A big subject that runs through the media and even in my classes is the debate on whether or not we should regulate gun laws. There's a left side to this discussion, and there's a right side.

A mass shooting, according to the Congressional Research System, is as followed: a shooting from which a gunman kills four or more people, selects victims randomly, and attacks in a public setting.

I'm going to start off with a big thank you to those who have called me a snowflake for believing we need to implement stricter gun laws. When I think of guns, I see something with potential harm. No matter who this weapon comes in the possession of, there is a harm. From 2005-2010, there were around 3800 deaths in the U.S. from the accidental firing of a gun. In the past 13 years, 486 people have been killed due to mass shooting. In 2017, there was 307 school shootings (in which four or more people have been injured or killed) from January 1 to November 5. From 1966 to 2012, nearly one a third of the world's mass shootings took place in the United States.

An important question that should be asked whenever these shootings happen should be how could it have been prevented. We ask this question every time, and yet we still have not come across a solid answer.

April 1999, two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado. The two teens killed 13 people and injured more than 20 others.

In July of 2012, James Holmes bought a ticket to The Dark Knight Rises. Instead of going to simply watch the movie, he fired four weapons of ammunition into the unsuspecting crowd, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more.

In December of 2012, Adam Lanza went to Sandy Hook Elementary shot and killed 20 students and 6 teachers.

Last year, Devin Patrick Kelley went to First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs Texas, shot and killed twenty-six innocent and unarmed victims.

February 14th of this year, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz stalked the halls of Stoneman Douglas High School and killed 17 innocent students and teachers.

These acts of violence are only a small portion of the many that have been recorded throughout American history. This begs the question of why it is that nothing has been done up to this point. An excuse you hear more times than once is that the time after a shooting is meant for families to grieve and let them recover from the tragedy they've gone through. Another argument I have heard is that no matter what rules you make, there will be someone who will find a way to break it and get a gun if they want to. And one big reason that gets to me is that guns don't kill people, people do. Sure, a gun is an inanimate object that can't fire itself on its own but, if the gun was unreachable they wouldn’t have access to something that could create potential danger.

Instead of sending our prayers and condolences, how about we do something to prevent more mass shootings from happening? How many innocent people have to die or get injured before we implement more rules and regulations? Over 11,000 people die each year due to firearms. How many more school shootings do we have to go through before we decide to put more regulations on guns? There’s been 18 this year, we are only two months into 2018.

Since Sandy Hook, there have been 239 school shootings. Since Columbine, there have been 25 fatal school shootings. America is ranked #1 in mass shootings. A student should be able to go to school feeling completely safe, they shouldn’t have a what if thought in the back of their mind. I'm sorry but a student's right to survive a day at their school will always outweigh your right to own a gun. None of the students or teachers who went to Stoneman Douglas High School, Sandy Hook, Columbine, and many others should have had to deal with the stress and trauma they went through. Think of how many children, teachers, and administrators would be alive today if we had a stricter set of laws.