11/8/16

Dear Mr. or Mrs. President,

Gun control is an issue that faces many Americans today. Some people want guns to be illegal or just limited, and some think gun control laws are useless. I believe that we shouldn’t ban guns or add gun control laws in America, because of murder rates, self defense, and the second amendment.

A common argument made for gun control is that if there are more guns, there are more murders. However, in 1976, Washington D.C. City Council passed a law prohibiting citizens from having handguns, and it required all firearms in private homes to be unloaded and inoperable. Murder rates harshly went up after the law passed, causing the law to be taken away in 2008. This proves that violence doesn’t come from guns, it comes from people. Even if you don’t have a gun, you can commit a serious crime, whether you use a knife or other weapons. Washington D.C. already tried gun control, and they learned that without guns, murders won’t decrease, and in some circumstances, the murder rates could increase.

What would happen if your house was broken into, and you were stuck alone with a criminal. You would probably grab your weapon of self defense which in most cases, is a gun. According to New York Post, three hundred twenty six cases of deaths due to self defense were recorded throughout a ten year period. 80% of those cases had firearms involved. Countless lives were saved in the process of self defense. If we get rid of guns, the amount of deaths due to a lack of self defense could raise. It would be pretty tough to survive in a situation where you are threatened by a criminal with a gun. Even with gun control laws, criminals can still obtain guns illegally. It would definitely present a challenge to those people, but it wouldn’t be impossible. If guns were taken away from us, criminals would be given a huge advantage.

The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that we have the right to bear arms. This means if we get rid of guns, it would be considered unconstitutional. An expected argument surrounded around the second amendment is that we only have the right to have guns, but we don’t have the right use them. What’s the point of having a gun if you can’t use it? A simple solution that has occurred many times in gun control laws is keeping your firearm unloaded at all times. I don’t believe that that is smart idea, because what if you were threatened by a criminal and your only method of self defense was your unloaded gun. That criminal isn’t going to wait for you to load your gun before he or she attacks you. This is why I think that the right to bear arms is the same thing as having the right to use them.

We must not have gun control in the United States of America. It could increase murder rates, it would be hard to defend yourself, and it would go against the second amendment. If we have gun control, America would be a lot less safer than it is now.

Sincerely,

Matthew Chimitt