In the wake of recent events, Senator Chris Murphy staged a 15-hour filibuster in an effort to force legislative action on gun control.

For those of you who have been out of your senior government class for a while, a filibuster is basically a prolonged speech that keeps things from progressing in a legislative assembly. Filibusters are extremely useful when it comes to hot-button legislation such as gun control because a majority vote for a filibuster to end.

During the filibuster, many politicians came to the floor to tell stories of gun violence to help sway the GOP into agreeing to vote on this particular gun control bill. Thankfully, the filibuster was successful, because in those 15 hours there were 38 shootings that killed 12 people and injured 12.

Between 11 a.m. on Wednesday, June, 15, and 2 a.m. Thursday, June, 16, there were shootings in Washington, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Montana, Illinois, New Mexico, Texas, Michigan, Tennessee, New York, Florida and Georgia. Which averages to a shooting every 23 minutes.

Since January 2013 1,065 Americans have been killed about 3,942 have been injured in mass shootings (which is defined as incidents involving 4 or more people) since January 2013 alone. This number doesn't take into account small shooting events that are even more common.

Statistics published by Vox on June, 15 2016, children under 18 made up a majority of mass shooting victims at around 14 percent. The youngest being twin girls killed at 5 months during a murder-suicide attack in Florida.

Gun control is an issue we see brought up pretty much primarily in the wake of a major tragedy such as Sandy Hook, the Charleston church shooting, and the recent shooting at Pulse nightclub. Granted, after Sandy Hook, we did see a sizable amount of change in regards to gun control laws at the time. This included better universal background check and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Guns are a very strange thing when it comes to our country's relation with them, as we are one of the few countries where the right to bear arms is protected in our constitution. But because of this, we are the most violent developed nation and it's largely due to the easy access we have to firearms as Americans. We have 4.4 percent of the world's population but 42 percent of all civilian-owned guns in the world. Statistically, the odds are stacked against us. More guns = more gun deaths.

Although gun related violence and gun death are technically (depending on your definitions of the two) on the rise, over the course of the last 20 years, Americans support "protecting the rights of Americans to own guns" rather than gun control. We saw a perfect example of this following the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. Despite almost all the casualties being young children and being the deadliest shooting at a school in record US history, more than half of Americans were outraged by the government's decision to ban assault weapons.

In my opinion, I strongly feel there is a need for some serious overhauling on the current gun control laws we have in place. Although I think completely banning guns would do more harm than good in the long run, there needs to be some control put into place. We know for a fact that states that have stricter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths. So why can't we just apply those same ideals across the country?

While it should be that easy, because Congress refuses to pass background checks on those buying guns it's severely hindering us from making any progress. Realistically, this change is only going to occur if a very large amount of guns are removed from a very large amount of Americans which is not going to go over smoothly. Even less radical laws like requiring gun purchasers to obtain a license first and not letting certain people (fugitives, people with misdemeanors, and those with restraining orders) purchase guns have done a lot to help the number of gun homicides and suicides fall.

Regardless of what you think about guns and the role they should or shouldn't play in society, I genuinely urge you to take a step back and look at what's happening here. Men, women and children of all races, religions, mental states and sexual orientations are dying at the hands of gun violence. The same firearms that you claim you need for protection are being used to kill opposing forces overseas. Is a gun for American really worth innocent lives?