October brings pumpkin-flavored everything, flannels, and Halloween. Most college students welcome the new month with open arms and excitement about the coming of Autumn.

This was not the case for Umpqua Community College, located in Roseburg Oregon.

On October 1st, a 20-year-old male student opened fire on campus. He went into classrooms, demanding students to state their religion. Depending on their answer, he started shooting.

His attack was documented on social media the night before, where he plotted with others on how to carry out the shooting. The others suggested weapons and how he could carry out his attack.

13 are now dead and 20 others are wounded - 13 families are mourning the loss of a loved one and 20 other families are hanging onto hope.

Where do we go from here? How many people need to die in order for our nation's policies to change?

School shootings have been on the rise in the last decade. 24 school shootings occurred just in the year 2014.

School is a place where all children and young adults should feel safe and at peace to learn. It should be our country's top priority to make academic institutions a place of safety at all costs.

College campuses have the least amount of security out of all the levels of education. Anyone can walk onto a college campus with any weapon and go completely unnoticed. Higher security needs to be enforced on all college grounds- metal detectors, locked buildings, screenings before entering campus, etc.

Although preventing all tragedies is impossible, we have to take preventative measures to avoid the unavoidable.

How many more families have to grieve before we say, "enough is enough?"

Sources:

http://www.kgw.com/story/news/crime/2015/10/01/rep...