The movement for gun control has gained momentum during recent years, as the increase of mass shootings has devastated the nation. In response to the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, students organized the March for Our Lives protest to show widespread support for gun control legislation, and other protests supporting the cause occurred around the country.

For this blog post, I am going to take a closer look at the sign shown above from the March for Our Lives. The sign describes the most terrifying text a parent can receive after sending their kids to school, which is supposed to be a safe environment to learn. It creates a direct response to the rhetorical situation of the time since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting occurred a month before the protest, and many students began speaking out about furthering gun control to prevent such incidents.

The poster uses a combination of appeals to fear and logic to effectively get its message across. Its central message is introduced to its audience through the purple quote. The phrase makes viewers first question the poster’s response to the rhetorical situation since the phrase “I love you” and gun control do not seem to be directly connected to each other. When viewers take the entirety of the poster’s text into account, however, the solemnity and significance of the topic and message can be immediately recognized. It appeals to people’s fears of receiving and sending that terrifying text during school shootings and causes its audience to agree that further restrictions on gun rights as the most logical solution to the issue, effectively conveying the movement’s message.

The poster’s appeals to logic and fear enable it to effectively convey its message, and the fact that a younger student acts as the message’s speaker helps further invoke these appeals. The message responds to the rhetorical situation of the epidemic of gun violence, and the student acting as the speaker makes its audience recognize that they, as students, could be affected, or they, as parents, could have kids who are affected by gun violence. Although the message is extremely impactful by itself, the combination of the message, rhetorical situation, and speaker truly enables the poster to have the most impact on its audience and support the movement’s cause.