Rhetorical Response #4

I found the reading about the second amendment pretty boring compared to the other papers that we have read and wrote about. This kind of makes me nervous to write this paper because I hope I will be interested in what I am writing about. I personally never am around handguns and no one in my family owns a handgun, except my grandpa, so I do not connect that much with the second amendment. In the second reading, I found this, "no one in the district could posses a functional firearm in his or her residence" was really fair. This applied to everyone, no matter if they "honest, and responsible citizens" or not. What surprised me while reading the two excerpts is how close the 5-4 vote was and how people react to the second amendment. No one will ever agree on what they think the right to bear arms should entitle, therefore the vote probably will never be unanimous. It surprised me how much people and the government really are concerned about gun rights.

The first visual has a humorous spin. It seems like some people with guns do what they want, and then try and back it with the second amendment. I thought the second visual, was funny, but a bit dramatic. In the top right box, when the guy says "the erosion of freedom is not a pretty sight", I don't think not being able to own a weapon or have a loaded handgun in your house is even close to the 'erosion of freedom'. That is an extreme exaggeration. I think the second amendment is an important issue to try and clear up, but since people have their own arguments and will never agree, it is hard to completely solve the issue of the second amendment. I think it is important for the government to try and come to an agreement as to what the second amendment really applies to, but I also found it interesting that people are just now really concerned about what the second amendment is about.

After reading this I am a little nervous for this upcoming paper. It seems like it is going to be difficult and take a lot of time to write, to make it efficient and effective. Reading this helped me sort of figure out how to construct my paper. Both excerpts did a good job of not taking sides and used facts to develop the issue in a way that wasn't biased. I hope to make my paper a little bit more interesting than the excerpts I read from the common reading.