It's all too familiar; the running headlines, the photos of panicked parents and friends, the coverage on every news station, the memorials of the fallen.... 294 times. This scene has re-run in front of our very eyes 294 times just in 2015 alone. That equates to at least one a day, as 294 days have not yet passed this year.

So, why? Why have we not done anything about it? We blame the gunman, not the gun. We blame it on mental illness, and then discreetly dismiss it. Maybe that's because it's the same story. A white male, usually in his 20s, usually an outcast, usually deemed mentally ill. You see, we're no longer surprised.

"He was a nice enough boy."

"This is too terrible, it can't be him."

"He couldn't have done something like this."

"He seemed so happy."

Obviously, something went wrong along the way. Sure, it's easy to blame it on mental illness, but it's also easy to imagine what might have happened had the shooter not had a gun accessible to them. You see, in other countries, mass shootings are rarities. Meanwhile, in the U.S., they have become nothing out of the ordinary. Other countries have anti-gun laws, the U.S. has the NRA. As shown by the visual below, out of a population of 7.13 billion people, of which the United States makes up 4.43 percent, almost half of civilian-owned guns in the world belong to U.S. citizens.

So what's wrong with this picture? The problem is that people are so quick to justify their gun ownership. They insist that they need a gun in order to feel safe--which should not be the case in a well-developed country such as the United States. I highly doubt that I am the only person who feels uncomfortable that conceal and carry laws allow people to have guns on their person, whenever and wherever they please. There is no comfort knowing that the lady in the aisle next to me at the grocery store, the man next to me at a stoplight, or the lady sitting in front of me at church could be carrying around a handgun. I mean, what's the point? Then we see hunters join the conversation and explain that they only have guns to kill animals for sport. However, it is almost as if killing people has become a sport instead.

These gun enthusiasts are very quick to back up their viewpoint with the U.S. Constitution. Yes, the Constitution does grant U.S. citizens the right to bear arms. However, the Constitution does not grant a man the right to go into a movie theatre and kill 12 people because he was angry. It does not grant a man the right to walk into a church and kill nine people because of the color of their skin. It does not grant a man the right to drive through a college campus and kill six people because girls would not have sex with him. It does not grant a man the right to charge into an elementary school and kill 26 people because he was not mentally stable. It does not grant a man the right to enter a classroom at a community college and kill nine people because of their religion. You see a recurring theme here? A gun. You want to know the solution? Gun control laws--that is the only way.

You'd think it would've stopped after Newtown. But then again, if 20 kindergarteners being mercilessly killed doesn't end the cycle, will anything? We have waited too long for change. It is almost ridiculous at this point, how a country like ours can be so terrified of terrorism, yet we put mass shootings on the back burner. What if I told you that between 2001-2013, there have been 3,380 deaths because of terrorism in the U.S. Now, compare that to the deaths in relation to gun violence in the U.S. from 2001-2013, which is 406,496. When will it end? When will we realize that something needs to be done? We, as a country, cannot afford for this cycle to continue.

As President Obama explained during his address this past week following the shooting at Umbqua Community College in Oregon, "We have become numb to this." Mass shootings no longer shock us. Sure, we are grief-stricken for a day or two, but until it hits close to home, we can never fully understand. However, we cannot wait for it to hit close to home. We cannot allow things to continue on as they have been. This routine that we have fallen into as a country needs to come to an end, because "our thoughts and prayers are not enough." It is time that people who insist on fighting guns with more guns realize how idiotic that concept truly is. It is time that America gets a grip on the situation and not the trigger. It is time that I feel safe in my own country.

So, how many will it take? Not any more.