Transcription
It was May 24th, 2022. What was supposed to be a normal day for the kids at elementary school sadly turned to a tragedy because, on that day, 18-year-old Ramos entered the school with a firearm and he killed 19 children and two teachers. This is why I'm standing here today because I want to persuade you guys on why the USA needs more stricter gun laws. And I'm going to go over three big ideas. Number one, the problems of not having strict enough gun laws. Number two, the causes of why we don't have strict gun laws. And lastly, number three, the some solutions we can do to help make our gun laws more strict.
So, I want to start the problems first. And there are two problems. Number one, systemic and legislative. And number two, human lives being cost because of our lack of laws. So, in regards to the first problem, the Philadelphia Inquirer on June 7, 2022, said that the city of Philadelphia said that they can't enact gun control laws due to the preemption law. And basically, what the preemption law is, it basically restricts local governments from enacting gun control laws. So, it's up to the state or federal government. And this makes it hard for the local governments to control gun regulation. There is also a loophole in our system. So, it's very easy to bring guns from state to state. So, if someone lives in a state where there's not much gun control laws, they can easily board a plane, bring their gun, and take it to a different state that has much more gun regulation laws. And then thirdly, cases the Corpus Christi Times reported on May 27th, 2022, that out of 10,874 cases of gun deaths, only 1,500—564 were only—only 1,564 were due to defensive reasons. So, this means the majority of shooting deaths aren't associated with defensive reasons. It's more along the lines of offensive.
Now, I said human lives are being cost. And what I mean by this is that in 2019, we had 15,000 deaths. And then just one year later, in 2020, it went to 19,000. That's a 4,000 increase just in one year. And school shootings have reached the highest level in the past decade. And this is very concerning because schools, as you guys may know, sadly are one of the most common areas for shootings. And lastly, the Times of India on January 14th, 2025, said that our state, California, has had the most school shootings. And from 1996 to 2024, we've had 270 school shootings.
Now that I told you guys the problems, I'd like to go over some causes. And there's two of them. The first being political/legal barriers and the second being cultural and ideological attitude. So, starting with the first cause, the Tennessean on October 28th, 2023, said they cited the opinion of Representative Pingry, who is a Democrat from Maine, and basically, they said that it's hard to pass bills in Congress because, uh, especially right now, during times like right now, because it's like—sometimes there's periods of time where it's the majority of Republicans in the House, and Republicans don't want to pass gun control laws. So, it's hard to pass bills, and due to political division and stuff. Another barrier is the Second Amendment because the Second Amendment says the right to bear arms, and a lot of gun control bills and like laws are very opposed against because a lot of people defend the Second Amendment and makes it harder to pass gun control laws. And lastly, organizations like the NRA, the National Rifle Association, if a bill does pass, those groups often protest against those bills and they often try to take them down.
Now, the second cause is cultural/ideological attitudes. And one instance of this is that the El Paso Times said on June 10th, 2024, that there was a shooting in—in El Paso at a Walmart and it killed 23 people. And you would think that this shooting would leave an impact on the community, and it did, but—not five years later, it's kind of been—been swept under the rug. And this is very concerning because it's not just happening here. Just overall in America, mass shootings have been normalized. And we should not treat this problem as a daily occurrence or something. We should treat it as an emergency. And Asian News Monitor said on June 9th, 2022, that this goes back, uh, to about Salvador Ramos. He was only 18 when he bought his gun. And the fact that he was that young is very concerning because it shows how easy it is to get a gun in America. Even at age—at age—at age 18, when you can't—your brain doesn't develop till age 25, you can buy a gun as early as age 18. And then lastly, there is a mindset where people have—they think, "Oh, gun laws are not going to stop shooters from our shootings because they're not going to follow the regulations anyway." And it's easy to fall into that mindset, but those regulations do work because it can help make it harder for those people to obtain guns and thus it helps prevent the shootings.
Now that we know the causes, I like to give you guys some solutions. And I have two solutions. One, legislative solutions that the government can do and two, political/cultural solutions that you guys can do. And starting with the first solution, some legislative solutions. So, Pittsburgh Tribune said on December 2nd, 2024, that Congress can push bills that are aimed towards gun trafficking and violent crimes rather than just gun ownership because Republicans are—are much more likely to support a bill that combats gun violence or like gun trafficking compared to gun ownership. So, it can help garner unanimous support. Secondly, the government can pass red flag laws. So, this means that it will be harder for people who are not in the—who are not in the right mental mind state to get guns because usually a lot of the most—sometimes like shooters who—they commit their crimes because they're not in the right mental mind state and they can still get a gun. And thirdly, we can follow universal gun safety laws. And a model state of this is Massachusetts because they have very good gun laws. They have like thorough background checks and they have not had a school shooting since the year 2000. So, 25 years.
And the second solution is political/cultural solutions. And what I mean by this is that you guys can pressure our politicians to pass gun control laws or like for them to show support. And you guys can do this on social media, at meetings, or just any other place. But the best place is meetings and social media. And then you can also—the idea of responsible gun legislation and how it doesn't put the Second Amendment at risk because a lot of people have this mindset that gun regulation laws will—like they have this mindset that gun regulation laws want to get rid of the Second Amendment, but no—gun regulation laws are just aiming to have more responsible gun owners and gun safety regulations. They don't want to ban guns entirely. And then lastly, this is the most important and most direct—you guys can help this problem. You guys can partake in elections and not just presidential elections but local elections, state governments, I mean state elections like both your House of Representatives member and like other stuff.
So, to repeat, today I persuaded you guys on why we need much more stricter gun laws here in the United States. And I do this by going over first the problems of us having too much relaxed gun laws. Second, I went over some causes why our gun laws are not strict. And lastly, I gave you guys some solutions on how we can make our gun laws here in the US much more strict. And although the incident with—with Salad Ramos and his shooting was—was tragic, there is one good thing that came out of it, and it's that Congress, after that incident, Congress passed its first federal gun law in nearly 30 years. And we should aim to tell the government to pass more laws like this to—to prevent future tragedies from happening. Thank you.