Typically articles online around Valentine's Day are about love, dates, and chocolate. Valentine's Day is a day many people will never forget, not because of chocolate, but because it is now the anniversary of their children or friends' deaths. On February 14, 2018, while people all over the world celebrated Valentine's Day, a former student opened fire on the students at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. Yet another mass shooting in the United States.

After this tragic event, students from the school began to protest and speak up on gun violence in schools.

As parents send their kids off to school, there's a small part of them that doesn't know if they will see their kids in the afternoon. In the past few decades, school shootings have become a more imminent problem in the US, with little to no progress towards a helpful solution.

Solutions introduced have been more guns in schools (for the teachers), bulletproof backpacks, and metal detectors at entrances. Shootings have become commercialized. When the consumption of romaine lettuce was found to be dangerous to the health of the public, it was quickly removed from stores and restaurants. When hundreds of innocent people are killed from mass shootings, there is "nothing we can do."

Many politicians in the government respond by offering their prayers and then they continue on with their luxurious lives while family members are grieving over their loved ones, and parents all over the country are agonizing over the fact that their children could be murdered any day at school.

Teachers don't need to be armed at school, students don't need to buy bulletproof backpacks, the schools don't need to invest in metal detectors.

You know what schools really need? They need competitive salaries for their teachers, school supplies, more resources for at-risk kids, healthier lunches, and better in-school mental health counseling. That is where federal funds should go to make schools safer, and improve students' academic situations.

You know what students in schools really need? They need the government to actually do something about gun control. They need stricter background checks and stricter laws involving the purchase of firearms. They need to feel safer in their school, without their school feeling like a prison-- because increased security guards, locked doors, and metal detectors feel a lot like prison.

Gun control does not mean "We want to ban ALL guns." Gun control means that we want people who are mentally stable and are not likely to commit a mass crime to be the ones with guns. "Well, people will find a way to get them anyways." That could be true, but it will take them longer and cost more, so they won't be able to make a rash decision that would take away the lives of innocent people.

We need gun control now. You can protect your 2nd amendment and save lives. The two aren't exclusive.