"For Zac Guy, it all started with a gun," proclaims a looping article on the home page of the NRA's website, which features a smiling picture of entrepreneur Zac Guy and if you were to click on the picture would lead you to an article about how his great-great-great-grandfather's Winchester Model 1894 and his desire to keep such a precious family heirloom on displace inspired a chain of events that ultimately led him to where he is today, founder of 2 multi-million dollar companies, and family man. It is a very triumphant and human story about the quintessential American ideal - the American Dream - and it is through the use of these human stories that the NRA attempts to advocate Freedom and hence defend the 2nd Amendment.
This can be seen further in the NRA Life of Duty section of the website, focusing on those who serve and protect the American people, especially the military, with the headline video "To Be American" which features the Spooner brothers, a slick, well produced, human and deeply affecting affair, it attempts to remind the viewers of the freedoms they have, to bear arms, to found a company, to sit around in their pajama's if they wish, gained through the sacrifices of the military service men, in particular, to help cement the NRA's argument.
In the NRA Country section, it again features real human beings to support the NRA's argument, this time in the form of popular country artists such as Blake Shelton (also a judge on hit reality show The Voice), Trace Adkins, Justin Moore (as seen in the picture above) and Montgomery Gentry. By using American artist who will be familiar to the American public, especially in areas of greater gun use - so called Dixie, or red-neck - it helps to further increase awareness and support of their views "Respect. Honor. Freedom." as people often do listen to celebrities - why else would Obama have had Bruce Springsteen following him in the later stages of his campaign?
It is through the use of human's across the NRA's website to promote this idea of that the right to bear arms is inherently linked to freedom, and the high production values on the website, which makes it easy to navigate through the sight and find the arguments, that makes it so successful in providing an convincing argument.
Conversely the Violence Policy Center's website feels somewhat more amateurish in comparison, with it's cluttered, unstructured and down right illogical lay out, first impressions are negative to say the least. However once you get beyond this initial impression, the VPC website has some truly frightening stories to say the least - especially the article in the Huffington Post about how black women who are murdered by men most often are killed by guns, and by those they know as a result of an argument, which is a very chilling thought. Imagine if you're parents where having an argument and to settle it your Dad shot your Mom to death, the thought of should be enough to make anyone want to ban gun's.
The VPC's website also highlights an equally terrifying statistic that in the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia) in 2010 gun deaths have outpaced motor vehicle deaths, 1512 to 1280 respectively.
It also turns it's attention to the ever rising problem of gun trafficking from the States to Mexico, and the rest of the world, but particularly Mexico since the launch of Operation Michoacan by the police in December 2006, leading to the start of the so-called Mexican Drug War. According to statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of the 99,000 guns submitted for tracing between 2007 and 2011, 68,000 came from the US, a point highlighted on the "US. guns" video on the home page.
However while said video is thought provoking, it seems, much like the rest of the VPC's website, much more amateur when compared with the "To Be American" video on the NRA's website, especially with the stick cartoon figures of Mr. X and Mr. Y, instead of providing a concrete example of a real people actually caught trafficking guns, giving it the feel of being hypothetical and not truly real - something the whole website suffer's from, without human examples and the use of statistics it just all doesn't seem as real as the NRA's Zac Guy and Scot Spooner and Justin Moore and Trace Adkins and Blake Shelton, which is why I'd argue that the NRA's website is more convincing because it has real examples of it's arguments, that the right to bear arms is inherent to the American idea of freedom.
This can be seen further in the NRA Life of Duty section of the website, focusing on those who serve and protect the American people, especially the military, with the headline video "To Be American" which features the Spooner brothers, a slick, well produced, human and deeply affecting affair, it attempts to remind the viewers of the freedoms they have, to bear arms, to found a company, to sit around in their pajama's if they wish, gained through the sacrifices of the military service men, in particular, to help cement the NRA's argument.
In the NRA Country section, it again features real human beings to support the NRA's argument, this time in the form of popular country artists such as Blake Shelton (also a judge on hit reality show The Voice), Trace Adkins, Justin Moore (as seen in the picture above) and Montgomery Gentry. By using American artist who will be familiar to the American public, especially in areas of greater gun use - so called Dixie, or red-neck - it helps to further increase awareness and support of their views "Respect. Honor. Freedom." as people often do listen to celebrities - why else would Obama have had Bruce Springsteen following him in the later stages of his campaign?
It is through the use of human's across the NRA's website to promote this idea of that the right to bear arms is inherently linked to freedom, and the high production values on the website, which makes it easy to navigate through the sight and find the arguments, that makes it so successful in providing an convincing argument.
Conversely the Violence Policy Center's website feels somewhat more amateurish in comparison, with it's cluttered, unstructured and down right illogical lay out, first impressions are negative to say the least. However once you get beyond this initial impression, the VPC website has some truly frightening stories to say the least - especially the article in the Huffington Post about how black women who are murdered by men most often are killed by guns, and by those they know as a result of an argument, which is a very chilling thought. Imagine if you're parents where having an argument and to settle it your Dad shot your Mom to death, the thought of should be enough to make anyone want to ban gun's.
The VPC's website also highlights an equally terrifying statistic that in the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia) in 2010 gun deaths have outpaced motor vehicle deaths, 1512 to 1280 respectively.
It also turns it's attention to the ever rising problem of gun trafficking from the States to Mexico, and the rest of the world, but particularly Mexico since the launch of Operation Michoacan by the police in December 2006, leading to the start of the so-called Mexican Drug War. According to statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of the 99,000 guns submitted for tracing between 2007 and 2011, 68,000 came from the US, a point highlighted on the "US. guns" video on the home page.
However while said video is thought provoking, it seems, much like the rest of the VPC's website, much more amateur when compared with the "To Be American" video on the NRA's website, especially with the stick cartoon figures of Mr. X and Mr. Y, instead of providing a concrete example of a real people actually caught trafficking guns, giving it the feel of being hypothetical and not truly real - something the whole website suffer's from, without human examples and the use of statistics it just all doesn't seem as real as the NRA's Zac Guy and Scot Spooner and Justin Moore and Trace Adkins and Blake Shelton, which is why I'd argue that the NRA's website is more convincing because it has real examples of it's arguments, that the right to bear arms is inherent to the American idea of freedom.
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