Let us talk about guns, for now seems like a vital time to do so. We speak about guns every so often. We continuously bring up the topic of the Constitution, our gun rights, gun permits, gun regulations, what it takes to get a gun and how difficult or easy it is to get a gun. Well, forget it all.

Guns are taking lives. They're stripping back flesh before my next thought about gun regulations can even be let out into the air. We are standing here watching people die because we are too concerned with pleasing the majority. We are too concerned with the regulations that have once put into place being too concerned for too short of a time.

An incident happens; a school gets shot up, an LGBTQ+ club loses too many participants and a Walmart becomes a shooters best place to hold hostages. We are allowing our safest places to become the ones we fear, the places that our lives revolve around. We are making supporters of a variety of groups shy away from what they believe in. We are fearful now. We are fearful because lives are being lost now. But soon, we will forget our fear. We will never forget those who have fallen, but our fear does not stand as strong. We go back. We fall back to the place where we felt safe in our schools, in our nearest grocery stores, and the places that we felt comfortable being ourselves. Just as our comfort engulfs us we fall deep to misery with the next shooting. We remember again the fear we once had, again we are instilled with misery, distress, sorrow and anger. We choose to act, but how? We write a few articles, share a few stories, do a few remembrance walks and events, and blame the pain on all the things that it is not.

America has a gun problem. Most Americans have a gun problem. It does not a matter if you believe that we should have the right to own a weapon or not; Americans are all crazed around the idea of this lethal weapon. We will argue, debate and kill just to put our two cents in about the topic. We will continue this for hours, days, months and years until the argument gets disrupted by the next death caused by the topic that has yet to change. People, stop talking about the same sh*t. It is not doing anything, we aren't making progress in the right direction. We are making the topic greater and greater as the deaths continuously get higher and higher. We are entering a generation that will allow for more deaths by guns than ever seen before and little is being done to stop it. It will only begin to lessen when we realize the obsession America has with guns. We are amazed with the fact that we can take out so many lives in such a timely manner. American’s want power, guns give us that — or so we think they do. That is a load of sh*t. Guns do not give you power, they give you deaths. Power is given to the human that can stand up against your weapon and fight back. Power is given to those people who continue to stand up for what we believe in with a voice instead of cowering behind a thick piece of metal. Power is given to those who make the decision to move beyond this article to stop the acceleration of gun related deaths. It is our turn, America, to gain power that goes beyond violence.