September 23, 2016

Dear Future President:

On July 25, at Club Blu in Fort Myers, Florida, a shooter shot 18 people, killing 2 and injuring 16. Due to recent shootings all across America, citizens have become increasingly more concerned for their safety. We need to examine these shootings and realize that something needs to be done. Our society needs to make the ways of obtaining guns and ammunition harder for the commonality.

According to CNN’s article, “A visual guide: Mass shootings in America” between the years 1966 and 2012 America has had 90 mass shootings; meanwhile, the next closest country, the Philippines, only has 18. This is a startling number for any country. In the same article, of the first 164 days there has been a shooting in the first 136 days of 2016. So, there has been only 28 days where no shootings have happened. Correspondingly, the United States has more guns per capita than anywhere else. For every 100 citizens, 88 of them have a gun or guns, and if individuals want to diminish the gun violence, consequently, we have to decrease the number of firearms.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the senate voted down a proposal that would ban guns from people who are on the terror watch list. Why would they even do this? If the country wants mass shootings to go down, then the government will need to make the ways to attain the guns more burdensome. A way to stop shootings is to cease selling assault rifles. There is not a reason to sell assault rifles to the public as they are not needed for hunting purposes. Furthermore, another way is to start doing background checks on citizens who have a history of mental illness . Some inhabitants have mental illness and by doing background checks then the United States can avoid horrific tragedies from happening.