Boom Boom Pow

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Boom Boom Pow The timeless debate over handgun ownership always sparks strong opinions and ideals. Author Molly Ivins who wrote “Get A Knife, Get A Dog, But Get Rid of Guns,” can be noted as a sarcastic, witty writer speaking against the usage of handguns. “Gun Crazy” by Dorothy Allison can be described as passage for the usage and the ownership of the handguns. In Molly Ivins’ passage “Get A Knife, Get A Dog, But Get Rid of Guns,” she uses mostly sarcasm to swat the reader against handgun ownership. By comparing the more usefulness a knife has than a gun, sarcasm irradiates when she writes “a general substitution of knives would promote physical fitness” (line 5). The hyperbole used shows that a knife creates physical activity whereas a gun might diffuse the common man from a life of physical fitness; furthermore, the hyperbole shows the passion Ivins has against handgun ownership. When Ivins uses the rhetorical question “how do they know [that owning guns] was the dearest wish of Thomas Jefferson’s heart that the teenage drug dealers should cruise the cities of the nation perforating their fellow citizens with assault riffles,” yet again she expresses her witty style against handgun ownership (16- 18). The exaggeration expressed by Ivins “dearest with of Thomas Jefferson” expresses her passion completely against the ownership of a gun. A tone shift occurs from sarcasm to passionate occurs when Ivins states “a gun is literally the power to kill” (50). Her dearest opinion against guns is the inevitability of death that follows those who have the intention of owning a gun. By stating in the end of her passage, “you want protection? Get a dog,” Ivins switches back to a sarcastic tone mocking the argument of ‘safety’ a gun gives (58). The power a gun posses is a crucial argument in Dorothy Allison’s pro- gun ownership passage “Gun Crazy.” Allison
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