The first time I heard about a mass shooting, I cried for what seemed like hours. I remember thinking that the world has changed drastically from the day prior, that in a few moments, the world got a little bit darker and a lot crueler.

Flash forward a few years and the news of shootings comes with only a frown.

It’s not like I don’t care. Because it’d take a monster of a person not to care. But it seems like America is the same rerun of the same situation.

Every few weeks or so, there’s another shooting, followed by a short period of debate with no real change. It’s an annoying routine that should have been broken ages ago.

But here’s the thing. I already know it’s not going to be broken anytime soon.

It’s because we are little in the middle of the routine again. It's the same old trite debate.

Do guns people, or do people kill people?

Why is the government only offering thoughts and prayers to victims?

Why does nothing ever change?

It’s because the government is doing too much talking and not enough doing. There’s a reason why the United States is the only first world country where the classroom is looked at as a possible war zone.

We need better gun control.

Students don’t need guns.

The mentally ill don’t need guns.

Teachers do not need guns.

Before anybody comments otherwise, if we can’t trust teachers to have the willpower not to have sex with their students, how can we trust that they will protect them?

I don’t care that a human pulls the trigger. It’s the bullet that kills a person. The mixture of a gun and a human is what makes a life. It’d be beneficial if we kept both separate.

I don’t think any average Joe should have anything on their person that could harm someone: a knife, a gun, even a bat. If it can kill, then why do you need it?

Why can’t you have something like mace and be satisfied? Why do you need to know that you have the ability to kill on a moment's notice?

I know mass shootings won’t end with one policy change, but we need something. Whether it be banning guns or tightening the process of screening a person when they get a gun, something needs to happen. Because it’s only going to get worse from here on out.

And that’s an awful reality.