This past weekend I took a trip to Boston to visit some of my college friends, and while I was there I attended the Boston Gay Pride Parade. The positivity was contagious, and it really was a moving event. However, I found it hard to not notice the complete lack of security present.

I thought back to the Boston Marathon, which I had attended less than two months ago. This event crossed over the same mark in Copley, yet the security measures were extensive, ensuring that every person entering the venue was not dangerous and that each attendee was protected. It just doesn’t make any sense to me how so many preventative measures could be taken for one event, and then absolutely none for another so similar.

On top of this, when I thought about the Orlando shooting, I felt even more unsettled. If anyone wanted to bring an assault rifle into the parade, they would have had no problem doing so. Anyone could have walked up into the crowd carrying anything, without being questioned. I feel as if everyone who attended the parade’s safety was put at risk.

I believe that the nation is taking ineffective measures to prevent these tragic events from occurring over and over again. How many times will we hear about stories like this on the news? How many times will we change our profile pictures in support of the victims? We can’t keep saying that we are trying to change things if nothing is actually happening. We say we want to end such atrocities, but what is our society actually doing to fulfill this?

We need to begin effective prevention instead of trying to patch things up once something bad has happened. The lack of security at the Boston Gay Pride Parade in comparison to the Boston Marathon is a perfect example of the wrongdoings of this. Once the Boston Marathon bombings occurred, society vowed to never let such an event happen again. To ensure this, a large-scale security force was used at the marathon. This is definitely a move in the right direction, but this is not enough! More security should be enforced at other large events, because the reality is, dangerous people aren’t just going to disappear unless we prevent them from reaching innocent people. It is time to stop talking about these changes; we need to actually implement them. Too many lives have been lost and we can’t keep looking the other way.