With all of the events of the past few years, and the stark difference in how America addresses terrorism in comparison to other countries, there is an abundance of evidence that we should do something. The worst thing about these terrorist attacks, except of course the obvious pain it causes, is that we don’t seem to want to enact policy to correct it. The tides of change move slow in politics, and those of us who are frustrated with our inaction are painted in the broad-brush of being reactionary. In order to change the discussion away from a knee-jerk reaction, we need to change tact to societal prevention.

For a change, we need to tie our reliance on guns to the greater scope of violence in America and make a clearer argument for why gun control is necessary. Terrorism is the symptom, not the cause. The true culprit is our general ideology around guns because terrorist’s xenophobia cannot be regulated. However, the mix of fear mongering, accessible and normalcy of guns, is what allows for these events to happen.

Logically, our media is inaccurately inflating violence in America. News only talks about the stories, the Islamic terrorism, the violent criminals, the homophobic laws, and this is stirring this base fear that America is breaking down. This fear is what is driving us to cling to our guns, and deny its role in the violence in our society. But because it’s based on this fear, our perception of guns’ role is completely backward.

In fact, crime is low compared to what is was at its height in the 20s, but we only think that it is rising due to our 24-hour news cycle. In addition, violent crime is the least common of the crimes committed. The majority of crime is non-violent, not even warranting protection at all. Not only that, out of the crimes that would even use guns to protect against, the majority is property crime. Half the time you will not even be home when your house is being robbed, and if you are home, chances are you will be asleep throughout the entire robbery. What are the guns even protecting against? Even with crime on the decline, guns remain the top factor of violent crime, domestic violence, and theft, while simultaneously being the least successful factors in preventing crimes. So what is the point of arming citizens with a tool that has practically no use in their hands, and in fact is better served to commit crimes?

Yet we still cling to the mantra created by the NRA, that the only way of preventing crime is having a gun. When you look at the world, weighing common day-to-day with the ugliness on the TV, you see that it is not as scary as it seems, and we can look at reform, not from a sense of fear, but of the cold reality that guns don’t help us, only hurt us.

You see, guns need more control not because of terrorism, we need it despite terrorism.

We need it because guns don’t prevent terrorism, it just normalizes having a gun, making the distinction between someone about to commit a crime, and someone armed to the teeth to prevent crime, is indistinguishable up until people start dying.

There is a reason why malls get closed by people carrying around swords. It is because words are not normal, and we make the connection between violence and swords. Had we had the same idea about guns, that it is something to look out for and monitor, there would be so much more transparency around who might commit the next violent outburst. Maybe instead of focusing on the semantics of how deadly a weapon should be, we should talk about the idea of everyone being able to have a way to kill ten people in half a minute should not be normal.

With this in mind, we cannot simply advocate for no guns at all, because that would seem like a breach of ethics. Despite owning a gun not making statistical sense, it does make legal sense. We do need to have some form of weapons that the citizens can arm themselves with. After all, it has been shown that owning a gun does lower your perception of how violent the world is, even if it is mostly perspective. We need better grounds for depriving people fully of their constitutional right. So what we need to do, is enact enough policy to show that the world is safe without counting on vigilante justice. That the appeal of guns is more our vanity and our fantasy for powerful weapons, and less logically founded right. It should be like everyone’s right to assemble, free for all, but simply not exercised unless there is an actual need.

I am tired of the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” because no one is saying “heroin doesn’t kill people”, although both relate to our purposeful choice to remain addicted to self-destructive things. I am weary from the unwillingness to even admit that this can be something to try.

The constant uphill climb, the constant closing of our eyes, the never-ending search for peace in a country of warriors, is exhausting. I think the only reason why gun control is so big after a terrorist attack is not because we are reactionary, but because it is a reminder of our inaction. In the face of all of the gun violence that is just packaged as how the world works; the mob warfare, the homicides, the suicides, the domestic violence, the manslaughter; it is the terrorist attacks that break us out of our monotonous drone, and reminds us of the peace we are fighting for.

I am ready to move forward, and make some actual changes; if anything to see if something can make a difference.

Let’s end the violence; regulate our weapons.