Gun rights and gun control are two extremely popular topics in politics today. There are constant heated debates between Republicans and Democrats on how to address the issue of gun violence. I want to take a step away from policy and just talk about guns in general.

The thought of owning a gun to protect myself and my family is the only reason why I would ever consider buying a gun, but I have no future plans to make any purchase. Guns simply scare me. I am extremely uncomfortable around guns because a person can take a gun and pull the trigger and then someone’s life can end. The thought that most people are capable of purchasing a gun scares me. It scares me because it only takes one pull of the trigger to end a life. It scares me to think that my neighbors, friends, professors, and people on the street have the ability to end a life that easily. All they have to do is buy a gun and pull the trigger. These people are not trained. They don’t need to be educated; however, they do have to pass a background check.

Many people argue that they would feel more comfortable in situations if everyone had a gun. Donald Trump said that the shooting in a theatre in Paris would not have had as many casualties if everyone in that theatre had a gun. No one can actually confirm if that statement is true or not but regardless, I don’t think I would go to a theatre if I knew everyone in in there had a gun. If people at my college carried a weapon with them in the classroom, I would not want to go to that class.

This is all because of the potential a person has when he or she is in possession of a gun. If the people closest to me carried a weapon I would still be frightened, furthermore if the person that I trust the most in this world carries a gun, I would still feel uncomfortable.

Right now I have a fear for our future. No one knows for certain what will happen in the future in regards to gun laws. In order to maintain a civil society, we have to trust each other, we have to trust each other to be responsible. Each person has a different level of trust for the next. Am I supposed to trust that a stranger will not walk into a school and do horrible things? What needs to change? Or does anything need to change? I greatly enjoy knowing that weapons are prohibited on my college campus and even though that doesn’t mean that there are no weapons on campus, I still feel more secure.

In politics today, there is a lot of talks about guns every time a mass shooting occurs. Politicians do not usually talk about how people feel around guns. I believe that it is important to ensure that safety of the citizens of the United States but the question is how? In the streets and in the schools, how can we protect people from gun violence?

In the overall scheme maybe it doesn’t matter that I feel uncomfortable with an ordinary citizen owning a gun. Safety is the number one concern. I can’t imagine a world where most people openly carry weapons in very public areas but some people do feel like it would make society safer. All I know is the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see a gun.