The organization I’ve chosen to discuss for this post is the NRA. In the light of many recent school shootings, the NRA has taken measures which I am not in full support of. In taking a look at their website, I was able to analyze some of the logical appeals that they use in order to coerce donations from various different populations.

One of the most prominent appeals that the site uses are references to constitutional rights. Throughout the site, appeals to “your rights as an American” are sprinkled everywhere. A lot of the logical appeals can also be found in the politics, policy, and legislation section, in which the NRA details the policy-based solutions they see fit for gun control. A lot of the logic here is also rooted in granting the American people what they interpret the 2nd Amendment to give them. Primarily, the NRA feels that Americans have the right to protect themselves with arms, and thus should not have those rights taken away from the government. When reaching the actual portions of the website that ask for donations, the site does its best to suggest that each small amount of money goes towards maintaining that constitutional right among all citizens.

There aren’t many pieces of evidence offered on the site, instead using pathos-based appeals to advance their case. A large part of the website’s convincing strategies include references to American pride and patriotism, placing love for America’s founding values over everything else. I noticed a lot of logical fallacies with little actual argumentative strategies put in place to convince visitors of the site. The NRA feels that its target audience is most likely people who will never change their mind about pro-gun laws. As a result, their approach is tailored towards ensuring that those people simply continue donating to their cause at a similar or greater amount as they were before.

The actual website has a lot of visual appeals and is well designed. This lends me to believe that the NRA is looking to target both visual and emotional cues of their users. In doing so, they hope to produce a professional-looking website, maximizing profits from donations. Through the deep organization of the website and proper placement of items on webpages, the NRA website attempts to place the most important and emotional statements of the website at the forefront, leaving the less prominent logical appeals for body text.