Mr. Cassidy your article in The New Yorker, “What If the Tsarnaevs Had Been the ‘Boston Shooters’?” is a melodramatic twist on a terrorist attack. Your ability to twist a preplanned terrorist attack into a situation to support your stance on gun control is sickening. No matter which weapon the Tsarnaev brothers would have used during their attack the situation would have still been considered a terrorist attack due to their extremist Islamic beliefs (Cooper, Schmidt, and Schmidt, 2013)
Mr. Cassidy it is obvious from reading your article that you have a bias and have an interest in increasing gun control. The statements you make are clear use of rhetorical analogy. An example of your use of this is, “Imagine, for a moment, that the Tsarnaev brothers, instead of packing a couple of pressure cookers loaded with nails and explosives into their backpacks a week ago Monday, had stuffed inside their coats two assault rifles—Bushmaster AR-15s, say, of the type that Adam Lanza used in Newtown”(Cassidy, 2013). A second example of your use of this tactic is, “As I pointed out the other day, numerically speaking, terrorism, especially homegrown terrorism, is a minor threat to public safety and public health. It pales in comparison to gun violence” (Cassidy, 2013). Your statements do not make equal comparisons. A terrorist attacks and gun violence can be completely different situations.
Mr. Cassidy you also sprinkled the scare tactic fallacy throughout your article. A good examples you used is as follows: “Well, for one thing, the brothers would probably have killed a lot more than three people at the marathon. AR-15s can fire up to forty-five rounds a minute, and at close range they can tear apart a human body” (Cassidy,2013). Mr. Cassidy bombs can tear a human body apart just as much if not more than an AR-15 can. If the Tsarnaev brothers had used different containers, different projectiles, or more powerful explosive this would have been a different story.
Mr. Cassidy I also noticed that you used downplay in your article. My example that you used in your article is, “If you systematically shoot a classroom full of defenseless six-year-olds and blow off your own head, things proceed rather differently.” Mr. Cassidy we all know that systematically shooting six year olds is just as wrong if not worse than setting off homemade bombs. The argument you attempt to make on that statement is wrong and plays on the emotion of your readers.
In closing Mr. Cassidy, your argument for stricter gun control is based on your personal bias. Your entire article is laced with fallacies that hinder your agreement for stricter gun control. I am disappointed that you would take a tragic terrorist attack and put your own spin on it to advance your stance on gun control.

References
Cassidy, J. (2013, April). What if the Tsarnaevs had been the “Boston Shooters”?. The New Yorker, (), . Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/rational-irrationality/what-if-the-tsarnaevs-had-been-the-boston-shooters
Cooper, M., Schmidt, M. S., & Schmidt, E. (2013, April). Boston suspects are seen as self-taught and fueled by web. The New York Times, (), . Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/us/boston-marathon-bombing-developments.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0