Dear future President,

There are many issues in America we need to address, but one that sticks out to me the most would be gun violence. I mean, really, how many shootings do we need to have to realize that gun laws should be stricter? Whether a cop shoots an innocent man due to race, or a gun falls into the wrong hands and shoots up what is supposed to be a safe place, the gun laws in America need to be stricter. 

 America's problem with gun violence is unique; we are basically the only country that has this big of a problem with shootings and deaths by guns. In the article ‘America's gun problem, explained’ written by German Lopez at Vox, it says that “Americans make up about 4.43% of the world's population, but own roughly 42% of the world's firearms” This shows that it is way too easy to get a gun in America. It would not be hard to change a few laws around and get on track to fix this problem. Javier Zarracina from Vox ran some data that showed homicides by firearms per 1 million people in each country. America was at the top with 29.7 murders. The next runner up was Switzerland with 7.7. If that doesn't raise any red flags, I don't know what does. 

 People are dying everyday because of loose gun laws and hatred in the United States. The amount of hatred against certain groups of people in this country sickens me. These laws affect the people who are looked down upon for either their race, religion, sexuality, etc. There are many incidents of when hatred was turned into violence. One example would be the shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando this past June. 49 people were killed and 53 others were injured. Another example of this would be the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Nine people were shot by Dylann Roof, who explained later that he was trying to start a race war. It would be so hard to do anything about this issue because people will never want to change their views, and we will never get them to care about the humans that are dying because of these laws. This will cause the normalization of murder in America. You, as the president, must do something about this. If our own president doesn't care about their citizens lives, it will prompt everyone else not to care. Thus, causing more shootings. 

Some people would claim that guns are not as violent as people make them out to be; that they are used for hobbies (like collecting and hunting), and if needed they are used for self defense. But, the research on this topic is extremely clear. No matter how you look at the data, more guns equals more deaths. The people who might be discriminatory against these groups of people dying from firearms would be less inclined to have a problem with guns because it does not affect them; they just don’t care! Most American citizens would rather have hundreds of innocent people die, just to be able to shoot a deer every once and awhile. 

 America's laws on guns make it too easy for the wrong people to get their hands on guns. This problem is ridiculous, and extremely unnecessary, it could be fixed by changing some laws around, and it is your job to do that. How many of your American citizens are you going to let die before you do anything to fix it?

Sincerely,

Rylie L.  

Bibliography:

Lopez, German. “America's Gun Problem, Explained.” Vox. N.p.,28 Sept.2016.Web. 03 Nov. 2016

@kqedlowdown. “Americas Mass Shooting Dilemma.” The Lowdown. N.p., 05 Apr. 2013. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.