Let’s imagine that you are a parent (and if you are one, you don’t really need to do much imagining). You and your partner have a child – a 6-year-old daughter named Brooke. She is your entire world, and even though she can test your patience, you would go to the ends of the Earth to make sure she is happy, safe, and loved.
It’s the morning of December 14th and you and Brooke are getting ready for school. You packed her lunch, put on her favorite sneakers, and made sure she was wearing her winter coat. Things are always a bit hectic on school mornings, but Brooke’s excitement to get to school makes everything worth it. You recently met with her teacher, Ms. Miller, who said Brooke is doing extremely well in first grade and has a bright future ahead of her. All of the afternoons you both spent going over her addition and subtraction homework were worth it!
As you’re getting to ready to leave for school, you really start to think about how thankful you are for everything in your life. You have a roof over your head, food to eat, and most importantly – a family who you love more than anything. Brooke says that she’s ready to go, so you both go to the car, buckle up, and drive to school. It’s a normal Friday morning at Brooke’s elementary school, as you hug her goodbye and send her off to class.
You drive back home to your house and head inside to start getting ready for work. While you’re making your morning coffee, you see that you’re getting a phone call from Brooke’s school. You think it’s the school secretary, who’s going to tell you about another fundraiser she wants you to participate in. As you’re about to start telling her no thank you, you realize it’s not her voice on the other line. It’s a man’s, and what he tells you makes you drop your coffee on the floor. He says that there was a shooting at the school, and that Brooke was one of 20 children that were killed. You think this must be some sort of sick joke, and as you start screaming at this man through the phone about his distasteful and crude idea of a prank, your partner walks through the door, tears running down their face.
That’s when you realize this isn’t a sick joke or a distasteful prank. Your mind is all over the place… how could this happen here, in your small suburban town in Connecticut? It was supposed to be just a normal Friday morning. You were going to surprise Brooke this afternoon by taking her out for ice cream – but you can’t, because someone who was not fit to carry a gun was able to have easy access to one. The only thing you can do is cry. You’re unable to leave your bed for weeks. Brooke was your entire world, but your world has stopped turning.
For most of you, this will have all been imaginary. But for the families of the children that were killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, this is a harsh reality. Last week marks three years since Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and fatally shot 20 children and six adults. Since then, 1,044 mass shootings later, Congress has done little to nothing to improve the gun control laws in our country. Even when President Obama attempted to enact common sense gun legislation in 2013, his initiative to reduce gun violence was shut down by the Senate. In 2015 alone, the U.S has had 320 mass shootings, and it still appears that nothing is going to be done.
Why does America have such a unique problem with guns? In relation to other countries, The U.S is one of the few developed nations where mass shootings are considered the norm. When looking at gun control laws state by state, a correlation can be made between a state's gun related deaths and their gun control regulations. And while correlation does not mean causation (thanks to Comparative Political Analysis for drilling that into my brain), correlations can still be telling. 
When people argue that gun control laws are senseless because knives are just as dangerous, their argument really doesn't stand any ground, as it is much more difficult to kill a mass amount of people with a knife than it is to do with a gun. Additionally, out of 12,664 murder victims in 2011, 8,583 were killed by using firearms. That means that all of the other weapons account for 4,081 of the overall total, or put differently, only make up 32.3%. In conclusion: firearms accounted for 67.7% of weapons used for murders in 2011.
People will argue that guns don't kill people - people kill people. While yes, a gun by itself cannot walk into a classroom and fatally shoot a room of first graders, it would be a lot harder for a person to walk into a classroom and fatally stab a room full of first graders.
The right to bear arms is written in our constitution, but it's important to consider when this law was written and the types of firearms that were available at the time. In 1791, when the amendment was ratified, the guns that were used were significantly less powerful.
Now I'm not trying to say that the government should storm into people's houses and take their guns away. What I am saying, though, is that America does have a unique problem with guns and that even basic, comprehensive gun control legislation would be a step in the right direction. Instead, people will fight tooth and nail to continue to sleep with their AK-47 and AR-15 under their pillow. Politicians will keep selling their souls to the NRA, rather than stand up to an organization that values automatic rifles over the lives of 20 children.
Some of you might be thinking, "I'm just one person. What can I do to help stop gun violence?" However, there are a few actions you can take to help, such as calling your Senators and telling them to stand up to the NRA. I'm going to leave you all with a picture that I think sums everything up:
