In order to capture the attention of his audience, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders over-exaggerates his arguments and makes his opponents look bad. In one particular response to a question about his contradictory beliefs on gun control, Sanders used the logical fallacy, Straw Man. This logical fallacy misrepresents the position on a situation. After being asked about gun control, Sanders says, ¨When you have gun shops knowingly giving guns to criminals, or aiding and embedding that, of course we should take action¨. Instead of taking the approach that guns should be banned simply because of the danger that can be caused if the wrong person gets hold of one, Sanders decided to make a statement about how people who sell guns are completely aware of the fact that they are selling them to criminals.
While there may be cases in which stores with weapons sell their products to known violent people, Sanders has no evidence that this is a constant problem. He makes a claim about people in order to make himself seem like the only viable option for bettering this nation. This logical fallacy is effective for Sanders in the sense that he is able to make eliminating gun availability appear to be by far the safest option. For those who sell guns or are more familiar with data on the difficulty in purchasing a gun, however, Sanders would come off as being ignorant.
I like the picture Jackie! He does seem to use some logos here which further adds to his argument; he's saying, "wouldn't any sane person take action in this situation?" This fallacy was a good catch, many people would not recognize it as an unsound argument.
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