Let me start this off by saying, taking away guns from people is probably the most ridiculous idea.

Second of all, I would like to make a point that raising the age of buying a rifle to 21 is even worse, and would only cause more problems, as well as not aiding in accomplishing your goal of ridding the country of mass shootings. Now that I have established my two cents on what everyone has been talking about referring to gun control ideas, let me give you a disclaimer:

This article may piss a few people off, and that's OK.

However, it's important to understand this is only an opinion based article. I'm not going to throw at you anything resembling statistics, facts, or citations. Why? Because that's not a pleasure to read, and I don't want to have them thrown back at me. Please understand that if you want to argue with me, feel free to. I probably won't make an effort to respond, nor will I try to read it, because it's completely OK to have different perspectives on certain subjects. But by all means, go ahead and try. You're only wasting your time arguing over a subjective article.

(I'm mainly talking to the liberals in particular that have been proudly displaying their ideologies all over my social media platforms without having ever picked up a firearm in their lives, while acting like they know everything about any firearm ever made because they once deduced that AR in AR-15 meant "Assault Rifle.")

Which it doesn't...

Look it up...

The problem America is having with guns is that kids will learn the power a firearm contains through video games. The gore isn’t the problem. It’s the constant repetitive shootings in movies, video games, TV shows, and newspaper articles that all kids are being exposed to without actually going through proper safety training and having someone of an authoritative figure in their lives tell them that it’s not safe to point a gun at anyone while they’re at their spongey brained age of 5 or 6.

Growing up in Northwestern Minnesota right on the border of North Dakota, hunting, fishing, trapping, and camping were some of my favorite things to do while growing up. I shot my first rifle at the age of 6. My dad handed me a .22 and told me to go shoot at a license plate. I shot at targets for a year and I eventually made my way up to hunting rodents that would cause problems on my Grandmother's land.

The first living creature I ever shot was a red squirrel. Fun anecdote right? Most midwesterners know the problems that come with them. One day, my dad took me to find a nest. I found one lone squirrel. At the age of 7, I took my first life. That was the reason why I will never take a human beings life as long as I live unless it’s in defense of my home, my loved ones, or my country.

I had witnessed what a small caliber rifle can do, first hand. The squirrel no longer looked like a squirrel. My dad had me pick the rodent up, and carry him to our burn pile where I discarded the corpse. I will always remember that moment.

In that moment, I learned what death was.

Since then I've hunted big game, and still to this day, I still feel some remorse for taking any animals life. Do I have fun while I hunt? Yes. But that remorse is the difference between being a bloodthirsty monster, and a law-abiding hunter that loves the taste of venison.

That’s the difference between responsible gun owners and those who buy firearms with the sole purpose to take as many lives as they possibly can in a small amount of time. The AR-15 doesn’t need to be the one that’s getting chastised. Most AR-15’s are owned by responsible gun owners, who have taken a course or two in firearm safety, or had authoritative figures teach them about firearms and the power they have behind them while they were young and it made an impression on them.

I, for one, had taken hunters safety at a very young age. They teach you how to properly and safely operate a firearm of any kind, and what can happen if you don’t. It teaches you a perspective. It teaches you right from wrong. When handling any weapon. They're not a toy.

They end lives if they're in the wrong hands.

These people that are buying firearms in order to go after human lives weren’t taught these common midwestern lessons that I learned at a young age. The Florida teen high school shooter practiced in his backyard shooting targets. But if you watch closely, you can tell his inexperience is quite conspicuous.

A lot of people have seen those posts on Facebook or Twitter saying that millennials are the problem. The generations before us used to bring guns to school and stow them away in their vehicles or lockers or shoot them at recess. This actually proves an interesting point.

Those generations were taught at a young age the right from wrong with firearms.

Those generations had parents that sat their kids down, taught them how to shoot, how to hunt, what to shoot, what not to shoot, and what actually happens if you shoot something you’re not supposed to.

Guns have changed since 1776, but the real problem is the people, and the way we raise them today. People no longer take part in the simple pleasures of trap shooting, target shooting, or hunting. People are distracted by violent video games, dangerous behaviors in movies and TV shows, and whatever devastating news comes over the social media feeds.

Do everyone a favor, teach your kids the importance of gun safety before they take on the teachings of modern entertainment outlets.