LaPay 1

Margot LaPay
Park City Day School
3120 Pinebrook Road
Park City, Utah 84098
mlapay@parkcitydayschool.org

8 March 2017

Honorable Mike Lee

Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building
125 South State, Suite 4225
Salt Lake City, UT 84138

Dear Mike Lee,

Hello, my name is Margot LaPay and I am a 12 year old student at Park City Day School. I live
in Park City, Utah and I am concerned about gun control. I know that you think that we should
have less control, but I think that we should have more. I think that everyone who owns a gun
should go to a scheduled class. Anyone that has a serious crime on their record should not be
able to own a gun. I know that many think that without owning a gun there will be more death,
but what will be causing those deaths if there are no irresponsible people with guns?

Again, when more irresponsible people own guns, there will be more depths. In 2014 there were
14,249 murders committed; 68% of those murders were caused by firearms. A 2014 U.S. Justice
Department study of 404,638 convicts released from state prisons in 2005 found that within five
years of their release, 77% were arrested for committing a new offense and 29% were arrested
for committing a violent offense and 17% were visibly armed with firearms. For every 15 serious
crimes that take place only about 1 of them actually get put into jail and charged. All of these
studies showed that there are way too many crimes caused by firearms.

I think that for someone to be able to own a firearm that they need to take a safety class and have
no serious crimes on their records. I know that this will cost money, but that money will be put to
good use. There should be classes that are provided by the government, and they should teach
someone the responsibilities of owning a gun, what they can get charged for and what not to do. I
believe that this should not be a state level court decision; I think that it should be on a federal
level. This should be federal because this needs to happen everywhere, we need to see change.
We need to see the change through the entire country because then we can make sure that we
inforse it, usual laws that are state level are not taken as seriously as things that are country level.
 LaPay 2

In conclusion, I think that we should put more control on guns. The more control on guns that we
have the more control we will have on crime. I hope that this letter will change your mind or give
you a different point of view on gun control for our country.

Sincerely,

Margot LaPay