Dear Future President,

              Too many people in the United States everyday are getting injured and killed by guns. By enforcing gun control laws, we can help prevent these things from happening. Information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows that almost 91 Americans are killed with guns every day while over 200 are being hospitalized for nonfatal gunshot wounds. This number needs to be reduced to zero. By enforcing gun control, we can lower the levels of violence within the United States, make the number of accidental gun shot deaths go down, and even prevent suicides.

              The first topic I would like to talk about is how enforcing gun control can lead to fewer murders and violence.14,249 murders happened in the U.S. in the year 2014. Of these, 68% were done with guns. But four years earlier in 2010, roughly 31,076 Americans died because of guns alone. That's over 85 gun deaths a day, almost three an hour, for a whole year. In these four years, gun murders went down. This is because gun control laws were beginning to be enforced in some states such as California, New York, Florida, and more. With gun control being upheld in some states, it significantly lowered the amount of gun deaths by over 16,800. This shows that when gun control is enforced, thousands of lives can be saved a year.

              A second benefit of gun control would be that the number of accidental firearm injuries and deaths would go remarkably down. According to the The US General Accounting Office, 100% of accidental gun deaths where a child is 6 years old or younger, can be prevented by child-proof safety locks as well as getting rid of most household guns because if there is not a gun at hand, there is no possible way for an unintentional gunshot to be fired. In 2010, 606 people in the United States died unintentionally from a gun. 8% of these gun fires resulted in the death of a child under the age of six years old. Therefore, by making gun control laws, the number of accidental gun deaths will decrease because if there isn’t a gun in a household or a gun available to people, it is impossible for there to be any misfires.

              There are very strong counterarguments on this topic, the main one being that the second amendment states that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” However, nowhere does it state that we have the right to own large firearms (unless in the militia), which make up 171 million out of the 317 million of all of America’s guns as of 2014. Most gun murders are committed with these large guns.

              The last reason why gun control will make the United States a better place is that it will lead to less suicide. 52% of all suicides committed between the years of 1999 and 2013 were committed using firearms. In 2014, the International Review of Law and Economics did a study and the results showed that as the gun ownership levels decreased, so did the suicide rates. When guns were not available for people to commit suicide, it gave them the chance to live. Because of this experiment, peoples lives were saved. This means that gun control can save so many more people than it already has.

              Gun control will greatly benefit the U.S, it will cause fewer deaths and injuries from people to people, and even people to animals. It will prevent accidental misfires and unintentional deaths, and bring suicide rates down. Gun control has saved people, and it can save so many more. This is a topic that needs to be talked about more, seeing it can give people the opportunity of life. Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

Casey