Issue 2013: Gun Control, Immigration Reform, Debt, & Gridlock

by Rina Dhawlikar

As we move into 2013 and the second term of President Barack Obama, the nation stands at a crossroads. The people need to choose between the constitutional rights to carry arms versus gun control. The recent tragedy in Newton, Connecticut has brought the gun control debate front and center again. It was truly heartbreaking when children under 10 were shot at random by a possibly mentally ill adult. In my personal opinion, while legally everyone has the right to carry arms to defend themselves, nobody needs assault weapons like the ones used in the killings in Connecticut, and Colorado.  A ban on assault weapons and background checks on people buying guns would go a long way in making America safer. Mental Illness also needs to be aggressively recognized and treated. Recently, New York State has taken the lead in enforcing these background checks and mental illness reporting by doctors. This should be followed by the other states in the union as well.

The other challenge that our nation needs to confront is the issue of immigration. While the US has a lot of illegal immigrants who tend to use up the resources and possibly be a burden on our health care system, there are also a lot of talented students coming to the US legally but are turned away to go back to their homeland. These students should be given a path to citizenship so as to retain the talent in the US. Recent studies have shown that our education system is falling behind other developing nations such as Korea, India, and China. While our universities train several such PhD’s, they should be incorporated into the American society legally so as to be an asset to the nation. The illegal immigrants should also have a path to citizenship so that they can pay taxes and contribute to the economy.

 A third extremely important challenge facing the nation is the rapidly escalating debt and deficit. The deficit has climbed to more than sixteen trillion dollars. This is a significant and ever increasing burden on the young generation such as mine. Our generation will eventually be left with paying for the debt of the older generations if this is not fixed quickly and permanently. There has to be a balanced approach to solving this problem. While some taxes need to be raised to get more money, it is extremely important to restrain spending so that the debt doesn’t grow.

 A lot of the current problems are attributable to the partisan gridlock in Washington, DC. Both Democrats and Republicans need to compromise in the nation’s interest and not take extreme positions. The president needs to take a lead in this process, as have previous successful presidents. I hope these problems are sincerely approached and solved in a bipartisan way so that America can once again be the shining city on the hill as Ronald Regan referred to.