Columbine, Colorado (April 20, 1999)
Aurora, Colorado (July 20, 2012)
Newtown, Connecticut (December 14, 2012)
San Bernardino, California (December 2, 2015)
Orlando, Florida (June 12, 2016)
Dallas, Texas (July 20, 2016)

These cities should ring a bell to anybody who has been clued into the news over the last sixteen years.

Over the last 16 years, there have been numerous shootings in America. Many men and women who own guns decided they had the right to take away the lives of innocent people. They walked into churches, schools and work areas to put into action their mass shootings.

The world as a whole has constantly seen different acts of violence. From guns to plane crashes and even bombs, the world has suffered the loss of many men, women and children. America has begun to take a turn for the worse when it comes to massive acts of violence.

From Columbine to Dallas, the amount of shootings and fatalities is overwhelming. It's disheartening and devastating, to put it lightly. We so often hear of the shootings, but we never fully understand the negative impact unless it happens to us, right? Wrong.

I might not have ever lost somebody to these shootings, but my family was close to one of the shooting locations.

I grew up in Highland, California, just 10 minutes away from the location of the San Bernardino shooting, where 14 men and women were taken away from their families with less than zero consideration of their feelings.

San Bernardino was a devastating shooting, and affected me personally. However, it definitely was not the worst shooting that has impacted our country.

As I was at camp this summer, I was away from all sources of news. Each time I went into town, I heard everything. When I finally got home, I realized there had been three very horrifying shootings.

One happened in another town I have come to love. The town where I go to school, Dallas, Texas, fell victim to the loss of three policemen.

There have been countless lives lost, cities affected, and lives changed by the outcomes of these violent attacks. We must ask ourselves the following questions to come to the conclusion on how to help stop the violence.

1. What is it in this world that leads to such violence?

Look at all that has happened in the world and you can tend to find the root to these problems. Most of the people who decide to take lives have something wrong with them, whether that be mental, social or personal. However, those are not excuses for why this happens.

The world has an impact on these criminals and why they choose to commit these acts. Bullying can be one reason why people believe they have the right to take the lives of others. But let's look past that and see that another reason is discrimination.

Discrimination is serious, and something that should not be tolerated anywhere around the world. I'm not saying that I agree with everybody's way of living, but that doesn't mean I would ever make the choice to isolate others for their life choices. You don't have to support everybody's lifestyle, but don't make them feel alone. Taking away a problem as simple as this could help stop America's violence.

2. How should we (as a country) handle these acts?

As a country, we need to stop sitting back and waiting for the next issue to approach, and realize we can help now. Instead of cowering behind our safety bubble, we need to go out into the world and make an effort to help those who are hurting.

When an act of violence takes place, we need to rally together and pray. Pray for the hurt, the broken, scared. We need to pray for those who took away lives as well; we may not like them, but even enemies deserve to be prayed for and find the Lord.

If America came together and began praying, rather than constantly speaking negatively, we could begin to see a difference. Stop running away from those who are hurting and start going forward and trying to make a difference.

Stop the bullying, discrimination, and most importantly the violence.

Sources:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-s...