I'm very well aware of the effect this article is going to have, the way it is going to be perceived, and the negative comments and feedback many different people are going to have on it. When it comes to the second amendment, and what people think the term "the right to bear arms" entails, it varies from person to person and situation to situation. I've always been anti- gun, from growing up in a household with a police officer as a father and having to worry about what he could face when going out that night, or simply as a human being watching the news and never seeing ANY good come from a machine made to kill.

It's impossible to talk about mass shootings such as the one in Orlando without talking about guns. We can talk about terrorism, sure. We can talk about how it was a hate crime, or how it wasn't. We can talk about how "he was mentally ill", or how "he wasn't raised right", or how "maybe he was just dropped on his head as a child". But all of those factors aside, all of these sticking points not applicable, mass shootings come down to one factor: guns.

Guns are dangerous. Guns in the wrong (and right hands) kill. Guns do more harm than good, and weapons of mass destruction have no reason to be in the hands of an average citizen. What happened in Orlando was a MASS SHOOTING, done with a GUN. When this tragedy happened, people everywhere rightly sent their condolences and tried to find the root of the problem. We blamed it on terrorism. We said "Omar was of the Muslim faith! He pledged allegiance to ISIS and then killed those people!" We said he acted out of the radical Islam religion, therefore it was an act of terror, and on some front the people sticking to that story are right. It was an act of terror, but we need to stop picking and choosing what we want to label as an act of terror in America when we are only doing so with what fits in our bubble of labels we create. We as Americans considered this an act of terror because he was of the Muslim background but what about Sandy Hook? Was that not an act of terror because the shooter was white? Omar was born and raised in the United States of America, just like the Sandy Hook shooter. These two heavily disturbed individuals had many things in common, one being that they were able to get their hands on an assault weapon and kill many. One we label as "Terrorism" while the other we do not; simply because of the color of the person's skin.

The ideals of radical Islam didn't kill these people in the nightclub, considering the fact ideals (no matter how powerful), cannot pull the trigger to an AR-15. We need to start limiting the means in which these harmful and disturbed individuals can execute the horrible ideas they have- and that's starting with guns. Second amendment lovers and gun enthusiasts alike all say the same thing; "Guns in the right hands don't kill anyone" or "People kill people, guns don't" or "I know how to use a gun it isn't harmful" and I call BS on every, single one of those statements. You have NO idea if a gun is going to land in the right or wrong hands, considering someone does not have to sign a paper saying "I won't commit a mass shooting with this gun" when purchasing it. And yes, you're right, people kill people, but mentally ill people kill people with the help of a gun. Omar could have walked into the nightclub and just preached his words of hate, and no harm would have been inflicted other than a few hurt feelings. But instead he chose to spread his ideals with bullets, bullets that would lead to the loss of 49 AMAZING individuals, bullets that were shot from a gun he obtained legally and never should have.

People keep saying, "If someone wants to get a gun they will, legally or illegally". Well the funny thing is, in almost every mass shooting we've had in the past year the gun has been obtained legally because IT IS NOT DIFFICULT. We need to decided to take a stand against guns and realize they are hurting our kids, our minorities, or families, our country. Take a stand.