Four years ago, residents of Newtown, Connecticut, faced a horrific incident that raised questions about gun control firearms in the United States. On the morning news, I saw a headline that said “Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting.” This incident is the deadliest mass school shooting in U.S. history. The tragedy involved a twenty-year-old man who shot and killed twenty children aged six and seven after killing his mother. Shortly after we arrived at school, everyone was talking about the school shooting, saying, "Have you heard about the shooting?" or “He killed so many innocent children!” On social media, my feed was filled with debates about gun control in the United States. Discussions included mandating background check systems and federal and state laws that would ban the sale and manufacture of certain firearms. Everyone was terrified after learning of the death of twenty young students by one man. As I scrolled through my newsfeed, I was hit with a wave of anxiety knowing that something of this caliber could happen at my school. The Sandy Hooks Elementary School shooting revealed that the state government should mandate increased training and education for licensed gun owners, public school teachers and students. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Guns don't always cause school shootings and robberies; they can also provide protection to the gun owner. For example, approximately 48% of gun owners own them for protection (“average American”). Dating back to the American colonies, firearms were used for protection and later as weapons for the American War of Independence (“Problem Background”). Consider this; violent criminals will always have a gun in their possession, so why can't people carry a gun to avoid becoming a victim in a shooting? Responsible citizens carry concealed weapons to gain a sense of safety and security. With concealed weapons, the number of murders, rapes and assaults is reduced (“Should Adults”). For example, in a situation where a woman is about to be raped, the victim draws a gun towards the attacker's face. This warns the offender to back away or be fatally shot in the face. Owning a gun is not a bad thing, but with great power comes great responsibility. This is why every citizen must be educated about gun ownership and use to prevent an incident like the Sandy Hooks shooting from happening again. With this in mind, state government should increase training and education for gun owners to reduce murder and shooting rates. But why impose training and education instead of gun control and laws? According to Douglas Murray in "Handguns, Gun Control Laws and Firearm Violence," he found that states with stricter gun laws coincided with lower homicide rates. There was also no significant difference in crime rates between states with gun laws and those without (Murray). By increasing firearms education and training, we can then reduce the misuse of firearms. Courses could focus on the pressures of ownership,.