Storytelling Critique: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is a nonprofit organization advocating against gun violence. On this organization’s website, there is an entire section filled with numerous stories covering victims to gun violence. Through appeals to emotion, this campaign uses these tragic stories to turn complex issues into situations that people all over the globe can resonate with. The story I'm analyzing centers around Daniel Mauser, who at 15-years-old, was killed in the infamous Columbine High School shooting.

This story has both a video and a short article. In the video, Daniel's story is told from the perspective of his father, Tom. Understandably so, Tom was emotional throughout the whole video, speaking about Daniel’s upbringing and who he was as a person. From being shy, to being in the Boy Scouts, to joining the school’s debate team, Daniel was a typical high school student. His story was relatable to anyone who came across his video or article. Daniel is talked about in a positive light, and is painted as the victim of unnecessary gun violence. Sadly, the shooters, who killed a total of 13 students, were able to purchase their weapons through a loophole in the law. The Brady Bill, which helps fight these loopholes, is mentioned at the end of the video. Also near the end of the video, statistics, such as “2.1 million gun sales have been blocked since the bill’s inception” are highlighted to prove how successful this bill has been. Then Tom, who was acting in an active manner, uses a “story of now” sense of urgency to get the viewer to take action as soon as possible. The viewer is directed to go to the campaign’s website and sign the petition, and at the top of the webpage, there are “donate,” “take action,” and “ways to give” buttons. 

One major moral foundational value that was used in Daniel’s story was care/harm. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence features Daniel’s story to show that the issue of gun control is a life or death matter. According to this campaign, in order to care for our community and prevent harm, we must sign the petition on their website or provide a donation. This story also touches upon fairness/cheating when it comes to the law. The shooters at Columbine cheated the system in order to acquire weapons, and the Brady Campaign set out to make sure that wouldn’t happen again. Although gun control is a polarizing issue, both of these values appeal to all political parties, and therefore are great forms of persuasion to use.

The Brady Campaign has numerous stories it uses in order to get its message across in an emotional appeal. These stories are integrated effectively with the rest of the campaign because the main objective of this story is to mobilize supporters, getting them to help out the Brady Campaign by signing a petition, donating, etc. Daniel's story is just one tool out of the many the Brady Campaign uses in order to make a difference. Some other tactics this campaign uses deal with logos, like using statistics or analyzing current lax legislation to get their point across. By featuring victim stories on their website, the Brady Campaign is making sure these innocent lives did not die in vain.