To persuade his audience, Michael Moore used rhetoric strategies to show the audience how dangerous guns are. The main techniques that Moore used included pathos, ethos, and logos. By the use of these three rhetoric strategies, his argument against guns became stronger and more persuasive.
Pathos is a rhetoric technique used throughout the entire video. This is the emotion based argument. Moore travels to Columbine to show the audience the pain and suffering the town went through after the shooting. He also brought in two victims from the shooting, which touched the audience's hearts even more. This was a strength because by getting the audience emotionally connected, they are more likely to be persuaded that direction.
Along with emotion comes ethos. Ethos is the argument of values. Throughout this video, gun laws were the main topic. Moore discussed with a variety of people about their views on guns and how safety regarding guns should be handled. This topic comes with infinite answers because every person has different morals and values. To be persuaded by Moore, one's values of guns must match Moore's. This is a strength, but could be considered a weakness, depending on the audience.
Logos uses facts as an argument and was the strongest strategy Moore used. Straight facts are hard to argue with. There is no way around the facts of the number of people killed by a gun a year in America. Moore discussed shootings that occurred and showed people the hard facts about America and how violent we are compared to the rest of the world. Hopefully this became a reality check for the United States.
