Migasi 1

Matthew Migasi
Professor Jason Melton
English 5
15 March 2016
How to Appeal to the Masses
Peter Van Uhm, Chief of Defense for the Netherlands, is addressing his audience in
Amsterdam about the idea that a gun can be someone's instrument for keeping peace. Any topic
about guns is a sensitive topic and must be addressed in a way that Van Uhm has. The term
firearm is shown throughout different media outlets as a negative because of how they are
misused by civilians. There is little support for the use of firearms by the military in the news
because it is something that would not interest their target audience. The thought that guns are
right or wrong was never brought up and is important because he wanted to appeal to the whole
crowd instead of those who do favor one over the other. He uses his background, statistics, and a
family story to get his point across to the whole crowd in ways that everyone could understand.
Having a difficult topic to bring up to a crowd, such as the topic of guns, is a thing that
should not be taken lightly. In some speeches getting the crowd to laugh with the speaker is a
perfect way to show how they can trust the speaker because of the related sense of humor.
Serious topics on the other hand would fail from humor because it would ruin all credibility for
the speaker. Van Uhm immediately shows his credibility by showing up in his military uniform
and with that brings its own expectations from the crowd. Van Uhm knows that the crowd has
certain expectations from the military and as such forms his speech in a way that is professional
and straight to the point by giving his main ideas and supporting them without adding much
fluff. If he had taken a comedic approach to the situation the crowd may have taken his entire

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message as a joke which is the opposite effect he was aiming for, supporting the military and its
responsible use of a firearm. This relates to the appeal to ethics which establishes the
expectations for the rest of the speech which will work in the speakers favor by giving the
audience a reason to listen to them.
Once a writer or speaker in this case can show the audience why they can trust them they
can then move onto relating the audience back to the speaker. Since Van Uhm cannot use comedy
to connect to the audience emotionally in an effective way in his speech he creates alternate ways
to connect that are just as effective. In the intro to Van Uhms speech, he has a wounded veteran
hand him a gun which creates a wow factor as well as piquing the interest of the crowd. The gun
could have been introduced in any way but with the veteran it creates a sadness for the wounds
they have suffered as well as pride for their nation's war heroes. This creates a want to support
what the speaker is talking about because they start forming bonds with the speaker through
visual aids like this. Visual aids help bring together his entire speech by showing all of the main
points he wanted to cover as physical things. Having a random soldier on a slideshow provides
less of an impact then having the person be there because it makes the situation more real.
Another way Van Uhm makes connections with the crowd is through sharing a personal
story about his father. Van Uhm shares with the crowd that his father was in the army during
World War II and states that
He had a clear shot at the German soldiers who came to occupy a free country, his
country, our country. He fired. Nothing happened. He fired again. No German soldier fell
to the ground. My father had been given an old gun that could not even reach the opposite
riverbank.

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From this moment onward Van Uhm vowed to provide a working and functional gun to each of
his soldiers to protect their country. Sharing his personal story with complete strangers is another
way of gaining the trust as well as connecting with the audience. Van Uhm is able to make the
audience feel the woes of his father and make them feel as if they were part of his family. This
use of pathos or the appeal to emotion allows the audience to connect with the speaker and when
used along with ethos grabs the audience's full attention and gets them prepared for what the
speech is truly about. Van Uhm is able to do this by tying in his father's story which shows how
previous lack of support for the military has been detrimental, this gives the audience something
to think back to when he moves onto his main point of support for the military. The sad truth of
the matter is that if a speaker does not use ethos or pathos they will lose a majority of the
audiences attention before the end of the introduction.
Once a speaker has the undivided attention of the crowd they can then focus on the fact
that they will now need to say what they came to say. The speaker will need to back up any sort
of statement they make otherwise the audience may find or create flaws in their reasoning. Van
Uhm uses statistics as well as educated observations from other notable individuals to support
the fact that a gun in the right hands is a instrument of peace instead of war. Van Uhm also
includes the use of Harvard professor Steven Pinker by showing how he has concluded that
one of the main drivers behind less violent societies is the spread of the constitutional state and
the introduction, on a large scale, of the state monopoly on the legitimized use of violence. He
is able to backup every statement he makes which shows the listener what the main points of his
speech are as well as silently persuading the audience to think in the way he wants them to think.
This use of statistics is another point where he shows that the use of firearms by responsible

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militaries is a positive. This use of positivity gives the audience a different way of thinking of
firearms other than what they have seen through different media outlets.
Although Van Uhms speech only lasted seventeen minutes he has imprinted his speech
on each of the members of the audience's minds. He is able to use ethos, pathos, and logos
effectively by silently pushing them through instead of just dropping them in. The use of these
three appeals is necessary in his speech in order for the speaker to get the correct information and
ideas across to the audience. A solid set of visual aids, personal stories, and statistics is Van
Uhms way of providing these three ideals which worked for him by giving him credibility. This
also allowed him to connect to the audience and give them the information without pushing the
information on them. This is the easiest way of appealing to the masses.

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Work Cited
Van Uhm, Peter. Why I Chose a Gun Tedx. TedxAmsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
January 2012. Conference Presentation.