Dear Future President,

This country is at a crucial point when it comes to the laws surrounding guns. According to many on the left, the solution is to regulate them into safety, while the right clutches onto their firearms saying something to the tune of “it’s our second amendment, it’s our savior, it’s our god given right!”. These strategies unfortunately do not quite work. Incidents such as Sandy Hook, Columbine, San Bernardino, and Surge nightclub have all shown that regulations do not work, and that we, as Americans must do something to fix our gun violence issue.

Now, the only incidents of failure to rectify the issue are not just the aforementioned examples. For example, Chicago, a city where guns are illegal, has the highest rate of gun violence in the country, and is within the top five worldwide. Just this year, they reached 500 homicides in the first eight months of the year. Now, not all the homicides were due to guns, but a high amount were. According to CNN, “sixty percent of guns used in shootings were purchased out of state”. This proves that even though something is regulated so far as to be flat out illegal, that people can still get it.

Clearly, this is a problem with many facets and approaches that need to be treated individually. First, the problem of in school violence has two potential approaches. The two options are potentially placing armed guards at schools, or arming the teachers. Armed guards are possible, potentially hiring ex military that have gone through many background checks, as well as a series of mental tests, to assure that the guard is completely of sound mind. Arming the staff would also be possible, and has been implemented in Texas, among other states. The teachers conceal carry a handgun, which would be inaccessible by the children. Some gun ranges even offered free training days for teachers. The other issue is mass violence, out of schools. This problem can be addressed in two ways: closing loopholes, such as the gun show loophole, and making tougher and more complete background and mental checks. Gun shows have a loophole that make it much easier to obtain a gun compared to a gun dealer. The loophole would be closed, making it just as hard to obtain a gun at both a gun dealer and a gun show. The most important thing that could be done to keep guns out of the hands of killers is to bolster the background check process, and to implement mental checks that must be repeated every 6 months to a year to assure gun owners are of sound mind.

Hopefully, you can consider these points, while keeping the second amendment intact, while protecting our citizens.

Sincerely,

Dylan S.