Dear future president,

The gun violence in the United States over the past few years has become a major issue. 32,964 people including accidental murder or suicide, die by gun violence every year. In the newspaper and on the news you can always see a new story about a shooting but most stories people just brush off and go on with their lives. No one stops to think that someone just lost a child, a brother, a sister, a grandchild, a mother or a father.

If you add up all gun related deaths in America since 1968 the total comes to more than all the battlefield deaths of all american wars combined. We need stricter laws regarding guns, and gun safety. “The Chicago Police Department announced earlier this month that it confiscated 6,521 illegal guns in 2015, which it said works out to one gun every 90 minutes.” From the washington post. Another quote from the washington post “22 percent of Americans professed to own guns — and 25 percent of those gun owners own five or more guns.” There a lot of talk about gun control and yet not much has been done. In fact our efforts end up going in the opposite direction, “Federal legislation passed in 1997 stated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” The vague nature of this law, and its 2011 extension to the National Institutes of Health, has effectively prevented federal funding for firearms-related research.” This quote comes from The children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

We also need action on how to keep guns away from small children, “Kids younger than three have gotten ahold of guns and shot someone at least 59 times this year.” Young children don’t know the damage guns can cause but they do like to look at people's things and play with them, this would be fine if people kept their guns locked and safe but, “one study showed that 85% of parents who owned guns did not practice safe gun storage.” said very well.com, because of this fact “At least 265 children under the age of 18 picked up a firearm and accidentally shot themselves or someone else with it in 2015, according to numbers compiled by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.” says the washington post. There are more safety precautions on detergent than guns to keep children safe.

It makes sense that the resources we have for gun violence should go to protecting children from gun violence “75 percent of children killed with guns this year have been under the age of 12.” says the trace. “In 2013, 1,670 children (age 0 to 18 years) died by gunshot and an additional 9,718 were injured.” says The children's Hospital of Philadelphia. It is important that we help protect young people from being killed by gun violence for children determine the future.

Almost everyone has been touched by gun violence in one way or another. It is important to help stop gun violence by creating laws to restrict buying, selling guns, and gun control around children. 32,964 families lose a loved one every because of gun violence, one day the death of someone's loved one won’t be important anymore.

Sincerely,

Keegan