Dear Future President,

    Imagine being held at gunpoint. It would be terrifying knowing that your life  lies in the hands of a crazy person with a gun pointed at you. I can't even begin to explain how terrified I would be. One pull of a trigger and your life could be over. This needs to end. So many people lose their lives over guns each year. Our gun control laws need to become more intense. We need intensive background checks, records of who has guns and who does not, non-residents of the U.S should not be able to carry guns or bring them into our country and we need stricter laws on carrying guns in public. The lack of intensive gun control is contributing to violent problems.

     People with registered guns aren't the ones causing the problems. The ones causing the problems are the ones who have illegal guns and cause many innocent people's deaths. They either buy guns illegally or they bring them into our country illegally. Something needs to be done about this. The ones who have registered guns had to work to get their guns. They had to get permits and pay a lot of money. They don't want to just throw that all away. In the article “Gun Control That Actually Works” it says “But Mr. Follower and the A.T.F agree that registrants are rarely implicated in crimes. People with registered weapons who can pay $40,000 for a machine gun “bend over backwards to obey the law” he says.” We have restrictions on guns, we have laws, we have protection so what's going wrong? It's not the people who have legal guns and legal registrations fault That we have problems with violence and guns. They have guns to hunt or to keep in their homes to protect their families. Even then they shouldn’t need to keep a weapon in their house. The only reason they do is these crazy people in our world break into houses while armed and steal things or kidnap people. People need to purchase guns with the right intentions. Our country shouldn’t have to deal with this problem anymore.

     Part of the problem is our gun control laws aren’t strong all throughout the U.S. Some states have better gun control laws than others. The states with more restrictions are having an easier time controlling this problem. In the article “Gun Control Groups Push Growing Evidence That Laws Lead to Less Violence” it says “The latest analysis comes out Wednesday from the center for American progress, a leading liberal group that supports toughened gun control. It concludes that gun fatalities in states with weaker laws are more than Three times as high as those in states with tougher restrictions, including background checks or permits.” This shows that some states are taking a stand. We need the whole country to take a stand. Data shows that states with weaker laws have higher gun fatalities. This should say something. Specifically that we NEED tougher gun restrictions. We want people to feel safe in America and to do that we need to eliminate violence as a whole.

    The U.S promote too much violence. A lot of our favorite shows and movies contain violent shooting scenes. Violence is an attention grabber and producers of entertainment use that as an advantage. What people don't realize is we see violence so much in our media that it becomes a norm. We are so used to it that we don't think about how awful it is as we’re watching it. In the article “Violence in the Media: What Effects on Behavior” it states “This year, the Media Violence Commission of the International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA) in its report on media violence said, “Over the past 50 years, a large number of studies conducted around the world have shown that watching violent television, watching violent films, or playing violent video games increases the likelihood for aggressive behavior.” These shows, video games, and movies are all promoting violence. Our society is so hooked on these glory filled things. Over the years it's all gotten worse, we have movies that are strictly based on violence like the purge. A movie where all crime is legal for 12 hours. This movie wasn't only promoting violence, it was promoting all crimes. I had a lot of experience with violence in the media for example the other day I went to the movies and saw “The Jack Reacher Never Go Back”. I have to admit I thought it was a pretty good movie, but it was filled with violence. It keeps the crowd engaged in the show. We need to try and limit the amount of violence, we incorporate in our media.

    You may be thinking why should I listen to this 15 year old's opinion on gun control. She's a sophomore in high school, what does she know that's so important. Even though I'm just 15 in 4 years when you're up for re-election I'll be able to vote and I'll vote for the candidate that supports my beliefs and what I think is important and as of now I find an important issue gun control. You may not need us teens votes now, but you'll need them later, so you should really take our opinions into consideration. So I think you as our new president needs to help our gun control laws. You should make them more intensive by limiting the amount of violence aloud in the media, put restrictions on who can carry guns and what kind of guns you can carry, Non-residents shouldn’t be able to carry guns or bring them into our country, We should have intensive background checks, and a list of people who have guns and who do not. Please take this into consideration. The lack of gun control is causing problems in our country.

Sincerely,

Chloe