ Garriott, and getting written feedback on the final drafts of my essays. In the beginning, the commentary on my work was often difficult for me to comprehend because my writing has not been evaluated to that capacity before. During my first meeting with MAJ Garriott, I found her critique of my essay to be much more helpful because I was able to talk about my perspective of the various components of my essay, then hear her interpretation and how the argument would affect the audience. By the second meeting, I felt much more confident discussing my paper and defending the content that I already had in the essay. If anything, this class has helped me to become more confident as a writer and to further enhance my skills in writing and rhetoric.

Works Cited

Garriott, Deidre. “The Lack of Movement in the Gun Control Movement.” ERH 102 Comments, VMI, 2017.

Garriott, Deidre. “A Different Approach to Reducing Gun Violence.” ERH 102 Comments, VMI, 2017.

Szczepanik, Brittany. “Peer Review 2.” ERH 102 Peer Review, VMI, 2017.

What are the problems with the thesis, both specifically and how it guides the paper broadly? – There are a few things wrong with this thesis. It is a reflective essay, so the thesis should talk about what you have learned through the course and how you became a better writer. However, this writer, despite his recognition of the fact that the thesis is not his forte, he simply states that he is not good at thesis statements. That is not a reflection, but instead just an observation. This makes it so that the rest of the essay will not have the necessary focus on the reflection.

Activity 2: Pretend that you are rating the paper. What rating would you give the paper and why? – This paper should be given a 3 because it is not very well organized, the points the writer tries to make are not in line with the purpose of the essay, and the writer doesn’t talk about any development or reflection of the material learned in class.

Why is this paper a 3? Do you agree with the ranking? Why or why not? – This prompt got a 3 because the whole time the writer is saying stuff like: “I didn’t know English 102 would be harder than English 101.” Instead of focusing on his development and the skills the writer has gathered over the semester, he writes about how he didn’t do well because he was surprised by the difficulty of the class. I do agree with the ranking, because he is too focused on how well he does in the class and he generalizes the things taught in the class. On another note, the writer states that he has never used the writing center to seek help, so he doesn’t really show any personal determination to improve his writing.

What does this sample essay tell us about the “problem of writing” and what the student has learned in this class? How does it interpret the prompt? – His problem of writing is just a general apathy toward writing essays. With just the block of the essay on the slide, the student has only learned that he needs to work harder to perform well in the class, which is an obvious observation. This portion of the essay leads me to believe that the essay will only talk about how the writer needed to put more effort into writing his papers, with no reflection on development.

What have you learned about writing your reflective essay from this lecture and the activities you completed? – The main thing that I learned is that in the essay, specifically the thesis, there needs to be actual discussion of how the class helped me to become another writer. This assignment also enlightened me on what not to do for my essay. For instance, I should not talk about the quality of my essays, but more specifically what I did throughout the course that wasn’t as good as it should have been, how I discovered the solution to my problem, and how I fixed it in the following paper and assignments.

Write a blog post that’s a journal entry. A journal entry is simply a reflection of your day or some time period to yourself. That’s it. Reflect on your writing this semester. What did you expect from ERH 102? What didn’t you expect? If your parents asked you about what you learned in ERH 102, what would you say? My writing has greatly improved since I first started ERH 102. Since I was in high school, my fundamental teaching of drafting an essay did not give me all the tools necessary to be competent in this class. However, the point of taking classes in college is to learn, so I was able to learn many skills in writing an essay that had never crossed my mind before.

Look over your papers, all of the drafts and revisions, the graded copies, and the final revisions. What do you remember struggling with as you wrote each draft? The issues I had with my drafts were developing a coherent thesis that accurately described what I intended to discuss, and I felt myself changing my thesis the more I wrote my essay because my opinion would change halfway through, which resulted in a confusing essay.

Look at the peer reviews and the feedback from your instructor. What did they have to say about your writing? The general sense of their advice was that my thesis did not connect with all aspects of the content of my paper, making the intent of the essay confusing. Also, as I did my research for my papers, I had a terrible habit of summarizing what I read instead of developing my argument and having it be complemented with just the right amount of outside sources.

Revise your thesis now that you’ve done your research. This class has developed me into a much better writer through teaching me how to better develop my thesis and how to make the argument my own before I do research.

Find pieces of evidence from each of these that supports your thesis. 1) At the conclusion of my first essay, MAJ Garriott asked, “So what’s the argument, after all this?.” This signifies that the whole essay was confusing in nature and my thesis was not concrete enough. 2) In the first body paragraph of my first essay, MAJ Garriott commented, “Also, by this point, you haven’t made any of your own arguments. You’ve been summarizing Sharmilla.” This comment highlights the weakness of my essays in that I am used to analyzing text and writing about it rather than having an argument already in place and simply putting it in to enhance my thesis and ethos. 3) In the peer review of my second essay, Cadet Szczepanik noted the issue with my thesis in the way that it connected with the rest of my essay: “Your thesis is pretty clear. The only thing I can think is that at first I questioned if you wanted to get rid of all gun regulation legislation or if you simply wanted to modify what is already there.” As I developed my essay, I came to the opinion that there should be national legislation and licensure of guns for the best possible solution to reducing gun control. However, I failed to return to my thesis to include my new ideas.

In the middle of the night, a 76-year-old man is awoken to a series of loud sounds in his home. The title of the article, “Police: Hampton man, 76, shoots intruder in the arm”, by Lauren King, a writer for The Virginian-Pilot, accurately summarizes the incident. The window in the back of the property was broken in. The homeowner quickly notifies the police, but the situation has not dissipated yet. Luckily, he retrieves his pistol in his home and, after the burglar is located, the elderly man shoots the intruder in the arm. After this confrontation, the criminal sprints wounded out of the home, only to be apprehended by the police who were not capable of arriving any sooner. However, the fortunate outcome for this homeowner does not reflect the fate of countless others who died as a result of having no means to protect themselves. Of course, every report of gun violence is unique. Also, the activity of simply keeping guns in the home invites calls for condemnation and monition from other concerned citizens. Having a weapon in the house may bring to mind scenarios of children finding them and unintentionally firing them, or of a distraught family member that is considering suicide and uses the gun as the device for self-termination. However, it is the responsibility of the gun owner to be well-educated on gun safety and to secure the weapons to prevent other family members from accessing them. Placing more emphasis on the current regulation on guns in the United States will not reduce the amount of gun violence in America because possessing and carrying guns will deter those who commit violent crimes with guns and because criminals will still be able to access guns while disregarding the potential restraints that would be placed on those who follow the law.

Simply having the knowledge that a certain house has firearms in it will often make a criminal think twice about invading the property. Having or carrying a gun can also serve as a deterrence to potential criminals. In doing so, the crime may never even happen. In Kennesaw, Georgia, a law passed in 1982 made it mandatory for every home in the city to possess at least one gun. The article, “Gun Ownership – It’s The Law in Kennesaw”, by Jonathan Hamilton and David Burch, gathers multiple reactions and the outcome of the law. Some, including councilman J.O. Stephenson, believed that the law, when first enacted, would cause even more violent crime in the city (Busch and Hamilton). However, even though the law did not have the original intent of deterring crime, many believe that it was because of this law that the total amount of crime, although not high to begin with, was reduced. As a result, the population grew from interest in this effective method of security. This outcome for Kennesaw shows that even if the citizens of the town never used their firearms in self-defense, it was likely that the knowledge of a gun being in every home in the town diffused several plans for crime.

Of course, this is not a foolproof plan to reduce gun violence because every city differs in location, size, concentration, and culture. It is not likely that there is any gang violence in Kennesaw like there is in a lot of major cities of the United States. However, it cannot be said that the current state and federal level gun control will undoubtedly succeed in all areas of the country either. James Wilson, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, made notice in his article, “Gun Control Isn’t the Answer”, that Many western European countries are placing blame on the United States and the National Rifle Association especially for the gun culture and gun violence around the world. However, Wilson states that, “In 2000, the rate at which people were robbed or assaulted was higher in England, Scotland, Finland, Poland, Denmark and Sweden than it was in the United States.” And today in 2017, Europe has not evolved into a world free of gun violence, either, as evident in the terrorist attack in France back in 2015 and many others that spread through Europe. So far, at least, it is quite easy to conclude that neither extremes to resolving gun violence will work at the national level.

Guns can also play an essential part in many people’s lives. A sense of security can be found in a plethora of different forms, but for the other men in my family, their comfort came with firearms. My grandfather carried a pistol with them wherever they went, and not too long ago did my father start to embrace this new lifestyle. James Wright, a writer for Society, discusses the various opinions of using guns for this purpose in his article, “Ten Essential Observations of Guns in America.” There is a popular argument that guns only provide a sense of security, but they are neither an efficient nor ethical way of providing such comfort. Wright notes that many different types of home defense and self-defense have become high on the consumer market, but there can be flaws to all of them, making crime just as possible (Wright, 65). The issue at hand, however, is whether or not guns actually protect the owners or if the mere possession of the firearm puts the person at ease. In response to these viewpoints, Wright states, “The only sensible response to the argument that guns provide only an illusion of security is, so what?” (Wright, 65). It should not matter if the weapon is actually effective at preventing crime against oneself or if it simply brings the owner solace; people should be able to find comfort in any way they deem fit. The federal government is taking the wrong path in generalizing the existence of the gun culture in America with the gun violence in the nation.

The amount of violence over-all in the United States is also not dependent on the number of guns and gun violence in the nation.  In his analysis of professor Zimring’s theory that strict gun control will reduce gun violence and therefore violence as a whole, Lance Stell wrote in an article in the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, that Zimring’s use of data that showed the undulating homicide rate from 1900 to 2001 does not correlate to the percentage of crimes involving guns. (Stell, 39-40). He notes that, according to the findings of the FBI, 70% of homicides involved guns over the course of the last century (Stell, 40). What this means is that although the homicide rate has fluctuated through the past century, the cause of more crime was not the increase in the number of guns in the nation, but other factors, such as the great depression and the cold war. However, the inference that more firearms in the United States brings about more violence is incorrect. Gun violence should not be dismissed for what it is, though, because roughly 70% of homicides still do involve handguns (Stell, 40), which were more often than not produced through illegal or private transactions.

Although the thought of making the process of accessing firearms more difficult by requiring lengthy and detailed background checks by limiting the type and cartridge size of the gun may seem like a beneficial step toward reducing gun violence in the nation, the only effect it will have is to lower the number of citizens who will use guns as a method for self-defense. Criminals will still have access to sellers in private auctions and they will not bother going through the extra steps to owning a gun like in some heavy gun control states like New York, Connecticut, and California. Gary Rosen, a writer for Commentary and a supporter of moderate gun control, wrote in his article, “Controlling Guns” concerning the inefficiency of current gun control laws at the state level when he stated that, “States like New York have been aggressive in regulating guns within their own borders, yet can only watch helplessly as 67 percent of guns used in crime come from out of state” (Rosen). As seen very clearly in America’s history, just because something is illegal or heavily regulated does not mean that everyone will unconditionally obey the law. Drugs, prostitution, larceny, and homicide are all well-known for being illegal in the United States, yet they continue to plague our nation every day of every year. Alcohol, made illegal with the 18^th Amendment, not only didn’t stop people from drinking and selling alcohol, but also increased the amount of crime in America and even inspired the creation of the phenomenon known today as NASCAR. And of course, the 21^st Amendment countered the inadequate solution to the issue, because making something illegal, like the possession of fully automatic weapons, larceny, and homicide, does not prevent these crimes from happening in the country. However, simply encouraging everyone to purchase firearms for self-defense will not always produce the results that we so desperately desire. Instead, the process of licensing and registration should be enforced nationally (Rosen), because it does not turn many people away from the idea of owning guns, it does not limit the selection of guns, it makes it easier for law enforcement to confiscate unregistered weapons that could have been used in criminal activity, and it enforces more responsibility with these weapons.

It is true that gun violence has been an ever-present issue in the United States for quite a long time. For some, gun ownership may be a possible solution as a means of self-defense, but this will not bring comfort to everyone. For legislators who support gun control, the method of using copious amounts of tax money to perform background checks on gun buyers to prevent criminals or mentally unstable individuals who will find access to guns anyway will only deter those who follow the law from having a means of protecting themselves. It is very evident that current gun control efforts have not made strides to reduce gun violence, and neither has the activity of simply ignoring its existence. Instead of falsely targeting criminals with gun control laws by penalizing all potential gun owners, the federal government should instead institute a policy of mandatory registration of firearms and licensure of gun owners, activities that several gun owners do already. Through this moderate approach of spreading mandatory prerequisite knowledge of gun safety, the United States will see an actual reduction in gun violence.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Burch, David, and Jonathan Hamilton. “Gun Ownership – It’s The Law in Kennesaw.” Gun Ownership – It’s The Law in Kennesaw. Marietta Daily Journal, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

King, Lauren. “Police: Hampton Man, 76, Shoots Intruder in the Arm.” Virginian-Pilot. N.p., 10 Dec. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

Rosen, Gary. “Controversy – Controlling Guns.” Commentary. 110.5 (2000): 18. Print.

Stell, Lance K. “The Production of Criminal Violence in America: Is Strict Gun Control the Solution.” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. 32.1 (2004). Print.

Wilson, James Q. “Gun Control Isn’t the Answer.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 20 Apr. 2007. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

Wright, James D. “Ten Essential Observations on Guns in America.” Society. 32.3 (1995): 63-68. Print.

 

Help Received: mandatory conference