Dear Mr. / Mrs. Future President:

Every day, about 7 American children and teenagers are killed by guns. That means every day, 7 families are losing a family member because of gun violence in the United States. Because there is very little gun control in the United States, it is very easy for people to acquire a firearm in the US, and if they lack the responsibility to have said firearm, innocent lives may be lost as before mentioned. Therefore, I firmly believe, it is in your responsibility, as our next president of the United States of America, to do whatever it is in your power to limit gun violence in the United States; this may be accomplished by a process such as amending our constitution or adding new legislation to limit gun ownership in America.

Gun violence may occur from many different situations, such as self-defense or by simply an accident. However, because guns are so widely available to the general population, many kids and teenagers of our great nation have lost their lives. For instance, according to “Review: ‘Another Day in the Death of America,’ on Guns Killing Children” by Jennifer Senior, the passage depicts how several lives were lost due to guns, “In 2013, between the wee hours of Nov. 23 and the wee hours of Nov. 24, 10 American children and teenagers were killed by guns. The youngest, Jaiden Dixon, was 9, shot by the deranged father of his eldest brother. The oldest, Kenneth Mills-Tucker, was 19, shot in a car under circumstances that are still unclear.” During these 24 hours on November 23, 10 lives were lost, being greater than the national average; the victims during this day all had different circumstances as to why they grimly had to die but all had the similarity of being killed by guns. Moreover, the article goes on to describe the types of circumstances that the children and teens died under, “The 18-year-old Tyshon Anderson, shot in the head in a stairwell, had a reputation for terrible violence. The 16-year-old Samuel Brightmon, who took a random bullet as he was walking home with a classmate, was a fragile “homebody.” The 18-year-old Gary Anderson made the mistake of wearing a red hoodie — his killer was looking for another guy in a red hoodie…” All of these victims were killed by guns on the same day, but all were killed due to different situations;therefore, if guns, the weapon used to kill of them, were removed from these scenarios, none of these kids and teens would have lost their lives during this unfortunate day.

Nevertheless, as discussed in the article “Gun Control and the Constitution: Should We Amend the Second Amendment?” by Paul M. Barrett, a very effective and yet simple solution that could end most of these deaths is just adding five words to the second amendment. For instance, the passage describes how, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.” By changing the second amendment to as before stated, only people who are in militias or the army can have guns in order for national defense; therefore, limiting guns only to them and not allowing the common American to own a gun and keep at their house or carry it with them. Moreover, because a similar proposal lost in two cases in 2010 and 2008, the article also discusses how only handguns should be permitted and no allowing bigger guns in the hands of the people, “Heller did not by its own terms preclude federal, state, or local governments from restricting the ownership of the sorts of large-capacity weapons used in mass shootings in Connecticut, Virginia, Colorado, and Arizona in recent years.” By only allowing the general population to have small handguns, the probability for larger mass shootings as the nation has witnessed occur on a more frequent basis in these recent years decreases significantly.

To conclude, I believe it is your responsibility to secure a safe America for everyone who resided in it today. A great step in order to accomplish this is to limit, put more control over who can acquire and what type of guns can be acquired, or altogether ban guns for the common people of the United States of America. If you can successfully accomplish this, then those 7 deaths a day average by gun can hopefully be reduced to 0, and with this, no more innocent lives will be lost at the hands of guns in out great country of America.

Sincerely,

Fernando Mayea

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/books/review-another-day-in-the-death-of-america-on-guns-killing-children.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FGun%20Control&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-20/gun-control-and-the-constitution-should-we-amend-the-second-amendment