Dear Future President,

Imagine that your child was locked in their classroom, with an active shooter running rampant around the campus. Some people want to use guns for self-defense, but what about the people who use guns for the wrong reasons?

I believe that if there are less guns on the streets, then there will be a lower firearm death rate. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that, “In 2013, more than 33,000 people in the U.S. died from gunshot injuries, and more than 84,000 survived with such injuries, many requiring ongoing care for both physical and mental health.” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Even though this might seem like a small number compared to the U.S. population of 318.9 million, this is a very big deal. I don’t think that just because there isn’t very many people dying from gunshots that this isn’t an important topic to address. Also according to The New England Journal of Medicine, “For 15-24 year olds, the firearm death rate in the United States was 49.0 times higher, which is an extremely higher amount death than other populous countries” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). “Although public opinion has been strongly in favor of stricter gun control for over two decades, in April 2013, a bill to only expand background checks was defeated in the senate.”, according to a public opinion polling on gun policies by Health Affairs. (1993) This means that even though the public has been in favor of passing stricter gun laws after mass shooting such as the Sandy Hook Elementary and the Aurora movie theater shootings, big gun associations such as the National Rifle Association have been standing in the way of the public’s opinion saying that the second amendment says that the public has the rights to own guns, and a lot of jobs are provided by the gun industry.

Even though this will be a hard issue to resolve and it will take a long time, I would like to propose the idea for you to provide enough other jobs to compensate for all of the people working in the gun industry.

This is the generation that is going into the workforce, these are young people with their whole lives still in front of them. Maybe these young people will want to serve the country? You should at least limit the number of guns manufactured, and increase background checks to make sure that they have a chance to have a future.

With best regards,

Ella Bogomilsky