In the wake of the recent University of California Los Angeles campus shooting, there has been even more talk about the issue of gun control in the United States. While it may not be clear to some in this country, the epidemic of shootings in this country seems to not be going anywhere, and may even be getting worse.

While the issue of shootings in the United States is related to many different places and situations, I was more curious as to why college campuses seem to be one of the most popular places for these tragic events. What peaked my curiosity in the first place is because I am sophomore in college currently and never really recognized the threat of a college shooting happening on my campus. Mostly because, like most people, I blocked out the idea of something that traumatic happening to my own personal school because it’s not something that I necessarily want to think about. However, in reality the threat of a college campus shooting is actually real.

I don’t want to sound like a martyr or scare anyone into thinking that there in danger on their campus, but when you look at the recent history of shootings and see the percentage of them that are done on campuses it’s pretty eye-opening. According to an article in Time magazine out of the 52 school shootings in 2015, 23 of them were on a college campus, also published was a list of all of the college campus shootings in the year 2015 and some of them I didn’t even know took place.

So why has there been a rise in college shootings recently? Some of these, like the recent UCLA shooting were predetermined where the shooter knew who he was there to kill and others were not. Regardless of the fact of whether it was a predetermined or not, it’s still an epidemic that is continuing to rise and threatening the student’s around this country.

It’s obviously easier said than done to say that something has to change when it comes to gun control in the United States and since that seems to be a slow moving change we as a nation have to be aware of threat to our campuses and how we can stay safe. There’s obviously no need to live in constant fear everyday of something happening on campuses, but that slim possibility of something tragic happening should be enough for campuses to take a stand. Whether this is even going over a plan if something like a shooting took place or being more strict when it comes to police/security on campus.

As for the students on campus, it’s up to use too to try to keep safe as well. If you do happen to see something suspicious or don’t feel right about then don’t feel bad to report it.

Since the country is not doing a good job at keeping us safe when it comes to gun violence, it is time we take our safety into our own hands.