Dear future President,

In our country, gun violence is at an all time high. People are being shot and assaulted not only by each other, but also from the police themselves. Growing up my whole family had guns for hunting, and I’ve seen my grandpa have multiple guns stolen from his house and car, even though he is registered and licensed the gun still fell into the wrong hands and could potentially harm someone.

If there were strict laws over how guns need to be stored and preventing them falling into the wrong hands, there would be less shootings and assaults with a deadly weapon. I found on a list of all mass shootings since 1982 on Mother Jones in 2015 and 2016 alone there were 10 mass shootings in America, including the Orlando Night Club where one man with a semi automatic weapon killed 50 people, this is a valid reason why semi automatic and automatic weapons should be banned completely from the public. In one statistic I saw on The Washington Post, out of 127 mass killing events a total of 245 guns were used, 140 of them were obtained legally, and 39 illegally. These guns are a matter of life or death, and if we had stricter laws there would most likely not have been 39 guns in the hands of psychopaths being used to kill.

It is known that many mass shooters are mentally ill or unstable. I believe that people should have mental evaluations throughout their lives, before they get to the point that they feel the need to go on rampage killings. For example many people get mandatory yearly physicals, so during them, psychiatrist should be brought in to perform the evaluation. Take the Columbine School Massacre for example, I found on Mother Jones that both boys showed signs of mental illness, but no steps were taken to get them the help they needed, before they killed 13 students, and themselves.

The second amendment, grants citizens the right to own and carry guns, therefore it is a constitutional right. However, how many more massacres need to happen before we realize that it might not be such a good thing? There are other weapons that can be carried along with you that most likely won't kill someone, like pepper spray, or a tazer. If a gun NEEDS to be kept for protection we need to be taking extra precaution making sure it will be with a level headed person when they need it, and locked in a safe when they do not. The common phrase “Guns don’t kill people, crazy people kill people,” while this is true and states a valid point, the fact that getting a gun is as easy as finding someone on the street to buy one from, or going into your parents room and taking the gun out of an unlocked bedroom drawer, might have something to do with the rate of ‘crazy’ people using guns to kill.

In all of the research I’ve done to write this essay, it’s became apparent that we need a change the way we are handling these weapons. I urge you to use all the power you obtain through this presidency to do something about this long, and growing list of gun violence victims in America. I wrote this in hopes that you read it and realize that something needs to be immediately done about this situation, or at least to draw attention to it and show you that as a 16 year old teenager I see a problem.