1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington DC, 20500

Dear Future President,

I am writing to you today to express an important issue that affects everyone in the United States. The issue is gun violence, the topic of gun violence is important because as a United States Citizen, the Constitution allows us the right to bear arms. Therefore the restrictions on how the government should regulate gun sale and distribution is very controversial. I believe that the government needs to take action and improve laws in order to protect United States citizens. A few reasons why the laws currently in place are not efficient include, the U.S. has the largest amount of deaths involving gun related issues, our accessibility to guns is easier than any other country, and the United States has the most homicides due to guns in the world.

In the United States, guns cause a vast majority of annual deaths. According to Vox, from 2000 to 2013 the U.S. had around 400,000 gun related deaths. That is more than the amount of deaths from AIDS, drugs, wars, and terrorism combined. This statistic reflects on how the number of deaths due to gun related issues is far greater than the number of deaths from other matters. This further proves how the current gun laws in place are not decreasing the amount of deaths.

Another problem with guns in the U.S. is how available they are to the public. In other countries like Norway, Australia, Ireland, Canada, and Germany, there is a considerable amount of stipulations to obtain a gun legally. In these countries people are required to have a license, registration, a reason for purchase, safety training, and safe storage. Compared to the United States where we are given the right as U.S. citizens to possess guns according to the 2nd Amendment. The above countries and many others have lower gun death rates, therefore the U.S. should accommodate to these laws.

Additionally, the United States has the most amount of homicides than any other country in the world. Relating to the previous countries, the U.S. has about six times the homicide rate from guns as Canada and sixteen times as Germany. Considering that those countries and many others have different laws and regulations, their system works unlike ours in the U.S. and their statistics on homicide due to guns proves that. Thus, adapting our laws to make them a line with other countries would greatly decline the number of gun homicides.

The U.S. is known as the land of the free because we have freedoms and rights such as the 2nd Amendment, protecting us unlike other countries. However, having these laws is the reason why the U.S has the utmost gun related deaths, our accessibility to guns is so evident, and we have the highest homicide rates among any other country. We need to work to develop better laws that are applicable nationwide to improve our safety and reduce the amount of deaths due to gun violence.

Sincerely,

Abby, Minnesota