Dear Future President, Please Rethink Our Gun Laws
In America, we have many rights and there are many ways to live our lives. We have the freedom to say what we want without government censorship, we can wear whatever we want to express ourselves, and most controversially, the right to bear arms. Our government is quite unique because it doesn’t restrict law-abiding citizens from getting firearms. So, when does a right become a danger?
Dear Future President,
In America, we have many rights and there are many ways to live our lives. We have the freedom to say what we want without government censorship, we can wear whatever we want to express ourselves, and most controversially, the right to bear arms. Our government is quite unique because it doesn’t restrict law-abiding citizens from getting firearms. So, when does a right become a danger?
I have no intent of saying that everyone who owns a gun is dangerous and wants to kill innocent people in a homicidal rampage, far from it. My grandfather owns a gun and he is one of the most cautious people I know. However, I have reason to believe that it is very easy to purchase a firearm; a little too easy. This subject is quite a controversial subject, if not the most controversial subject in the United States. Gun control is a needed necessity, regardless of which party one is affiliated with. According to Jen Christensen, an editor for CNN’s health and medical wellness unit, “Between 1996 and 2012 there were 90 mass shootings in the United States.” along with this terrifying statistic, “While the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population, it had 31% of all public mass shootings”. That number is terrifyingly large and unsettling. Now, thirty one and five may not seem like a lot, until I did the math. If there are eight billion people on this planet, then five percent is equal to four hundred million. Five percent of the world’s population is four hundred million people. Now with thirty one, if you look at one hundred, you can see that it divides equally into four parts, or twenty five percent. That would be one quarter. If the United States has thirty one percent of all public mass shootings, that means the United States has more than a quarter of all public mass shootings in the world. After reading Christensen’s article I started to wonder what is the likelihood of an American citizen dying by gun violence.
According to the New York Times, “Being killed by a gun in the United States is about as likely as dying of a car accident (31.2 million deaths)”. After reading that article I wondered how many people live in the United States. Around three hundred eighteen million and nine hundred thousand people are registered as citizens of the United States. “The chance of dying in a car accident in the United States is 1 in 6700”, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. After I compared one in sixty seven thousand to find the percentage of three hundred eighteen million and nine hundred thousand, I found out that around forty seven thousand five hundred and ninety seven people would die out of three hundred eighteen million and nine hundred thousand. If dying by gun violence is that common, our gun laws have got to change. Yes, it is our second amendment right to own a gun, I get that. However, since our gun laws haven’t changed exponentially, the guns that the constitution protects are muskets and rifles that require gun powder. Our guns have changed so much over time, so much so that even civilians have access to military grade weapons such as uzis and machine guns.
In the United States, we do give background tests to buy guns, but according to Aaron Smith, a money consultant for CNN, “...denials are rare, occurring less than 1% of the time”. Seeing as our background checks aren’t very strict, most mass shooters have been able to get firearms quite easily. I wanted to know how other first world countries fare compared to the United States. John Donohue, a professor of law at Stanford University, states, “France: Firearm applicants must have no criminal record and pass a background check that considers the reason for the gun purchase and evaluates the criminal, mental, and health records of the applicant (Dylann Roof would presumably have failed in this process)”. If our background checks were much more strict, less guns would be in the hands of dangerous people and less innocent people will pay the consequences.
Dear Future President, I implore you, Congress, Senate, and the House of Representatives to work together, regardless of political party, on reforming our gun laws. Yes, the right to bear arms is our constitutional right, but too many innocent people are paying the price of loose gun laws with their lives. I beg you, Future President, on the behalf of the people to please find a compromise with the Republicans and Democrats to make laws that help the American people instead of painting targets on their backs. It has been six thousand three hundred and seventy five days since the Columbine shooting, one thousand three hundred and eighty eight days since the Sandy Hook shooting, and now one hundred and twelve days since the shooting in Pulse: How many more days do we have to wait for change?
Sincerely,
Allie M.