Dear Mr./Mrs. President,

My name is Lilly, and I’m 14 years old living in Greenwich CT. My parents divorced when I was seven and ever since then I’ve always thought, “how can I be safe if someone tries to hurt my mom and me?”. I just hope that our next president will make it so that my mother and I can protect ourselves. Please, don’t take away our right to bear arms.

Recently I’ve felt less safe in the US then I ever have. While I hope law abiding citizens will still have the right to bear arms, it’s clear that both candidates feel the need to strengthen our gun laws at least to an extent. People that are on the no-fly list obviously shouldn’t be able to carry a gun. This is just common sense. But then again, it’s not gun control that will deter the crime rate, it’s gun ownership. A study done in 2013 found that taking away our 2nd ammendment right won’t decrease our crime rate by more than 3%. While in the 20th century the gun ownership rate doubled, the murder rate was cut in half. As the saying goes, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns (John Stossel, ABC News)

When this country was established, our founding fathers wanted everyone to have the right to bear arms. If we strive to do anything less than what our founding fathers wanted, we won't live in the America that they envisioned. We as a country need to focus among other things on keeping the rights given to us by our founding fathers.

Like I was saying before, I want and need a way to defend myself. Strengthening gun control laws will take away my right to defend myself. As well as the fact that criminals will still likely have guns that they have acquired illegally. And if someone has a gun in their house, they are less likely to be attacked. In fact, a survey done in 2013 found that 48% of felons admitted to not committing a crime in a home that they knew had a gun. This is nearly half of all of the felons surveyed. So why would the next president take away these fundamental human rights?

I hope that the next president takes my thoughts into consideration so that I will feel more safe in my country,

Best Regards,

     Lilly C