Gun Rights

I watched a video on Youtube today. A young girl, 15 years old, gave her testimony on gun laws and restrictions. I thought it was fantastic. She brought forth interesting points to Maryland state legislators. One of which was her future. She is looking to go college on a full ride scholarship to several different prestigious universities, and if Maryland passes a certain law, there’s a chance that her shooting scholarship could be lost on her.

The law that Maryland legislation may pass could possibly prohibit residents to transport their firearms across the state border. Unfortunately, for this young girl, the only range close to her home where she can practice is in Delaware. Being unable to practice means diminished skills and could possibly lead to the loss of a scholarship.

It seems to me that harsh gun restrictions and gun related crime deterioration do not go hand in hand. Chicago, IL has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, yet you are twice as likely to be killed by a gun in Chicago as in the Afghan war. And even in those cases only a rough 1% were killed by a rifle. With about 99% of the gun related shootings in Chicago linked to pistols etc, why the target against assault style weapons; namely, the AR15.

This is partly tied to the Sandyhook Elementary School shooting which happened in December of 2012. The President of the United States vowed to make gun control a main issue during his second term in office. Although gun control can be debated at length, I believe that mental health care should be discussed more, along with more strenuous background checks on gun purchasers and their families. It’s estimated that 20% of Americans are living with some sort of mental illness. Of these 20%, less than half are estimated to be treated. In my opinion, our country should be focusing more on getting treatment to these 67 million + people in our great country.