Just Take Away Their Guns By James Wilson Analysis

Dorian M. Allen
Professor Neville Wilson
Eng 1102
10 February 2015
A Take on Wilson’s View
James Q. Wilson’s “Just Take Away Their Guns”, is a short essay asserting that, in order to help prevent violence and crime due to guns, the federal government is lobbying to make tougher gun control legislation - thinking it will work, and the public which supports more gun control laws, believes that they would not work (para. 1). Wilson sides with the public, arguing that stricter gun control legislation is not the answer, but rather, believes “it should be to reduce the number of people who carry guns unlawfully” (para. 4). The essay is impressive but not conclusive for its view on gun control.
When Wilson originally wrote this essay, it was for
He then goes on to say, “Most of the handguns, are stolen, borrowed, or obtained through private purchases that wouldn’t be affected by gun laws” (para. 2). Wilson does do a good job in convincing me that a relatively low percentage of handguns used for criminal use, procured through legal means, would be affected should gun legislation get stricter. While he did give us a total figure of the amount of guns in private use, he used the terms “one-third”,“2 percent” and “one-sixth” for the rest of his figures, in particular when referring to illegal handguns and those used for criminal usage this seems to be an attempt at obscurity and it insults the reader by denying him or her the statistical figures, if there are any. “Where did he get these estimates from in the first place?” In his last sentence of paragraph 2, he mentions, “obtained through private purchases that wouldn’t be affected by laws”, but if he is in fact referring to purchasing guns on the black market, then perhaps stricter gun legislation or rather law enforcement to that matter can help prevent guns getting sold by those means in the first
5) in his case of encouraging police to make more street frisks. He comes up with a reasonable solution implying having officers “trained to recognize the kinds of actions that the Court will accept as providing the reasonable suspicion necessary for a stop and frisk” (para. 9). Wilson then suggests “that membership in a gang known for assaults and drug dealing could be made the basis, by statute or Court precedent, for gun frisks” (para. 9). While I commend him on bringing up the People’s rights, by citing the Constitution against his own argument, he failed to use it on his own behalf with the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” (Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America), and with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and subsequent Supreme Court rulings, states were prohibited from making or enforcing laws that infringe on most of the rights set out in the Bill of Rights. It is because of these two amendments, that the federal government is having great difficulty changing gun laws. A simple argument or counter-argument is that it is unconstitutional in doing so, and doing so is to infringe on the people’s