Dear future Mr./Mrs. President,

I am Autumn Burns and I am writing to you about this growing problem called gun control. Currently our gun control is way out of hand. I shouldn’t have to wake up and worry about my school having a gun threat or in that case any school. I shouldn’t watch the news and the first headline to be another shooting in a certain city or in a school. Parents should not have to worry about sending their kids to school. School is suppose to be a safe place to learn. Adults and kids should not have to worry about being involved in a public shooting. My father is a police officer and I don’t want it to come to that day where I have to really worry about his safety when he leaves the house to go to work. Every headline that states “One officer down, many injured” hits a part in my heart. I feel for the families of them and what they are going through. The people are getting discouraged with our country and it shouldn’t have to be that way.

I think that the government should authorize background checks on individuals that want to be granted a firearm. If we make background checks a must, then we could potentially lower the risk of a gun getting into the wrong person’s hands. Which will help in the long run of protecting citizens from shootings. This is a practical way of alleviating worriness of the people.

Background checks should be authorized by the government before letting someone own a firearm. According to the Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 created a national system to check the backgrounds of people who want to purchase handguns. Mr./Mrs. President, to assure firearms of any kind don’t get into the wrong hands please think about this: you are with your family and a public shooting breaks out. Now, after you have fled to safety and the cops have handled the situation you hear on the news that the man was an ex con and had gotten possession of a firearm. Would you want that to actually happen or would you rather have background checks to make sure something like this doesn’t happen? My question is this, how long do these outbreaks have to happen or how extreme do they have to be before you do something about it?

According to the second amendment, it says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (Gale Student Resources in Context). However, they (criminals) have proven that they can not handle the responsibility of owning a gun. To others though, it’s a god given right that all people should have the right to protect themselves, but criminals are using them to break the law and harm people around them.

I can not stress how strongly I feel about gun control in our country. Every cop killing, school shooting, racial riot, or innocent victim that is shot or killed intensifies my feelings toward having stricter laws for obtaining a firearm. We can all help end this major problem within our society by encouraging stricter laws, voting for gun control, and/or being vigilant about watching others and their actions around us.