110 Americans are shot every day in this country. About 46,000 a year. And every time it happens, we get the same useless debate — Democrats demand gun bans, Republicans offer thoughts and prayers, and nothing changes.
I'm done with both sides of that conversation.
I'm a Republican. I'm a gun rights supporter. The Second Amendment is not negotiable under my administration. Not ever. But I'm also not going to stand here and pretend Americans aren't dying while politicians use their deaths as campaign material.
The problem is that everyone treats "gun violence" like it's one issue. It's not. It's three completely different crises, and each one requires a different solution. Until we're honest about that, nothing gets fixed.
The First Crisis: Suicide
This is the one nobody wants to talk about. Roughly 28,000 Americans die by firearm suicide every year. That's 60% of all gun deaths. More than homicides and mass shootings combined.
These aren't criminals. These are veterans. Fathers. Teenagers. People in gun-owning households going through the darkest moment of their lives with a loaded weapon within arm's reach.
And the political response? Nothing. Democrats ignore it because it doesn't fit the gun ban narrative. Republicans ignore it because acknowledging it feels like an attack on gun ownership. So 28,000 people die every year in silence.
I've experienced mental health challenges personally. I know what it's like to need help and not seek it — not because you don't know you need it, but because the system makes it too hard. Good therapists cost $200 an hour. Affordable options have six-month waitlists. Insurance companies treat mental health like it's optional. State facilities are overwhelmed.
Here's what I'll actually do:
Fund community mental health centers and telehealth in rural and underserved areas using savings from my Federal Digital Systems Administration — no new taxes required. Enforce insurance parity so your mental health visit costs the same copay as a physical health visit. Expand voluntary safe storage programs to any American in crisis — you call, you drop off your firearms temporarily, no registries, no confiscation, no government tracking. Just keeping people alive until the moment passes. And fund school-based counseling so we identify students in crisis before they become a statistic.
No president can eliminate depression or suicidal ideation. But a president can make sure help is actually available when someone is ready for it. Right now, it's not. That changes under my administration.
The Second Crisis: Homicide
Roughly 15,000 Americans are murdered with firearms every year. The vast majority — and I mean the overwhelming majority — involve illegally obtained handguns in communities where economic opportunity collapsed decades ago.
An assault weapons ban wouldn't touch this. Not even close. Rifles of all types account for a small fraction of gun homicides. Banning AR-15s is political theater designed to make suburban liberals feel like they did something. It does nothing for the communities actually losing people.
Here's what works: consequences so severe that people genuinely think twice before picking up an illegal gun.
Illegal gun possession — automatic 10 years. No exceptions. No plea bargains down to 18 months. Ten years.
Use a gun in a crime — severe mandatory sentence on top of whatever else you're charged with.
Take a life — automatic life in prison. No parole. You made a permanent choice, you get a permanent consequence.
And to be clear — this is about violent crime. Nonviolent offenses are different. I'm not filling prisons with people who made dumb mistakes that didn't hurt anyone. But if you pick up an illegal gun and take a life? That's a choice you don't come back from.
Before we add a single new gun law, we should enforce the ones we already have. Fix the gaps in the background check database. Prosecute people who fail background checks and try to buy anyway. Hold agencies accountable when they fail to report disqualifying records. The current system has holes big enough to drive a truck through — plug them before demanding new restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.
The Third Crisis: Mass Shootings
Mass shootings account for less than 3% of all gun deaths. But they account for 100% of the political debate. Every time one happens, Democrats propose bans on weapons that millions of Americans legally own, and Republicans say we need to pray harder. Neither side has a plan that would actually stop the next one.
I do. Because I built one.
I'm the developer behind XWD — Xavier Weapon Detection — an AI-powered camera system that detects brandished weapons in real time and alerts school administration within seconds. Not minutes. Seconds. The difference between a response time of 4 seconds and 4 minutes is dozens of lives.
Every school in America already has security cameras. XWD doesn't add new surveillance. It makes existing cameras intelligent. No facial recognition databases. No tracking students. It detects weapons, not identities.
I will deploy XWD to every public school in America at zero cost to school districts. Funded entirely through FDSA savings. A school district's budget should not determine whether children are safe. Period.
But I'm not stopping there. The federal government has detection technology that most Americans don't know exists — millimeter-wave scanning, infrared thermal imaging, standoff concealed weapon detection. The same technology that protects government buildings and airports. Schools don't have access to it. Churches don't have access to it. Hospitals don't have access to it.
As president, I will declassify and deploy advanced detection technology to every school, house of worship, and public venue in America. If the government has tools that can identify a concealed weapon before it's drawn, those tools should be protecting children — not gathering dust in a federal warehouse.
These systems detect weapons — not identities — and are designed to protect safety without infringing privacy.
What I Won't Do
I will not support an assault weapons ban. I will not support a federal gun registry. I will not support federal red flag laws that strip your rights before you've been convicted of anything. I will not support magazine capacity limits. And I will protect gun manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits that blame the maker of a legal product for criminal misuse.
29 states already have constitutional carry. Law-abiding Americans should not need government permission to exercise a constitutional right. I support that, and I'll protect it at the federal level.
Why I'm Different
Every Republican candidate will tell you they support the Second Amendment. I do too. But that's where most of them stop. They protect your rights and offer nothing for the 46,000 people dying every year.
Every Democratic candidate will tell you they want to stop gun violence. But their plans all start with taking something away from law-abiding citizens and end with criminals ignoring the new laws the same way they ignored the old ones.
I'm in a different lane. I protect your rights completely — no bans, no registries, no confiscation, no compromise on the Second Amendment. And I deploy technology that actually saves lives. Technology I built with my own hands.
No other candidate has built the detection system. No other candidate has a deployment plan funded without new taxes. No other candidate is breaking gun violence into three separate crises with three separate solutions based on what the data actually shows.
Every parent deserves to know their child can go to school and come home safely. I'm going to make that happen — without touching your guns.