I don’t own a gun. I know several people that do, I’ve even fired several of them, but I do not own one. I respect your right to own one and I respect how much passion and care you have for your property. If people were questioning censorship of video games or movies to the extent that people are talking about gun control I’d be equally upset and willing to put a stop to it. You’re not killers, you’re not all inherently wrong. There are good arguments that come from your side just as there good arguments that come from the contrary. I’ll admit that people have painted a narrative of us-versus-them; it’s the gun-owners versus the sensible people who don’t own any or want gun regulation.

However, you’re not helping matters either. You’re not solving anything by saying that now isn’t the time or accusing these teens who, for the record are practicing their rights as citizens in a democracy, of not having proper experience or saying that they’re actors lining their pockets with money from liberal lobbyists. To those of you who push that narrative, I don’t think I should tell you how ashamed you should feel. These are individuals who are trying to fight and change a system that has harmed them and their loved ones. America, as we know it today, was built on people like them. Not people like you who sit there complacent and unwilling to even humor the idea of change and legitimate progress.

You’re right. This isn’t about Trump and guns don’t kill people. They’re inanimate objects. However, your argument of “guns don’t kill, people do” is inherently flawed. Let’s break down this statement based on each fact from an objective point of view. There are people who will kill no matter what, it’s true. We’ve had psychopaths and monsters in our midst for decades; our Charles Manson's, Ted Bundy's, Ed Gein's, and John Wayne Gacy's. They found ways to kill several people, some of them even having killed dozens, without the use of a firearm. This is true and we’re no doubt going to have several more monsters to come. We’ve already seen several stabbings and mass vehicular homicides done around the world.

However, unlike knives and cars, guns aren’t meant to be used for multiple purposes. You can’t drive to work with the help of your gun, you can’t use it to fuel your car. You can’t use a gun to cook or chop carrots. It’s not a tool, it’s a weapon used for means of destruction. That rush of dopamine you get when you hit a target or bag your kill is a primal reaction to humanity’s love of destruction. It’s not worth it to argue we don’t like it because we do. There’s an inherent human love of destroying what’s around us. As I said I’ve fired several guns going back a few years. I’ve fired an AK-47, a Desert Eagle, a Magnum, a .44 revolver, a Glock, two 12 gauge shotguns, an M16, an M1 Garand, and, most relevant to this conversation, an AR-15.

I’ll admit that there’s something about guns that’s alluring. Every time you fire one you get a rush you don’t get doing anything else. It’s something unreal and foreign to anyone who hasn’t ever fired one. I get why people use gun ranges and training as a stress reliever, it’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but I get why people hold their guns in such high esteem. There’s so much stress one can go through day after day and the idea of breaking away and taking control for a brief moment is something that a lot of people want.

Taking all of this into account, it’s not the gun that’s the issue it’s people. If people are inherently drawn to the violent act of firing a gun then it’s an object that shouldn’t be easily obtained by anyone. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. With guns. You can be a law-abiding citizen who happens to own a gun, that doesn’t make you a mass murderer. On the other hand, the current laws in place make it easy for an individual to obtain a gun and use it as a means of destruction which, as we established earlier, is its intended use.

As a frame of reference let me tell you about a project my father and I started last year. When my dad switched jobs we faced the very real possibility of having to move out of state. Before we put the house up for sale, however, we found out that our back deck that stretched from our house to our pool wasn’t ever given a government-issued permit to have been built in the first place. So rather than tearing the deck down and selling the house, my dad wanted to preserve the deck for future owners. It was a noble goal and one I was kind of thrown into when I got home last year for summer break. Every morning, around 8 or so, we’d be outside tearing it down plank by plank. It was back-breaking work, literally. There were some nights where my dad could barely move on account of having to bend over day after day and pick out boards and nails and other materials.

It took us around a month to tear it down completely. From here, we had to hire a government-approved team (which didn’t come cheap) to start the foundation. My dad figured he’d save money if we built the entire deck from the foundation up. After the crew was done a government-approved inspector came by to approve our deck for personal construction. We didn’t pass. From here, we had to deconstruct the foundation and hire another group to come in and rebuild the foundation which wasted more time and money. When we were finally approved to begin construction it took us around another month to rebuild it only to have another government inspector to come in halfway through and tell us our lumber wasn’t fitting right onto the foundation. We got the lumber approved and then added it to the deck until we finally wrapped up our job in mid-July.

For those of you not keeping track at home, this was a project that began in late April, even early March for my dad, that wasn’t finished until July. If you ask me this was solely because of government interference with our project. The irony is that we didn’t wind up moving and the deck now stands, now with slightly better wood and a big sticker from the local government on its side.

We live in a country where our government cares more and has more say into a deck being built by a father and son than the state of gun control. I faced more government restriction and bureaucratic red tape than I ever would have if I wanted a gun. In my state, New Jersey, there are extensive background checks but there’s little to no point in having them. Nikolas Cruz is an exception but many of these school or mass shooters didn’t have a prior record and could, therefore, buy a gun more easily. In fact, Nikolas Cruz and Omar Mateen are perfect examples of how this system can be utterly inept. If they, with their three-mile-long records, could buy these weapons and use them how they did then what’s to stop literally anyone else?

There needs to be some kind of change to the system, even you have to agree with that. Do you really want people like Cruz or Mateen or Lanza or Holmes being the face of your cause? Because that’s the hill you’re, for lack of a better word, willing to die on. You can say it’s a mental health issue, you can say that gun control won’t solve anything but by denying that there’s a problem and going on like there’s no solution you’re condemning more innocents and their loved ones to this same fate. I’m not trying to call you out or make you feel lesser because you own a gun, I’m asking you to understand the gravity of this issue. One day this will affect you. Given how many mass shootings occur per year and given how sporadic the locations are it’s terrifying to think it could happen anywhere. I can’t enjoy a concert or a movie or even go to school without legitimately fearing for my life and the lives of those closest to me. How is that right?

How can we say that we’re the home of the brave when we’re not even willing to honor the very idea men and women die for every single day? We’re not brave. Some among us are, our brothers and sisters in the military and are active in community protection are some of the only heroes we have. But objectively our citizens aren’t brave. We’re afraid. Afraid of government intervention, afraid of crossing paths with a lunatic on any given day and winding up dead because of it, afraid to sit down and actually try to make a change. It’s time to stop being afraid.

If you disagree with everything I’ve said up until this point you certainly have the right to. You can call me a dumb young liberal who needs to wake up and understand how the world works. If that’s your rebuttal then I all I have to do is leave you with this one sentiment and then I think I’ll have said my peace. Today is the first day of our future. It can be a prosperous future, it can be one where all parties come together and compromise for the greater good. We can operate as a democracy instead of working as two opposite sides and reach common ground. We are Americans; we conquered a king, we looked a dictator in his eyes and brought hellfire to his shores.

We win when we’re together, not when we’re apart. Not when we’re looking at little things and try to uncover a conspiracy or accuse others of playing into some hidden agenda. We’ve fought each other before, now we fight that same battle on our computer screens. Attacking each other with the same ferocity and hatred that we did nearly two centuries ago. If I can borrow from that time a wise man once said, “a house left divided cannot stand.”

If you’ve read this far and still think I’m an asshole then you’re proof that it’s too late. That you’re willing to stay complacent and stare back at the next list and shrug your shoulders, nothing you can do right? Until one day a name on that list, or even several names God forbid, is a familiar one. And in that moment you’ll wonder what could I have done? The people out there doing this right now, the teenagers, parents, and teachers trying to make a change aren’t fulfilling a political agenda. They’re not doing this because to personally offend you or your sensibilities. They’re victims and a grim reminder that you can be too.

Fruit for thought, yeah?