It’s Time To Wake Up America, Something Needs To Be Done About Gun Control

Gun Control is an issue. I’m saying gun control is more vital than it has ever been in America. I’m saying that people shouldn’t have to fear for their life, fear that they will die for doing what they love or for being who they want to be. I’m saying for the 49 lives that died in Orlando—their lives matter. They are yet another warning and wake up call to America. These people were not who they were killed for—these people were someone’s child, someone’s friend, someone’s family.

I used to think that guns kill people because as long as they have existed, someone has died from their use. However, after many discussions with people in my community, I’ve realized that people kill people, but people with guns also kill people. If we take away the ammunition, guns in this case, people won’t have the ability to create so many mass shootings.

If we don’t give people with guns the power to kill, no more people can be killed.

Prayers and thoughts aren’t good enough. Just talking about this issue isn’t good enough. Starting Twitter hashtags and sharing Facebook posts isn’t good enough.

People with power, candidates for the presidency or even future presidents with real authority, choose to do nothing with their power, and that’s not good enough. They sit around promising false and fabricated “solutions” to this undeniable problem. How many more shootings does it take for the American government to wake up and actually make real and constructive change?

It’s exhausting to wake up from the other side of the world, see our allies burn down in flames, and do nothing but cry. Our tears can’t wash the blood on the streets.

It’s exhausting to continuously see crying mothers and fathers who have lost their child, (actual children have been killed in previous shootings in the past week), and feel absolutely powerless. It’s exhausting to have the same conversations over and over about gun control but words don’t become actions. People forget after a week of these life-threatening disasters and when they occur in the next week, these feelings and conversations are brought up again, only to be diminished and forgotten again.

So again, I ask the question: How many more shootings does it take for the American government to wake up and actually make real and constructive change? To pull on the big pants and realize that those who have abused the right to bear arms no longer get this right. This is 2016.

The Second Amendment no longer applies when people keep abusing their power with guns.

America used to be the land of dreams, where if anyone worked hard enough, they could see their dreams shine in the sun. People fought to come to America for freedom and security. Now, America is the land of fear, where no one can feel safe in their own homes, in their own churches, in their own schools, in their own towns, nowhere.

Please go to your local governor. Please tell them that you, too, are tired of seeing deaths of people who don’t deserve to die, not for being who they want to be and for loving who they want to live, regardless of gender. Please fight for those who can’t speak or are too afraid to act upon these dangerous words. Please parade the streets with love, more love that you can possibly hold in your heart and spread it around like glitter as you fight against our enemies. Gun control is an issue, and it isn’t just America’s issue. It’s the world’s too.