I am a believer in the public school system. I am a product of the public school system. I found my own strengths and weaknesses in the public school system. This is why it deeply saddens me to constantly hear about budget cuts in the public school system.

I believe the root of many of our country's issues could be fixed in the public school system. This is not to say that the public school system is responsible for fixing the country. However, I do believe many of our issues could be addressed in public schools.

The purpose of this article is not to enforce my personal views on gun control. Personally, I believe a mixture of things needs to be done. Yes, one of them being stricter regulations on owning a gun. Rather, the purpose of this article to persuade others to look at mass shootings as a whole.

My heart is shattered for our country. We are breaking, ripping at the seams. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida will never be the same. This is the same for Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary School, and many other places in the United States.

I feel no sympathy for the adult shooters of these mass murders, whom I choose not to name because they do not deserve any sort of fame. However, I feel immense sympathy for the families of Aaron Feis, Luke Hoyer, Carmen Schentrup, and the other victims.

Yet, I cannot help, but think this could have been prevented. Right now, gun control is such a polarized issue that I do not believe it can get passed in the way the country needs it to be in order to prevent killings. I commend those who stand up for the fight and work toward bringing light to the issue.

For the time being, we need do something else. We cannot wait around for gun control to get passed or not. We have been waiting since April 20, 1999. In almost 19 years, our problem has only gotten worse.

It alarms me that students and teachers alike claim they were not surprised to find out who the shot students at Stoneman Douglas High School. I truly believe, the shooter, did not intend this to be his fate as a child.

If you ask a 5-year-old what he would like to do when he grows up, no child answers "a mass shooter of my peers." So, when do innocent children become mass killers? And what can we do as a society to prevent this?

Cutting funding to public schools is not the answer to these questions. If anything, more money should be going into mental health in public schools. What if we required students in the public school system to fill out surveys about personal mental health from pre-school to 12th grade to better understand and address warning signs. Or, what if students were required to fill out bullying surveys every year? What if we started praising every student rather than the select few who are academically brilliant.

This world is filled will all types of people with all types of backgrounds and problems. I loved high school, but that is not always the case. I had friends who were constantly brought down by peers and teachers. I knew kids that turned to durgs, and I truly feel like these situations could be prevented if we evaluated children as different.

We should celebrate children for their differences, and not expect them to conform to the "perfect child model."

I am not saying that public schools will end mass shootings; however, maybe it would help.