Just_Say_No_to_Illegal_Guns

James Q Wilson‘s, "Just Take Away Their Guns," is not an effective argument for his target audience, by making many very valid points in his article, but contradicting many of them in the same paragraph. Wilson’s thesis statement in this article is: by making stricter gun laws for law abiding citizens, it is not going to ease the gun problem, but taking the guns away from the people that carry guns illegally will help with the problem. James Wilson makes a point that stricter gun laws will have little effect on illegal use of guns. Stricter gun control laws will only make it a harder for law abiding citizens to obtain guns. James Wilson states in his article that most guns used by criminals are not purchased at a gun shop. “Only about one-sixth of the handguns used by serious criminals are purchased from a gun shop or pawnshop” (124). Criminal's have other methods of obtaining guns, such as stolen or illegal purchase of a firearm. Stricter gun control laws will make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to purchase guns. James Wilson points out that it would be tough to remove all legally purchased guns from the streets and nearly impossible to confiscate illegally purchased guns. James Wilson also points our that the only way gun control laws would work is if they were somehow applied to the illegal gun market, which would be pretty much impossible to do. James Wilson makes a point in his argument that if the government tried to do it, it would be expensive and criminals would find ways to get around the laws. Therefore James Wilson makes another point that, since we cannot get rid off all of the criminals, we should go ahead and let the law abiding citizens purchase guns, without all of the hassle caused by gun control laws. James Wilson makes another point that many thieves would be scared away if a home owner displayed a gun. Also if criminals are aware that a possible victims are protecting themselves with a gun, maybe it will deter criminals from attacking them. James Wilson states that law abiding citizens purchasing a gun, may scare a criminal off. “People who report to the National Crime Survey that they defended themselves with a weapon were less likely to lose property in a robbery or be injured in an assault than those who did not defend themselves“ (124). James Wilson also makes another point gun control advocates believe that gun owners are most likely to injure themselves or a loved, then they would a criminal. James Wilson also stated statistics that contradicted the statement of the advocates that say "the cost of self-defense is self-injury" (124). James Wilson also states “fewer than 2 percent of the gun fatalities was the victim someone mistaken for an intruder” (124). James Wilson also notes in his article that most of the accidents that happen do not involve handguns, but more in the line of riffles. James Wilson also says that the NRA (The National Rifle Association) is calling for harsher sentences of criminals who use guns to commit their crimes. As James Wilson states in his article, many prosecutors are bargaining away the gun offences. With that being said, James Wilson thinks that the "tougher the prospective sentence the less likely it is to be imposed, or at least imposed swiftly" (124). James Wilson agrees that their needs to be a change in the courts. James Wilson thinks that instead of stricter gun control laws, the government should use alternate methods that should decrease the number of guns that people are carrying illegally. James Wilson suggests that police be allowed to perform reasonable suspicion tests. Reasonable suspicion tests can make it easier to seize illegally carried guns. If an officer has "reasonable-suspicion" that a suspect has an illegal gun in their possession, the officer can pat the suspects clothing down. If, a illegal gun is revealed, the officer can remove it. James Wilson believes that as officers use reasonable-suspicion more often, they become more familiar with the actions the Court will accept. But the problem with his argument is that police are not arresting that many people that are caring the illegal gun. “Mark Moore, a professor of public policy at Harvard, University, found that most weapons arrests were made because a citizens complained, not because the police were out looking for guns” (124). The reason being that a good number cops worry about their case being thrown out of court. James Wilson goes on to say that police can have available a list of people that would be good candidates, for example people on parole, for carrying a illegal gun, and they could be awarded for getting that gun off the street. Modern science is another method that society can employ to reduce the number of illegal guns on the streets. “Metal detectors at airports have reduced the number of airplane bombings to nearly zero” (124). James Wilson makes a point that the down side to that equipments is “these detectors only work at a very close range” (124). James Wilson says that what we need is a gun detector that could detect at 10 to 15 feet, it would enable police to detect the presence of a "large lump of metal" (124) in a suspect's pocket. This would enable the officer to perform a reasonable-suspicion frisk at ease. James Wilson states that even if we did everything that was mentioned in the article “Just Take Their Guns”, things would not be solved. Because their would be people that would still be singled out just because of their race or gender. At the end of James Wilson’s article he again says that “we must illegal guns off the streets” (124), and we cannot do that by making the gun laws stricter. Work Cited Barnett, Sylvan. “Just Take Away Their Guns.” Current Issues and Enduring Questions ninth Edition (2008): 124