The last time I said this, I got sent to the Dean of Discipline in high school and almost got suspended. The last time I said this, I got weird stares because I made a bunch of democrats feel uncomfortable. The last time I said this, it was 2014. A lot of things have happened since then that proved my point, so I will gladly say it again.

I would first like to point out, that I truly believe that the whole debate on gun control is a distraction from the real issues. Our government likes to let us debate on things like terrorism and police brutality. The politicians like us to get mad about those touchy topics because they know it will divide us. See, if we all got along we would be focused on how corrupt our leaders are. We would stop and realize that the root of our problems as a nation, isn’t so simple. No, it’s not so easily black versus white or cops versus civilians or Muslims versus Christians; it’s the people versus the system.

To tell you the truth, I think it would be foolish to have no gun control whatsoever. Yes, the Second Amendment is a crucial part of our Constitution, but I don’t think just anyone can buy a gun. Yes, there does need to be a strict background check for people who are willing to purchase one and so on and so forth, but what people fail to realize is that you CANNOT regulate every single thing. You cannot prevent a sane person from getting a gun and becoming insane enough to shoot up a public place even if you pass a whole bunch of different laws on it. People who do things like that a lot of times break the law and don’t care about it anyway.

When you’re writing an essay in class and you misspell a word, did your pen misspell it or did you? Do guns kill people or do people kill people? Saying that a gun was responsible for the San Bernardino shooting is like saying that the car is responsible for a car accident. Are we going to ban cars too? Well, no we’re not because we need them.

If you have listened to the Democratic debates at any time in the past year, you probably heard Hillary Clinton say that over 33,000 people are killed by gun violence every year. This is actually true according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but like every politician, Clinton uses statistics to her own liking (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm). In 2013, there were 33,636 gun deaths, but 63% of these gun deaths were suicides, not homicides (http://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/hillary-clinton-on-gun-deaths/). So now, we have to look at how to stop suicidal people from getting a gun. Well, we can’t. The truth is if you are that depressed, you will find a way to end your life. Yes, the guy at a gun store can deny you a gun if he believes you are mentally unstable, but there are plenty of ways to do harm to yourself or others.

Let’s talk about the Boston Marathon bombings. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev used two pressure cookers as bombs with a set timer (http://www.history.com/topics/boston-marathon-bombings). They killed and wounded people, and they didn’t even use a gun. They just used the Internet. Are we going to ban pressure cookers now? Well, no we’re not because we need them. Yes, this was a terrorist attack, and I’m sure you’ll point out that it is more common for people in America to use guns than bombs given the recent mass shootings. Let’s talk about other terrorist attacks like in Orlando. When Omar Mateen came into a gay nightclub that had a sign that said “Gun-free Zone,” he knew no one could stop him. It took the police to kill him with their guns when he had already shot 49 people. The damage was done, but maybe the death toll could have been lowered if the employees were all trained and had a handgun ready.

What about Dylann Roof in the Charleston Church shooting? That was clearly a terrorist attack and a hate crime, but we focused on the Confederate flag and gun control. What about Chattanooga? Another terrorist attack, but on OUR military, and we wanted more gun control. Some even wanted our military to be disarmed. What about Dallas? Another hate crime, but not even our President will call it that. He just mentioned gun control.

Distractions. Our leaders will never fix the problems they can’t identify. We are more divided than ever. Go ahead and blame the guns each and every time a shooting occurs. Go ahead and cry racism every time the media decides to show a white cop killing a black man instead of a black cop killing a white man. That’s not to say that racism doesn’t exist because it does, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the ratings. What will make people angry? What will get people fired up? The media and our administration have an agenda, and it is not in your favor. Our government does not care what you think unless it’s what they want you to think. Stop fighting with the person next to you and look at the hypocrites at the podium. The ones who are saying that they will change things but never do. The ones who say that guns are the problem when armed bodyguards protect them everyday. So should we still ban guns? Well, no we shouldn’t because we need them. We need to protect ourselves from the criminals, the terrorists, and the establishment. After all, the purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect the citizens from tyranny.

The democrats can yell all they want about more gun control, but I can’t even count all the ones who told me they will be hiding behind me when a shooting occurs. Gee, I wonder why.