Our 2025 Americans Against Gun Violence National High School Essay Contest is now open for entries from all U.S. high school students.
To enter the contest, students must submit an essay of 500 words or fewer describing their thoughts about the following excerpt from the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas’s opinion in the 1972 case of Adams v. Williams:
A powerful lobby dins into the ears of our citizenry that these gun purchases are constitutional rights protected by the Second Amendment, which reads, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
There is under our decisions no reason why stiff state laws governing the purchase and possession of pistols may not be enacted….There is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police.
We’ll be awarding at least $15,000 in scholarships distributed among 12 contest winners again this year, with a maximum award of $3,000, a minimum award of $250, and with the option of giving additional $100 awards, as we’ve done in most past years, if there are more than 12 outstanding essays. Full contest details and the online entry form are posted on the High School Essay Contest page of the Americans Against Gun Violence website. The deadline for students to enter the contest is Saturday, April 19.
We believe that that our annual High School Essay contest is an important way of fostering and rewarding critical thinking among high school age youth concerning the definitive measures needed to stop our country’s epidemic of gun violence and that the essay contest also provides students with a unique platform to publicly express their views on this topic. We would appreciate the help of all our supporters in bringing our 2025 contest to the attention of any high school students with whom you have contact. An contest flyer is available on the High School Essay Contest page of our website.
This is the eighth consecutive year that we’ve hosted the Americans Against Gun Violence National High School Essay Contest, and thanks to the generosity of supporters like you, this year’s contest will bring the total amount of scholarships awarded to over $125,000. The prompts for our past contests are listed below, and the winning essays in any given year can be accessed by clicking on the year of the prompt.
Tax deductible donations to support our annual high school essay contest can be made via the Join/Donate link on the Americans Against Gun Violence website. Our annual essay contest is run entirely with voluntary labor, and 100% of contributions to the essay contest fund go directly to student scholarship awards.
Thanks for your support of Americans Against Gun Violence and our annual National High School Essay Contest.
Past Americans Against Gun Violence Essay Contest Prompts 2018-2024
2018: “The time has now come that we must adopt stringent gun control legislation comparable to the legislation in force in virtually every civilized country in the world.” (Statement by the late Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut in a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate in June of 1968)
2019: “The Second Amendment guarantees no right to keep and bear a firearm that does not have ‘some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.’” (Excerpt from the majority opinion authored by the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun in the 1980 case of Lewis v. United States, in which Blackman quoted from the Supreme Court’s 1939 Miller decision.)
2020: “Firearm regulations, to include bans of handguns and assault weapons, are the most effective way to reduce firearm-related injuries.” (Position statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics, published in the journal, Pediatrics, in April 2000)
2021: “Describe the effect on American youth of the confluence of our country’s longstanding gun violence epidemic with the current Covid-19 pandemic and the threat of violent insurrection; and describe what role you believe the adoption of stringent gun control laws should play at this critical time in our nation’s history.”
2022: “If I were writing the Bill of Rights now, there wouldn't be any such thing as the Second Amendment…. This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud - I repeat the word ‘fraud’ - on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.” (Statement made by the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger during an interview on the PBS News Hour on December 16, 1991)
2023: Describe your thoughts about lockdown drills conducted in response to the threat of shootings on American school campuses.
2024: “In creating constitutional obstacles, where none previously existed, to the adoption of stringent gun control laws in the United States comparable to the laws in other high income democratic countries, the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision and its progeny are literally death sentences for tens of thousands of Americans annually.” (Excerpt from the 2024 mission statement of Americans Against Gun Violence)
