[Last Name] 1

Bella Cugini

Eng. 111-814HY

9/26/18

Knives, Guns, and Dogs

The article “Get a Knife, Get A Dog, but Get Rid of Guns” is based upon Ethos while

lacking the structural- supportive evidence needed to pull of such a controversial debate. Ivins

tend tendency to provide new points before backing up the previous points contributed to the

issue. Mrs. Ivins used pathos and ethos to portray her message to the readers while hardly using

logos.

In the introduction the author states “A general substitution of knives for guns would

promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't

ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.”(Ivins) A general

assumption that replacing one weapon for another weapon would promote an increase in

physical fitness is a hoax without including evidence and a knife can ricochet if thrown. The

usage of logos would have helped Ivin strengthen her opinion.

“Obviously, this society is full of people who haven't got enough common sense to use an

automobile properly. But we haven't outlawed cars yet. We do, however, license them and their

owners, restrict their use to presumably sane and sober adults and keep track of who sells them to

whom. At a minimum, we should do the same with guns.”(Ivins) is included about halfway

through the article and again is not efficient enough to be considered as supportual evidence.

There are several types of permits one can obtain to have and carry a gun. There are regulations

for weapons set in place and not anyone and everyone can buy and own a gun. At the age of 16 a

person can take a hunter safety class and obtain a license to hunt with adult present at all times.
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Depending on the state of residency one has to be 18 years old to purchase a rifle while 21 years

old to purchase a pistol."

“Fourteen-year-old boys are not part of a well-regulated militia. Members of wacky

religious cults are not part of a well-regulated militia. Permitting unregulated citizens to have

guns is destroying the security of this free state.”(ivins) is as well void because historically

speaking 14-year olds were in fact a part of our well-regulated militia when the constitution was

written. Also, the authors stating that members of wacky religious cults don’t count, and they

shouldn’t be permitted weapons which may or may not be true, but one cannot say that another

isn’t deserving because of the religion they choose to follow, it would be infringing our freedom

of religion which is also stated in the constitution along with the second amendment.

For these reasons, Mrs. Ivins was successful in representing ethos in her article but

wasn’t successful in portraying logos. Using more pathos and logos would help strengthening her

point. The usage of emotions gave the reader the author’s opinion but left the reader without any

hard evidence to help clarify anything that was controversial in the article.

Works Cited

Ivins, Molly. The Short Prose Reader - "Get a Knife, Get a Dog, But Get Rid of Guns". 10th ed.,

Mcgraw-Hill, 2003.