October 20th, 2016

Sa’fi Landis

Dear Future President,

There are 11,644 deaths and counting due to gun violence in the U.S right now. The next one could be me. Gun violence has been an issue in the community of Philadelphia as well as our nation. According to 2012’s estimate from the congressional research service, there were as many as 310 million guns across the nation. Guns get reported stolen and lost everyday and these guns end up in the hands of felonious individuals.This is what leads to gun violence.

Mental health advocates say that reports of mass shootings by mentally ill individuals shock the public and force the impression that mental illnesses lead to violence, but epidemiologic studies for 20 years have shown that people with illnesses such as bipolar disorder are more likely to cause harm to themselves rather than others. There are a plethora of gun violence articles in the news and on the internet but I will talk about about just a few. One relatively famous one is the story of Trayvon Martin who had unjustly gotten shot for having skittles and an iced tea by George Zimmerman.

Also There were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker, which catalogues such incidents. A mass shooting is defined as a single shooting incident which kills or injures four or more people, including the assailant. And some devastating statistics about our schools and future adults is that there were 64 school shootings in 2015, according to a dedicated campaign group set up in the wake of the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in Connecticut in 2012. Those figures include occasions when a gun was fired but no-one was hurt.

The right to own guns is regarded by many as enshrined in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and fiercely defended by lobby groups such as the National Rifle Association, which boasted that its membership surged to around five million in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting.No official number exists but there are thought to be about 300 million guns in the US, held by about a third of the population. That is nearly enough guns for every man, woman and child in the country. This is important to me because what if I can't make it to college because i get shot just walking to the store? Innocent people get shot on so so occasions.