The world today is a terrifying place. There are people dying left and right, wars being waged, and fears being stoked to make today’s generation fearful to even walk out their front doors.

One of the hottest debated topics in the government today is gun control. I have a very firm belief that this should be handled delicately, and with caution.

The truth of the matter is that in this day and age, people need to become more educated about guns. If people were a little more educated about them, perhaps there would be fewer accidents and there would be less cause for crackdowns on guns.

Personally, I’ve grown up with a respect for weapons, but that is because I had someone to teach me about them. I believe that if laws were passed to force people to have to take a hunter’s safety class, as well as make them take a class on gun control, maybe then there would be far less accidents happening.

I do understand that the cause for tougher laws on gun control is due to the shootings happening at Columbine High School, the movie theater in Aurora, and the Sandy Hook Elementary School. But I don’t believe that people are going about this the right way.

Sure it seems like a good idea to take away the semi-automatic weapons from the civilians, but who’s saying that criminals aren’t going to get ahold of them? And then what’s going to happen when people are unable to defend themselves against these crooks? There is going to be political unrest, possible rioting, and in a worse-case scenario, the government may fall and the country could be taken over.

People shouldn’t need to demand that citizens give up their right to defend themselves, to not be able to gather ammunition or get the guns they need to make them feel like they can keep their families safe.

It is wrong and an injustice to the American people and the American way of life. Americans are known to be able to have freedoms that not many others are allowed to have in the world. It is flawed logic to try to take those freedoms away. It just shows that Americans are weak and not able to keep ourselves safe from the worries of today.

I don’t believe that the mistakes of my government should make me look the fool in this world. I believe that yes, something needs to be done about what is happening with the shootings, but I honestly think that people are going about it the wrong way completely. If people become further educated about guns, perhaps then we won’t need to take away freedoms that Americans have had since we became a nation.