Personal Narrative: Gun Control Reform

When I was 14 years old, and a freshman in high school, I took a stance. This stance was controversial at the time, but is something that I believe in ever more strongly today. This stance was on gun control reform. I wrote a bill and presented it to the Minnesota State Legislature.
I wrote this bill shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. My bill primarily addressed limitations on the type of gun and more stringent background checks, including restrictions on mentally ill. I did a lot of research when making determinations of what to include and exclude from the bill. I thought for the most part it was reasonable common sense gun control reform. However, while lobbying, I found out that there were legislators and other lobbyists that were very passionate on the other side of the issue. I received emails and phone calls from people that were clearly angry and upset by what this bill was trying to accomplish. …show more content…
I have a brother who suffers from mentally illness and I saw many of the traits of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, in my brother. He is one of the nicest people I know. However, with the condition he suffers from, he has extreme mood swings. He can go from the happiest person in the world, then become extremely mad and extremely violent out of nowhere, then once he calms down become very apologetic for what he had just done. There were a number of times that he threated to hurt himself, hurt us, and would physically come after us. As a family, we had to make escape plans, and lock up and hide anything that could be used as a weapon, including knifes from the kitchen and tools from the garage. Because of this, I grew up learning how to protect my