Mass shootings have been happening quite frequently and needless to say, the whole nation aches to have lost innocent lives to armed perpetrators. Due to the ready availability of arms and ammunitions, safety can be ensured when one has a gun but danger is also assured when guns fall into the hands of the wrong person. Stricter gun control laws are a growing necessity in the United States of America.

This topic is indeed very personal to me. Ever since the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in 2012, my perceptions and views on guns, in general, has changed. A twenty-year-old man had shot twenty children and 8 adults in a Connecticut town. It was 9:35 in the morning when gun fires were heard. It is probably one of the most terrifying shootings in the history of our nation. The fact that most victims were children is something I can not even comprehend. According to an article, Adam Lanza possessed guns but also had some mental problems. Mental illness is serious but in this article, I will argue why mentally ill people are not all inclined to such violence.

The passion for guns and the easy availability of it is something that really concerns me. Anything that can cause harm to another person never leads to peace. Now before I start my argument, I know that there are a lot of people who will be against what I stand for. The United States needs stricter gun control laws. Other than police officials, nobody should really possess a gun in their house. If one wants to shoot or hunt, one should go to a shooting range. For hunting, there should be a designated place where guns solely for hunting are allowed but other than that, nobody should possess one. Many republicans argue that guns ensure safety but maybe not in America.

When there is a problem in a country due to easy access of guns, the solution is an obvious one: stricter gun control laws. Responsible and good people may use guns with safety in mind but we all know that there are two kinds of people in this world: the good and the bad. There is absolutely no way to control atrocities caused by easy access to guns in a country unless the accessibility of these weapons change. The United States has high levels of interpersonal violence greater than anywhere in Western Europe, and it has embedded a cultural preference for guns in many corners of society.

Even after a steady occurrence of mass shootings, the United States have failed to pass stricter gun control laws. In Scotland, mass shootings were a problem but quickly dissipated after laws for stricter gun control were passed. Although I am not trying to directly compare the two countries, the majority of Americans who support stricter gun control laws have backed down a little because they are uncertain. The polls supporting stricter gun control have decreased in the last few years just because of uncertainty.

To be continued.