Gun Control
Gun control is the idea that guns and gun related sales should be regulated by the government
Dear Future President of the United States,
I would like to address to you a problem on many Americans minds involving gun control. I remember the time and place I was at when I heard about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. It upset me for days and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Our government did absolutely nothing after that. Over the course of time, more shootings started showing up on the news. One in a naval shipyard and other in schools across the country. I used to be thoroughly upset for days about the most recent shooting, but now when I hear about one, I think “Another mass shooting. Why doesn’t someone do something?” It is as if mass shootings are a norm in America, which is such a hard fact to accept. Politicians say that gun control does not and will not work. Citizens claim “Obama is taking away their guns” and that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and mostly logically flawed, “A good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun.” Obama is not going to come into your house, steal your guns and walk away and you have to deal with it. That infringes on 2 amendments. And the idea that guns don’t kill people is completely and utterly inaccurate. What if there is 2 bad guys with guns and one good guy? And that good guy doesn’t have firearms training? The anti-regulation argument is 100% flawed and false.
Look at the statistics. In Japan, 1/175 people own a gun, compared to in the US, one in three. That means between you and the people that live to the left and right of you, one of them has a gun in their house. Japan also undergoes rigorous background checks to check for mental health problems and a criminal record. You must also take an all day training course before purchasing your weapon and retake that course every three years. These drastic measures have worked very well, because Japan has one of the lowest murder rates in the world. Fewer than one person is murdered for every 100,000 people in Japan (Business Insider).
Australia has even stricter gun control laws. Semi automatic and assault weapons were banned in 1996 following a mass shooting. Two decades later, they have had zero mass shootings. The correlation is clear. Guns kill people because anyone, no matter what, can buy a gun, even if they don’t know how to use it properly. A bill was proposed to prevent people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing any firearms. This bill, with a Republican majority, was blocked. US politicians hate terrorists and want to keep the country safe, but we will let suspected terrorists buy weapons?
When you become president, a law must be proposed in the House to mandate background checks for mental health and a criminal record, ban assault weapons, have a gun licence, take a training course once a year, offer a buyback program for people that do not want their guns, and ban high capacity magazines. These precautions would do a few things. One, the criminal and mental health would make sure that people who have committed a crime and/or have mental health problems do not get their hands on a gun. Second, an assault weapons ban would make sure that people do not have better weapons than the police, and the police have the best of the best to protect us. The training course would ensure that people that wish to purchase a gun know how to properly use a gun safely. The buyback program would offer the ability for people who want to get rid of their guns can in exchange for money. Lastly, the high capacity magazines ban would reduce the amount of ammunition a shooter can have, reducing the chance of someone getting shot. So on the behalf of many Americans, I ask for your help in pursuing a better, safer future for tomorrow.
Sincerely, Shawn S
Sources are below
(http://www.businessinsider.com/why-japans-murder-rate-is-so-low-2014-4)