It seems this summer instead of our usual servings of July 4th food recipes, music concerts, and afternoon gossip shows, we turn on the tv and local news channels to view the morbidity of gun rampages, shootings, terrorists attacks, and countless injuries and deaths. What has our world come too? In a country where we are completely granted freedom to do and express ourselves as we please, it is hard to come to a “right answer” when it comes to gun control, immigration laws, and public safety. Tragedies such as the monumental ones that took place this past year, call us to reflect on the importance of human life and humanity as a whole.

Through this past year’s various global epidemic killings, the awareness for human safety has become a forefront of importance for most Americans. Attacks on our brothers and sisters in European countries has evoked a call to action from us, members of the land of the free, and has influenced individuals views on how to respond to these threats. Since the attacks in Lebanon and Paris, the storm of terrorists attacks and rampant firings on innocent bystanders, has caused the American public to have, what some might say, a rebirth of McCarthyism. During the late 1900’s, American citizens became weary of their Soviet partners, and began to falsely and unjustly accuse immigrants of communist ideals. Not to say that some of these assumptions were not true, but because of the heightened fear and need for protection, we made it our mission to have a country remain a safe haven, which in some cases meant exiling potential threats. This practice could be seen today, through inappropriate wrongs done to our Islamic brothers and sisters due to a portion of Islamic terrorists. The same is said for mentally unstable individuals who have performed intense attacks on innocent bystanders, forcing all disabled Americans to be put in the same “Beware” pool.

You would think that after years of suffrage, progression, laws and rulings, that American citizens, no matter their ancestry, beliefs, culture, or race, can be treated as individuals and not be categorized into an entire entity. What we as activists need to understand is that guns and machinery are not the issues. It is the people behind them. Growing up, I was taught and practiced using a firearm safely and correctly, and learning that a gun was a tool, and could only be operated if someone stood behind it. These monumental tragedies occur not because of a batch of eggs, but because of a few rotten ones, that abuse the system and their rights to exercise responsibilities safely and cautiously.

During this upcoming election year, as a first year voter, I become weary of what our country will have to face. My liberal tendencies persuade me to want my fellow Americans to exercise their freedoms the same as I do, and to not have to be penalized or wronged due to their races’ failure to see human life as something of value. Killing, no matter the reason or circumstance, is wrong. Especially, when presently 151,600 die each day, it is hard not to feel a sense of loss and pain for those loved ones and those affected by these passings. My more conservative side urges me to think of my countries safety, my families safety, and my potential future and family. The hopes and dreams I had of traveling the world, have been put to a standstill because of my fear of not knowing. And honestly that is what it is; on a global scale, no one is safe. There is violence, turmoil, and injustice everywhere-big or small- and it can happen at any moment and at any time. Paris, Nice, London, Belgium, Orlando; innocent people, committing routine acts, and in an instant having their lives taken away.

Now this is not to state that I will never travel, and that I have never not, at one point in my life, profiled someone. But as American citizens we need to visualize the bigger picture here. What is the next step? How do we not only make a difference in our home front, but also to our neighboring brothers and sisters who are suffering a plethora of loss and chaos? The world we live in today continues to evolve, and will progress. But we have the power to control the outcome, we have the ability to make the change we want to see in the world.