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...