Close Readings: Wayne LaPierre urges gun owners to Stand and Fight

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 4 Comments
NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre, seconds before having his hand shot off

NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre, seconds before having his hand shot off

“After Hurricane Sandy,” Wayne LaPierre writes in an essay for the Daily Caller called Stand and Fight, “we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.” Ah, yes—the hellish world of a gun-free South Brooklyn. That’s just one of the nightmare scenarios the NRA spokesman invokes in his call to gun owners to Stand and Fight.

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NRA ad demands armed guards in schools

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 7 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miSjgv1MH7s

The title of this advertisement—Stand and Fight—really demonstrates how a gun can recontextualize things. Stand and fight… is a stirring phrase when it’s followed by for what’s right or against injustice or for your right to party. It works for pretty much anything except with guns. The National Rifle Association is not suggesting that people use rifles to stand and fight, of course. They despise violence—unless it is met with more effective violence, which is why they insist that the President stop being a hypocrite and put armed guards in schools.

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