Dear Future President,

Orlando. Blacksburg. Newtown. More than half of the states in America have had at least one reported mass shooting in 2016 alone, and several have had more than five or even ten. The definition of ‘mass shooting’ is ‘four or more wounded or killed’, and as of June 21 of this year there have been more than 130 reported mass shootings, which means that, at a minimum, there have been 520 deaths-or-wounds-by-shooting in the first 170 days of this year. This needs to come to an end.

Although there is some legislation that prohibits certain people from getting guns, it is too easy for the majority of the population to obtain guns with minimal background checks. Our country seems to think that we need to fight guns with more guns, when in reality that creates a infinite loop that just gets people more scared and more guns. On the other hand, if we decrease the amount of people who have guns, people will be less frightened. Consequently they will not need more guns, thus the loop is broken.

To begin to fix this problem we need to hunker down on gun-control legislation and actually pass some laws and acts. Within these laws and acts we must get more background checks, and no ex-criminals or people on the terrorist watchlist should be able to get guns. These laws should include the following: Anyone on the terrorist watch list cannot buy guns from anyone. Anyone who wants to buy a gun must go through extensive background checks. No automatic or semi-automatic weapons will be available to the public.

The first step to fixing this problem is to raise awareness of the amount of people who die because a lack of gun control. Over 280 million guns are currently in civilian hands which then causes more than 30,000 deaths by firearms. We need to change this. As president I hope that you will take action and begin to solve this problem.