Dear Future President,

Citizens of this great and free country should not be afraid to go in public because of a fear of guns. The lack of restrictions on who can get guns and where they can take them is simply astounding. Roughly 14,249 murders were committed in the United States during 2014. Of these, about 9,675 or 68% were committed with firearms (justfacts.com). This is an unacceptable number of deaths caused by firearms in a leading democracy like the US. It is not necessary to get rid of guns completely, but action needs to be taken immediately in order to save innocent lives.

Our biggest problem is the lack of restrictions on who can actually buy a gun. Right now, there are various state laws banning guns from those who have been convicted of gun-related misdemeanors, those with a history of abusing alcohol or drugs, those convicted of juvenile offenses, and people with severe mental illness. However, since not all states have standardized restrictions, they are not as effective as they need to be. In order to keep guns out of the hands of those who have bad intentions, we need to be more proactive about increasing the restrictions on buying and selling firearms.

In addition, we need increased education on safe use and storage of guns. Children living in a household with firearms are three times more likely to be injured in an unintentional shooting than a child living in a firearm-free household (injury.research.chop.edu). A big contributor to this is that many guns are not properly stored and locked away from young kids. With better education on how to store guns, many fatal injuries could be avoided.

In conclusion, the way to approach gun-related issues is not to take away guns, but to be more careful about who gets them and how they are stored. There is no excuse for a toddler getting their hands on a parent’s gun and under no circumstance should a person with mental health issues be able to purchase a firearm. These problems have been putting our society at risk for too long and there needs to be steps taken to fix them.

Sincerely,

Olivia