Thoughts on guns

      I grew up in this little bubble two hours north of Los Angeles. I believed that nothing bad would ever happen in my town, I thought my family was perfect, and I felt safe. I was quite naive. As I grew older I learned that my family was not perfect, bad things do happen in town and my hometown isn't the safest of places. These are all things that some people figure out quite young, some people figure out around the same I did and some who figure it out even later.
      About twenty-four hours ago there was a shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. Ten people died. This is the third school shooting in eight days. The shooting was done by a seventeen year old who got a hold of his fathers gun. It is far too easy for kids to get a hold of guns in the U.S. Just a little over a week ago there was a school shooting in my hometown a FOURTEEN year old got a hold of a gun and shot someone in the hand, luckily beyond that there were no other casualties.
     Guns are a big part of American culture, there is no denying that, but I believe that that culture is sacrificing the safety of the American people. There is an unacceptable amount of deaths caused by guns  in the  U.S. compared to the rest of the world. There is also the largest amount of private gun owners in the U.S than in the entire world. 48% of all guns in the entire world are owned by Americans. 89 out of every 100 Americans own guns. 96 people in the U.S are killed by a gun each day. There is 300 million guns available in the U.S today.  I think there is a direct correlation to the number of mass shootings and the number of guns in the U.S.
     There have been twenty-two school shootings in the U.S already in 2018. The one that happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's day is the largest school shooting in American history. Seventeen staff and students died, that is seventeen innocent people too many. Nobody should go to school and be afraid.
     I realize that it is within the rights of U.S citizens to own guns but they are too easily accessible. I realize that most people who own guns and advocate for owning guns have no intention of using guns for anything other than what they intended it for, but most school shootings in America happen by a misguided, angry or mentally ill youth who has gotten a hold of a gun. This is not supposed to be accusatory, it is correct to say that people kill people, but I think guns make it too easy for people to kill people. I don't think that going to school should make anyone feel unsafe and I dont think that it should affect the freedoms of youth. I believe that the laws should be stricter. The amount of casualties and deaths by guns in the U.S is extraordinarily and unacceptably high. This needs to change. The brave teenagers of the Parkland shooting have been widely criticized for standing up and voicing  their concerns on American gun laws. After all they're only teenagers what can they know? The Bible tells us that youth often times have great wisdom Paul even tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12 Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity."  These brave teens may not be Christian, or if they were they may not have been thinking about this verse but, the fact that God talks of the wisdom of young leaders and often speaks through the youth means that if they are speaking wisdom we should listen, not dismiss their thoughts and ideas. 
     I see a few quite seemingly obvious laws that could be useful. It might be more complicated than I think to enforce these laws. I think raising the gun ownership from age eighteen to twenty-one would help quite a bit. Requiring people to put their guns in a gun locker when not in use is also a good idea. I think that a big problem with these school shootings is that the kids that do these terrible things are often mentally ill, so I think more awareness around depression, social anxiety and other mental illnesses would be great. More funding for more school counselors and psychologists so that each child can get free counseling, because right now it is so hard to get help from psychologists if you can't afford it.  Dear America, here's how other countries stop mass shootings .  
     Underneath this post I have included the link to quite a few Ted Talks and Youtube videos about gun control.

This is Miriam,
signing off


James Cordon on Gun Control in America

Generations React to Gun Control in America

Let's treat violence like a contagious disease

Why gun violence can't be our new normal

A parkland teachers homework for us all

My son was a Columbine Shooter. This is my story.