Dear Next President,

After events such as the San Bernardino shooting and the Sandy Hook shooting, many people turn to the idea of gun control to prevent future mass shootings and decrease overall violent crime. On the contrary, gun control will leave law abiding citizens defenseless against criminals, meaning you must not pass any law increasing gun control.

It is unlikely for gun control to work because it will make it harder to obtain a gun legally, and a large amount of criminals do not obtain guns from legal sources. In the article written for Newsweek “Gun Control: Where Do Criminals Get Their Weapons?” by Philip Cook, it is stated that, after a national poll on inmates in prison, “Just 10% of youthful (18-40 years old) male respondents who admitted to having a gun at the time of arrest had obtained it from a gun store. The other 90% had obtained them from off-the-book means.” This means that 90% of criminals had gotten guns from alternative, and mostly undocumented, sources, showing that making it harder to obtain a gun from legal sources will not have an effect on a majority of potential criminals.

Gun control won’t decrease gun violence because higher amounts of privately owned firearms have actually caused the number of gun related homicides to go down. In the CNSNews article “Gun-Homicide Rate Decreased as Gun Ownership Increased” by Mark J. Perry, used data from the Centers for Disease Control, and found that “There were 7 gun related homicides for 100,000 people in 1993, but by 2013, the gun homicide rate had decreased by nearly 50%, even though gun ownership had increased by 56%.” Even though more people had guns, the gun related crime rate in the US had decreased. If you make stricter gun control laws, it will disarm innocent citizens who want to be able to defend themselves.`

Dear Next President, do not make any stricter gun control laws because they will not prevent gun violence, but instead unarm law-abiding citizens.

Sincerely,

Preston,

Grade 10,

West St. Paul, Minnesota.