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I’m tired of all the death. I’m tired of seeing so many beautiful people leaving this world way too soon. Most of all, I’m tired of people who are STILL refusing to acknowledge the problem. And it is a problem.
I understand that there are people who use guns lawfully, to hunt and provide for their family, and to those people I say go for it, that is your right after all. However, the sad truth is that there are many sick (both evil and mentally ill) people who have taken advantage of that right, and use it to harm and murder innocent people.
Do you remember in elementary school during lunch time when a rowdy group of kids would get the whole class in trouble? Then the teacher would hold you in during recess for a stern talk, but you would protest because you hadn’t done anything wrong. You had been following the rules just fine, but the rude kids had taken advantage of the situation and ruined all of the fun for everyone, and everyone was punished.
The reality is that for every mass shooting you see on tv, there are 10x the amount of people using their guns lawfully and respectfully, be it a fun target practice in their backyard, shooting a deer for dinner, or defending their home against invaders.
While I was away for school, I met up with my mom for a weekend and she told me that she was thinking of buying a gun for defense. I was shocked and sad when she told me that sometimes at night when she hears noises she gets scared. She lives in the house alone with our two cats, and there have been numerous car and house break-in attempts in our neighborhood, as well as a murder by gun that happened just a couple of blocks away from our house. I told her that I understood her concerns, and she ensured me that she would be taking gun safety classes and that she knew how serious of a commitment this would be.
Now, I believe that guns should be able to be used for defense. However, the weight of owning a gun should not be taken lightly. The reality is this: Guns are made to kill, and when they don’t kill, they injure. Severely. I recently watched a video of President Obama in which he compared gun control to car regulations, a comparison which I have also used for a long time. The process of earning your driver’s license is lengthy and while it differs from place to place, in my experience it required in-class driver’s education, a completed behind the wheel program, and 40(?) hours of driving that my mother had to sign off on. In addition, you had to take multiple paper tests and background checks. A car’s primary purpose is transportation, while a gun’s is violence. So why is it that the process of obtaining a driver’s license is so much more tedious than simply going down to the town gun show and picking up a rifle?
I know this is long, but there’s honestly no way I could shorten this without losing any important detail because let’s face it, there’s still so much more that needs to be said on this issue. To summarize my thoughts, it is your right to be able to use a rifle to defend and provide for your family. Unfortunately, there are those that have taken advantage of your right and they can’t handle the responsibility. By imposing more thorough background checks and mental health screenings, we will be making sure that guns stay in responsible hands.
We are a country in which guns and ‘the right to bear arms’ is so ingrained into our culture. Because of this I don’t think we will ever be as peaceful as other nations that do not have the same problem we have. But that’s the way it is, and we’ll never truly be able to erase every trace that the current gun situation has left. Whether you think ‘guns don’t shoot people, people do’, or that guns need to be completely erased from our country, we all need to realize that the way things are right now is unacceptable, and things need to change. People are being killed because of the way things are, and the only way to do that is stop acting like children and come to a reasonable compromise.