“Where were you shot?”: analyzing location rhetoric as strategic maneuvering in contemporary gun-control discourse

Abstract

This essay analyzes contemporary American gun rhetoric with particular attention to location. Funded by a pragma-dialectic perspective, I examine conservative and progressive attempts to situate the national discussion about firearms and gun control legislation in urban locations (especially Chicago) and in suburbs (especially schoolhouses), respectively. I demonstrate that these location rhetorics function as strategic maneuvering, enabling both sets of discussants to move the conversation to issue sets that favor them and make their policy preferences seem more reasonable, even as they often prevent the public from responding to the bulk of actual gun violence. To begin, I develop a perspective on public argument based on pragma-dialectic argumentation theory. Next, I attend to conservative rhetoric that publicizes gun violence in large urban population centers, especially Chicago. Then, I turn to liberal gun rhetoric that centers attention on leafy suburbs where mass shootings often occur. In the final portion of this paper, I argue that both strategies disadvantage the public and forestall meaningful improvement on this important issue.