Dear future president,

I want to first congratulate you on being selected to run the United States and I hope you can bring the change that we all have been in need of. I’m writing to you because I am concerned. I am concerned about a lot of things in our country, but what frightens me the most is seeing that police officers or young African Americans were shot on the 5 o'clock news. Hearing about these tragedies has become a daily thing for my family and I. According to the Brady Campaign, 306 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides and suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention. Every day, 90 people die from gun violence; 31 are murdered.

What scares me is the fact that I don’t know who around me has guns or is capable of this. The other day I found out my history teacher keeps two guns just in his car. My friend can easily pull out his dad’s unlocked gun just to show it off. I live in a safe, protected, and privileged neighborhood, and yet guns are still present. I can’t imagine what it is like in the darker parts of America. Chicago, one of the most violent cities in America, had 2,998 people shot in the past year alone. My hope is that my kids can grow up not having to shiver at the sight of a gun because they won’t hear about violence caused by it everyday. My hope is that you will lead this country into a peaceful era. My hope is that we can finally have change. We talk and we talk about gun violence, but we do nothing to fix it. We still let people who are on the no-fly list in our country buy guns. There are around 64,000 suspected terrorists on the no-fly list that still have clearance to purchase guns. I will be honest, I don’t care much about the majority of your policies or what you do in office, but please, please make it so my kids never have to experience what happened at Sandy Hook a few years ago and to never know the dangers a gun can do.

Sincerely,

Andie Huff