This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

When a tragic event happens in life and it is reported nationally, people have many different opinions on why this happened and who they are blaming.

Recently there has been an event that has caused plenty of controversy, the San Bernardino shootings. This event had a large amount of fatalities because the government allows civilians to own military-grade weapons.

What I don't understand is why civilians think that they need the right to own these types of weapons. There is nothing that a civilian can do with a military-grade weapon besides shoot it for fun.

These guns are too powerful to go hunting, and that is why these types of guns are illegal to hunt with. The only reasons to have guns are to go hunting and to protect yourself. A civilian does not need a military weapon for protection.

The government needs to increase the amount of gun control and make automatic weapons illegal. Doing this would lower the amount of mass shootings.

Adam Monsen

South Jordan