Three killed in Jacksonville, one killed at Chapel Hill, one killed in Choctaw, Oklahoma and seven injured in Boston. 

When will we realize that thoughts and prayers are not enough to save lives? One more mass shooting? Two? Is 400 this year not enough? Nowhere else in the world faces this problem, so why should we be any different?

Why are we too good for common sense gun laws? 

This sense of individual liberty has become a cancer to American society as hundreds of people lose their lives annually to gun violence. If we had red flag gun control, the perpetrator of the shooting in Jacksonville that claimed the lives of three Black Americans would not have happened. 

The shooter, 21-year-old Ryan Palmeter, legally purchased two guns, an assault-style rifle and a handgun which he then used to commit a racially motivated attack at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida on the five-year anniversary of another shooting in Jacksonville at a video game tournament. 

The purchasing of the guns that Palmeter used was entirely legal, there lies the issue. Palmeter was involuntarily examined due to the Baker Act because of his mental health. That being said, Palmeter should have been prohibited from purchasing or owning firearms because he was deemed dangerous. Sheriff Waters in Jacksonville said, “If there is a Baker Act situation… we don’t know if that Baker Act was recorded properly.” 

This outlines the severe systematic flaws that allow people, such as Ryan Palmeter, to purchase firearms when they present themselves as a clear and present danger to society. Following Columbine in 1999, there have been 440 people killed in school shootings for 386 of the incidents, and these numbers don’t account for the thousands of mass shootings that occur outside of schools. 

Nearly every country in the world besides the United States that has experienced a mass shooting reacted swiftly with extreme crackdowns on purchasing firearms, both handguns and assault-style rifles that every American has sadly become familiar with, and with buy-back programs so that their citizens don’t adopt the philosophy that many gun owners in the United States have, which is that they believe Democrats are trying to take away their guns and their rights.

This could not be farther from the truth.

No one in Washington is out to get you, it is the duty of our politicians to protect us, and in order for that to happen, the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment must be revisited since gun violence has affected nearly everyone in one way or another. 

My mother has been a middle school English teacher for the past decade and has had to take on roles that no teacher should ever have to. In her school district, there are now active shooter drills every few years in order for teachers and students to know what to do in the case of an active shooter entering the building.

When she first began at her school, this wasn’t on their radar since the shooting at Sandy Hook that killed 28 people including 20 elementary students had not even occurred, but now as shootings are becoming part of our everyday lives, a frightening new reality has taken over their place of work. The educators of the future of America are now in an incredibly dangerous position despite being one of the most important jobs in the world. 

Why should I have to worry about losing my mother to gun violence while she’s at work? 

This is just one of the many questions I have for our lawmakers regarding the situation at hand. How is Congress so oblivious to the fact that assault rifle bans save lives?

When President Bill Clinton enstated a nation wide assault rifle ban, the number of mass shootings dropped drastically, and that is not a coincidence. The ideology of making guns more accessible and putting “good guys with guns” in public areas to protect people is so incredibly ignorant and is such a naive way of approaching this. 

Watching the news every day and seeing that yet another mass shooting has happened on American soil makes me sick to my stomach. It is unbelievable and incredibly disheartening to see how long this persists without any movement toward solving the deadly problem. There is so much that can be done and we simply cannot stand by and watch as our fellow Americans continue to lose their lives. 

To the reader, I urge you to contact your Congresspeople and demand action on passing common sense gun laws in order to save the lives of Americans who are dying in vain. There is a solution and we must hold our elected officials accountable for protecting us.

Jackson is an opinion writer. Contact him at [email protected]