There Should Be Stricter Gun Control Laws - Statement Of High School Student Abigail Nesson From Vermont, Submitted To The House Of Representatives From Bernard Sanders (i-vt), August 7, 1998

I believe that our forefathers had the right idea. Their wish was to create a safe and free nation for all of us to live in, and they wrote this to prove it: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America."

I am here today to talk to you about guns. The widespread availability of these weapons is frightening and wrong. Thousands are killed every year in our country by guns bought legally, guns made not to hunt animals but to hunt humans. Many have killed or have been killed by the time they reach my age, if they ever do.

I am a strict constructionist when it comes to the preamble and the Second Amendment, meaning I believe that our forefathers wrote just what they meant. They meant for the Constitution to increase domestic tranquillity and general welfare and, especially, common defense. I believe—I know—that the guns that are available today do none of these things. I believe and I know that our forefathers would agree, because I refuse to think that the intention of the ones who wrote the Constitution was to put lethal weapons in the hands of every person who wanted one. That is not "a well-regulated militia." No, their intention was to ensure that safety and freedom for us, their posterity.

I propose that we follow the words of the preamble and of our constitution. I propose that we take a step to make our nation safe again, for me and for the children I want to have some day. I propose we remove the guns from our streets, our homes and our hands.