To the next president of the United States,

More and more innocent people are being killed each day. What would you think if a gun was put on you for no reason? Gun violence across America is increasing everyday. There were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870 people. Eighty-two percent of weapons involved in mass shootings over the last three decades have been bought legally. Even though they were bought legally, they still used the guns unlawfully. I believe that we (U.S.) should have stronger gun checks on people and we should continuously check everyone's stability or status.  

Mass killings in the United States are most often carried out with guns, usually handguns, most of them obtained legally. Gun Safety defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are killed with a gun. Guns are usually being used to unlawfully kill someone.

On March 14, 2012, a 3-year-old boy scrambled out of his seat while his parents stopped to get gas and grabbed his father’s pistol and shot himself. This shows that even though the gun is out of sight, you still need to take extra precautions so that no one will be harmed.

Cook and colleagues Susan Parker and Harold Pollack at the University of Chicago interviewed 99 inmates of the Cook County Jail in Chicago. They were looking for criminals who were likely to have used a gun or had ready access to one. That said, of the 70 inmates who had possessed a firearm, only 2, or 2.9 percent, had bought it at a gun store. Showing that there is a way out without having to get gun checked. I think this is a problem because it is not safe for someone who has a felony (or more) out in the streets where something could happen.

Children such as a little girl named Cassie Culpepper all pulled the trigger accidentally ,"Cassie Culpepper, age 11, was riding in the back of a pickup when her 12-year-old brother pointed his father’s pistol at her. He believed he had removed the bullets, and so jokingly pulled the trigger. He was wrong." Situations like these cause people to wonder where the parent was at. It shows a lack of responsibility from a parental in which they were supposed tell Cassie to put the gun down. Also in that article, it states,"The BBC originally reported on this phenomenon in 2009 when, in the span of 24 hours, two children were shot by their toddler siblings. In both cases, the deaths were a result of improperly secured weapons." Which also shows how they were unable to supervise the children and the firearm. (DeFilippis)

Although a gun would help you if something were to happen, your child or family could us it to possibly injure someone. Guns can also cause lots of harm to property, animals, and humans. I believe that even though guns help in the long run, they also could possibly be used to brutally kill someone. I believe that we should enforce tighter restrictions for someone to get a gun, like a lock and key, they have to be a certain way.

Lyneisha W.