In 2019 alone, there were 417 mass shootings in America. This is 52 more shootings than days in the year. There were 517 people taken from their families and friends for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were 1,643 people injured and undoubtedly scarred for life. March 2020 has been the first March since 2002 without any school shootings. The only reason for this being that most schools were closed due to the coronavirus. How can Americans and our government ignore this gun problem and not treat it as the epidemic it is? Arguments about how to address gun violence ultimately falls under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which grants American citizens the right to bear arms. We should not still have a Constitutional right that gives everyone access to guns when guns were responsible for 15,381 deaths in 2019 alone. The Second Amendment should be repealed. 

It is true, of course, that the Second Amendment has been around since the founding of our country. Yet, it is this fact that makes it so imperative that as a country, we consider getting rid of it. When the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, rifles and guns only shot up to about nine rounds per minute. Today, semi-automatic firearms allow guns to shoot anywhere between 40 to 80 rounds per minute. In the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 59 concertgoers and injured 527 more, the gunman’s rifles were assisted by a new technology called bump stocks. This equipment turned the gun from a semi-automatic rifle to a fully automatic one that can fire off 9 rounds per second. That is 540 rounds per minute. While bump stocks are now federally illegal to own, buy, and sell, the government relies on only the honor system to take the already existing weapons of mass destruction.

But background checks are a problem as well. People looking to purchase a gun are supposed to be checked through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), maintained by the FBI. However, they are weak attempts for gun control. There is no data to support that background checks work, as they can be avoided through private sales and they almost never assess a person’s mental health. While background checks are important, access to guns is what’s killing Americans.

Finally, other countries that have well-enforced gun laws have proven that gun control works. In Japan, a country of 127 million people, there are rarely more than 10 gun-related deaths every year due to their strict gun laws and rigorous mental-health evaluations. After a mass shooting in Australia killing 35 people in 1996, the government began a massive buyback of guns, and they have not had a single mass shooting since. It is simple: fewer or no guns at all means no gun deaths. 

We have become so desensitized to gun violence that American children, mothers and fathers who have died are just numbers, and mass shootings are just statistics. Petition your local legislators, participate in marches and rallies, and raise awareness. We need change now. We need to repeal the Second Amendment.