Article Critique: Goldberg’s analysis

Article Critique Your Name Subject and Section Professor’s Name April 24, 2019 Introduction The issue of whether firearms regulations should be more stringent or relaxed, in order to deter crime rates has been heavily debated in the United States for decades. On the one hand, some people believe that firearm regulations should be dealt with the utmost caution, in order to prevent crimes and accidents that are usually associated and perpetrated through the use of guns. On the other hand, some people believe that having more ‘highly trained’ people to carry firearms would be a good deterrent for those with evil intent would be fearful of committing crimes, knowing that they could perish in doing so. In line with this issue, this article was written by Goldberg (2018), entitled ‘I am A School Psychologist — And I Think Teachers Should Be Armed’ would be discussed. All in all, the author of this paper believes that while both sides have their valid points, Goldberg’s analysis has focused more on the use of rhetoric than the facts. Analysis First of all, the title of the article would show that the main contention of the author would revolve around his profession as a psychologist. While this might seem to be not a big deal, most people would prefer to those ‘professionals’ who have credibility, as compared to politicians or gun experts debating on both sides, since they think that fiduciary interests primarily drive the latter. Accordingly, by using this element of trust towards one’s character (and profession), the author was able to utilize a technique in persuasion known as ‘ethos’ or an appeal to character (LiteraryDevices.net, n.d.). In fact, the author would then focus on this aspect in the following sections of his article, as he discusses psychological concepts such as the relationship of firearm carriage, with incidences of PTSD and deterrence, among others. However, while his contentions are valid enough, a significant bulk of the author’s contentions were not based on concepts that are related to his field, such as security policies. This is not even mentioning the possibility that the author’s contention leans to the side of ‘relaxed gun policies,’ due to his circumstances as described early in the article. Another pitfall in the author’s article is the lack of analysis on both sides of the debate. For the most part, the article and the main arguments posed by the author revolved around the idea of “allowing professionals to carry concealed guns,” as compared to the reasons why they should not. The author only cited a counterargument to his contention, by citing how “accidenta...