Intention

Here, we will discuss Barack Obama’s intention with his remarks on reducing gun violence delivered on 8th of April, 2013.

Barack Obama’s main intentions are to highlight the impact of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and to convince the American people to pressure Congress to pass his executive actions regarding gun control regulations. These differ from “executive orders”, which are legally binding, because executive actions are simply proposals that the President can encourage Congress to pass int…

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Impact of the Sandy Hook shooting

Part of Obama’s speech is connected to his intention of presenting the impact of the Sandy Hook incident on people around the nation. It would be a good idea to consider Obama’s word choice here; for instance, the repetition of the word “we” suggests that the event has…

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Gun control regulations

Obama’s intention is also to show the American people the importance and common sense of gun control regulations being passed by the Congress. For this, Obama makes use of several rhetorical devices, such as anaphora and epiphora, and uses rhetorical questions and logic to convince his audience of the importance of his proposals:

We have to tell Congress it’s time to require a background check (…) We have to tell Congress it’s time to crack down on gun trafficking (…) We have to tell Congress it’s time to restore the ban on military-style assault weapons …