You wake up for school and it’s bright and sunny. It's 6:20 a.m. You do your daily routine: fixing your bed, showering, brushing your teeth, eating your breakfast, and then you get your backpack. You get to school without anything happening. It's an ordinary day. First period goes by, nothing happens, second and third period nothing happens, but in fourth period, an announcement comes on the intercom saying that there is going to be a lockdown and it's not a drill. Everything changes, what was your ordinary day just turned into a nightmare that you have never expected to happen, your teacher instructs you to hide and to turn off all light; it gets dark and quiet fast,as everyone hides it gets very quiet there are some people trying to whisper as quietly as possible, you can hear people breathing heavily and people scared of what’s going to happen next you can feel that everyone is feeling anxious. Everyone in the class hides and is quiet, after waiting for a couple minutes there isn’t a single sound everyone thinks that there is nothing, but still they don’t say a word, then BOOM BOOM, there’s been two shots fired everyone is trembling, BOOM BOOM, more shots are fired, each shot sounds like it’s louder and closer then the last one. There is nothing you can do, as you sit quietly and wait hoping that the shooting ends, in the distance you can hear many sirens coming your way. But until the police come you're trapped, and all you can do is wait.

Shootings like this are daily problems in the United States, there are many gun related crimes in the United States. Although school shootings may not happen everyday there are many other gun incidents like suicides or homicides are a regular occurrence for the United States, even a regular gas station could be a victim of an armed robbery.

This is a made up story but that doesn’t mean that this doesn’t happen. School shootings are common among the U.S; Shootings impact people's lives more than you would think. There are hundreds of deaths that are related to gun crimes, and because of this people that kill others are not only killing, but also hurting their loved ones.

Guns have affected millions of people in the United States; the best way to try and stop this issue of gun violence is stronger gun control. The U.S is notoriously known for having poor gun control throughout all states, and that is the reason why there is so much gun violence throughout the entire country.

Gun violence has been an issue for a very long time and is still very apparent in today's world. This issue is especially common throughout the United States with many shootings every year. U.S States governors create gun laws to help protect their state from any gun violence, but gun laws in the United States are failing to do just that. The non-profit organization, “Everytown”, is an organization that tries to help with improving gun laws, explains that “All states should start with a core group of five foundational laws—passing background checks and/or purchase permitting, along with Extreme Risk laws and secure gun storage requirements; and rejecting Shoot First (also known as Stand Your Ground) and permitless carry laws.”(Everytown.org) These suggestions would  help better the safety of the state's residents and also help lower all of the different gun related crimes and incidents, and yet most states don't have all of these laws intact. Only about half of the states have refused to reject “first shoot laws” with only 21 states refusing to use this law, which allows people to shoot first and kill people.(Everytown.org) It’s not just state governors that don’t have proper gun laws, it's the federal law too, but this doesn’t excuse state governors for their poor gun laws. States should be able to fill gaps that the federal laws make, for example the federal laws don't “require background checks on all gun sales and give special legal immunity to the gun industry. State policymakers should protect their residents by filling the many gaps in federal law.”(Everytown.org) U.S state governors should change their gun laws because the guidelines to purchase a gun isn’t strict enough making it way too easy for people to have access to guns, and due to these weak laws there are many gun related crimes.

Because of the lack of background checks people are able to buy guns and transfer them to different states with more strict gun laws, and give guns to people that shouldn’t have a gun. Some U.S states do have good background checks but almost all of the states are failing to have reasonable requirements for a background check, or any background checks at all. And because of this “Any state may be vulnerable if its neighbors fail to protect public safety. That’s how northeastern states with strong laws ended up victims of the infamous “iron pipeline,” the route traffickers use to bring guns up from southeastern states with weak laws. The evidence tells a simple story about porous borders: Out of all guns showing up at crime scenes after crossing state lines, four out of five come from states that lack good background check laws.”(Everytown.org) Although that happened in 2009, it doesn’t mean that the United States isn’t vulnerable for this to happen again and potentially come back worse. This issue of background checks not being restrictive enough, and therefore causing more gun violence is even more apparent in 2023, with there being 221 mass shootings.(Gun VIolence Archive.org) Because of how bad and unreliable these background checks are this means that people would be able to purchase guns from private sellers, since private sellers aren’t required for background so people connected of felony crimes, or other types of crimes are able to purchase guns, and this is one of  “The largest gap in the federal background check requirement is that unlicensed, private sellers are not required to conduct background checks. This means that, unless state law requires a background check for these sales, people convicted of felonies and domestic abuse and other ineligible people can legally buy guns—even though they would fail a background check if purchasing from an FFL.”(Everytown.org) And because of this people are able to purchase guns with terrible backgrounds, all because of state governors that don’t want to better their own gun laws to help increase the safety of the people that are living in their state.

The United States is ranked with one of the highest gun violence deaths in the world, even though when compared to other countries the U.S is a very well developed country. The U.S isn’t being compared to third world countries or undeveloped countries, the U.S is being compared to other developed countries. In 2023 alone there have been a been a total of 14,963 deaths that were gun related incidents, 6,449 of these deaths were homicide/murder/DGU, there have been 8,514 suicides, 201 mass shootings.(Gun Violence Archive.org) All of these deaths are from January 1st to the first week of May, in just over 5 months there have been 14,963 deaths that include, If the United States keeps having gun related crimes at this rate there could very well be thousands of more gun deaths. In the state of Kentucky there has been a massive increase in gun violence, in Kentucky “The rate of gun deaths increased 46% from 2011 to 2020, compared to a 33% increase nationwide. The rate of gun suicides increased 9% and gun homicides increased 159% compared to a 12% increase and 70% increase nationwide.”(Everytown.org) Kentucky has one of the worst gun laws in the entire country and because of this the gun deaths in Kentucky have increased exponentially, Kentucky's gun violence has increased in rapid succession. The number of people that are dying or getting wounded in Kentucky due to guns every year is a lot, “Every year, an average of 253 people in Kentucky die by gun homicides and 408 are wounded by gun assaults—a rate of 6.0 homicides and 9.2 assaults per 100,000 people. Kentucky has the 27th-highest rate of gun homicides and gun assaults in the US. In Kentucky, 80% of all homicides involve a gun, compared to 76% nationwide.”(EveryTown.org) Once again we can see that Kentucky is facing the consequences of having terrible gun laws and because of this they are having a very high ratio to homicides involving a gun.

The United States needs to change their laws to make their background checks more restrictive and ultimately reduce the number of gun violence incidents. Almost every state in the U.S has very lenient, and they have been for a while, there has been a scary increase in the amount of the gun violence that is happening in the United States in 2023. A big reason for this jump in gun violence is due to the amount of states that have way to lenient background checks or no background checks at all. In a article written by CNN covering kentucky’s weak gun laws, states that “Universal background checks are nonexistent, so you can buy a gun from a stranger and there’s no record of the sale, making it almost impossible for law enforcement to trace these weapons if they’re ever used in a crime,”(Campbell, Hanna, Joseph 1) Due to kentucky’s weak background check requirements people could buy a firearm from a stranger and it would be near impossible for anyone to try and track down the buyer. This means that anyone convicted of any serious offense can still purchase a gun and use it to their liking, which is a very huge safety concern and issue. There is also a gap in the federal gun law which also doesn’t require a background for when people try to buy a gun, this means that there is an estimated 22% of people that have purchased a gun of any type, without any background checks done to see if they should even a gun in the first place.(giffords.org) This means that there are millions of people with a gun that had no background checks  done on them and who knows who those people are, and what they have done whether they have committed crimes or not. People who are convicted of any domestic violence or have a court ruling stating that they can’t have access to guns are still able to have guns or “People ineligible to possess firearms for mental health reasons can easily buy guns from unlicensed sellers with no background check in most states.”(giffords.org) Once again we see anyone can purchase any gun even if they have been ruled ineligible to be able to have access to a gun, and all they have to do is go to an unlicensed seller, and do whatever they want since it would be near impossible to track down the owner from the gun purchased.

The age to legally own a gun needs to be raised to where people under 21 can’t have access to a gun, if this were to happen it would decrease gun violence incidents involving young people. The age needs to be raised because if a young person is exposed whether they caused it or they were just a witness has a dreadful effect on them. The lower the age restriction is the easier it is for younger people to have been exposed to gun violence, and that could have a life changing effect on a young person. Also the lower the age restriction is, the easier for a teen to have access to a gun and use it to cause harm to others. Data would suggest that younger people are subjected to more harmful things with guns or do things then people would use common sense wouldn’t do, “Young people disproportionately commit gun homicides. For example, 18-20-year olds comprise just 4% of the US population, but account for 17% of known homicide offenders.”(Giffords.org) Although 18-20 year olds are a very small portion of the United States they come up with over a tenth of the entire countries gun violence, this percentage would be lower if the United States or state governors decided to raise the age to legally a gun to at least 21 and that would significantly lower gun violence involving young people. Gun laws involving age requirements are meant to decrease the accessibility of any firearms to young people, which would decrease the number “of suicides, homicides, and unintentional shootings among that population. Given that young people are at elevated risk of engaging in violent behaviors against themselves or others.”(Giffords.org) If states governors decided to increase the legal age to have accessibility to have firearm legally then it would lead to younger people having less access to guns and, therefore, decrease the number of gun violence, whether it being suicide, accidents, homicides, etc. It would help drop the number drastically. In kentucky, the leading death for children is gun among teens and children, “an average of 70 children and teens die by guns every year, of which 38% of these deaths are suicides and 51% are homicides.“(Everytown.org) If Kentucky’s state governor decided to change their age to legally own a gun to at least 21, then the accessibility for younger people to own a gun would drop, which would also decrease the number of deaths involving teens and children.

The United States could limit the types of firearms available to the public, like controlling the access to military grade weapons. The public should not be able to have access to military grade weapons, military grade weapons are way too powerful and a random citizen should never have access to a weapon of that caliber.  If someone were to bring a large capacity magazine gun to an event they could kill many people just because of how large the magazine is, this significantly increases the shooter's ability to injure or even kill a large number of people in seconds. “Large capacity magazines significantly increase a shooter’s ability to injure and kill large numbers of people quickly because they enable the individual to fire repeatedly without needing to reload.”(Giffords.org) The large capacity magazine gun is what is allowing the shooter to be able to injure or kill large groups of people just because of their large magazine, if the magazine was smaller than it would allow people just enough time to run away. The time that a shooter is needed to reload is a critical chance to run away, but “When shooters have high capacity magazines, more bullets can be fired before this crucial time period for escape or other intervention.”(Giffords.org) Once a shooter is able to get rid of this crucial moment for the victims the shooter has way too much control in the situation and then the shooter continues to keep shooting and injuring and killing more people then they should be able to just because they have a large magazine. Several states have started to see the extreme power that these guns have, and have decided to restrict these extremely powerful weapons. “In 2022, several states banned or restricted the sale or transfer of high-capacity magazines, including Delaware, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington, and New York expanded its existing ban. Research evidence is more limited for these bans, but it suggests they may succeed in reducing mass shootings and mass shooting fatalities.”(Morral, Smart 1) These states have decided to ban or slow down the process to obtain large capacity guns. And in doing so they are hoping to decrease mass shootings, banning these weapons will most likely decrease mass shootings, but if it doesn’t then it will most likely decrease the number of victims killed. 

Gun violence has affected and changed millions of lives in the United States whether it being culture, communities, and more. Guns kill thousands of people each year, and it affects the family that lost one due to gun violence. Our federal and state governors aren’t doing anything to help change and issue, when there are many things that they could do to help reduce gun violence. The government could increase the age to legally own a gun, make more strict background checks, or even prohibit the public from even being able to purchase certain weapons. There should be no reason why the government can’t change the gun laws to make them stronger and more secure. There have been other countries that decided to change their laws and that worked out well. Suicides are homicides are exceptionally high at the moment, with suicides peaking very recently, most of which were caused by guns. No matter what you think about this issue the facts are clear that there are more negatives than positives in this issue. With gun related crimes being high every year, our governors, whether federal or state, need to change and strengthen their laws to make states and the entire country a safer place for all.

           Works Cited

Campbell, Josh, and Jack Hannah & Elizabeth Joseph. “Kentucky Has Some of the Least Restrictive Gun Laws in the US.” CNN, 12 Apr. 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/us/kentucky-gun-laws. 

“Gun Laws.” Giffords, 12 May 2023, giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/. 

Gun Violence in Kentucky - Everystat.Org, everystat.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Gun-Violence-in-Kentucky-1.pdf. Accessed 21 May 2023. 

“Home.” Everytown Support Fund, 17 May 2023, 

everytownsupportfund.org/?_gl=1%2A15jzmc4%2A_ga%2ANjk0NDY1MTU5LjE2ODEzMTg3NTc.%2A_ga_LT0FWV3EK3%2AMTY4NDUwNzg0MS4xMi4wLjE2ODQ1MDc4NDEuMC4wLjA. 

“How States Can Prevent Gun Violence.” Indivisible, indivisible.org/resource/how-states-can-prevent-gun-violence. Accessed 21 May 2023. 

Smart, Andrew R. Morral and Rosanna. “Want Fewer Shootings? Pass Tougher Gun Laws. Our Research Shows Lax Laws Fuel Violence.” USA Today, 25 Jan. 2023, www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/01/24/states-strict-gun-laws-could-reduce-violence/11111232002/.