Dear Next President,

Mass shootings are far too common in the United States. There are so many that most people oftentimes don’t even hear about most of them. 77% of all mass killings are done with guns (BEHIND THE BLOODSHED). Gun control is not a matter that can be ignored until later (we don’t even have a fully accepted definition of mass shooting), for the lack of action is only exasperating the problem. An FBI study has revealed that the 6.4 mass shootings per year in the early 2000s has jumped up to 16.4 (Ehrenfreund, Max), but due to poor reporting by police to the FBI their database is given a 57% accuracy rate (BEHIND THE BLOODSHED). Also six of the twelve worst mass shootings here in the U.S. have happened in the last nine years (Ehrenfreund, Max). No matter if you are politically affiliated more with the left or the right, you must see that something has to be done to stop, or at the very least lessen the number of mass shootings in our country and soon.

There are various reasons why I believe an increase in gun control laws will be beneficial in this endeavor. A major one is that during a study in 2013, 31% of adults in the U.S. said they had a gun in their household (Ehrenfreund, Max), with that amount of people having easy access to a gun, it is virtually guaranteed that some of them don’t have good intentions, or at least are not careful with their gun. 53% of mass shootings are family related and 25% of victims are family members (BEHIND THE BLOODSHED), so if less of them had guns in their house, it would be harder to do rash, spur of the moment actions. Some may say that they want gun control laws to be weakened so more people can have a gun to combat the people who illegally obtain guns for the purpose of committing a mass shooting, are only aggravating the problem since 78% of mass shootings are done with legally obtained handguns (Berkowitz, Lazaro Gamio). Also it is proven that states with more gun control have drastically less deaths via gun relative to their population (Ehrenfreund, Max), whereas the same cannot be said for states with less gun control than average.

While some in the U.S. see the occasional mass shooting as a fact of life and normal, it is far from normal for a developed country. In a study it was found that in developing countries, the less guns available, the less homicide occurs in that country (Hemenway, David). There is not a single developed nation that comes anywhere close to the U.S. in number of mass shootings (Herring, Keely, and Louis). Here in the U.S. we had 332 mass shootings in 2015 and 277 in 2014 (Herring, Keely, and Louis). Compare this to the combined total of nine mass shootings in Australia, Canada, China, and Finland from 2000-2014(Herring, Keely, and Louis). A big difference between us and these other countries is they have significantly more gun control laws.

In order to end this senseless loss of life we have to increase gun control. We can see that it works, both in states and countries that have tried it. Also the most common argument against it, in actuality make mass shootings more likely. It is up to you, Mr/Mrs. President to end the terrible slaughter that is happening to the citizens of this country for decades and will keep happening until you stop it.

Works Cited

("BEHIND THE BLOODSHED: THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICA'S MASS KILLINGS." USATODAY.COM. Gannett Satellite Information Network, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.)

(Bonnie Berkowitz, Lazaro Gamio, Denise Lu, Kevin Uhrmacher and Todd Lindeman. "50 Years of U.S. Mass Shootings: The Victims, Sites, Killers and Weapons." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 27 July 2016. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.)

(Ehrenfreund, Max. "11 Essential Facts about Guns and Mass Shootings in America." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 24 July 2015. Web. 04 Oct. 2016.)

(Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.)

(Herring, Keely, and Louis Jacobsin. "Is Barack Obama Correct That Mass Killings Don't Happen in Other Countries?" @politifact. Politifact, 22 June 2015. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.)