Imagine one day going to school - a place where you should feel safe - and seeing your friends get shot to death, or maybe getting hurt yourself. ¹⁾ There have been 24 school shootings in the year 2018. One shooting per ten days average. 35 dead and hundreds are injured and/or affected. We need to take action and make our gun control more strict now because this issue has completely spun out of control.

As a student who experienced a shooting, I can tell you that that was one of the most, if not the most, terrifying things I have ever experienced. Seeing all the faces filled with terror and tears...it broke my heart.      

Currently in 30 states out of 50 you are allowed to own a rifle or a shotgun legally under the age of 18? Why is the legal age to drink 21 but in order to own a gun, which is a dangerous weapon, you can be 18 and under? ¹⁾ Research shows that most of the school shooters are teenagers. If the legal age to own a gun would be 21 and older imagine how many shootings could be stopped from happening. ²⁾ Also, in 31 out of 50 states you are allowed to carry a gun without any kind of license. This is ridiculous. It's the same thing as someone going into a pharmacy like CVS and getting a drug that is not prescribed to them. People would come in, get anything they want and abuse it.

Make meth, cocaine, etc. Same thing with guns. People can literally shoot someone at any moment or rob a store. This is ridiculous and irresponsible, and the fact that we haven't changed this is absurd. By adjusting to this problem, not only will shooting rates will go down, but just crimes rates in general.

         We had a track meet on April 12, 2018. I was getting ready for my event - shot put- and all of a sudden I heard gunshots. At first, everyone thought that was for the runners but then we heard more. Everyone ran, the sirens started going off, and all of this happened so quickly. I was so confused, so lost. Imagine being a parent and getting a call that your child has been shot or even just experienced a shooting. You would be broken.

        ⁴⁾ Research shows that it’s easier to get a gun in the United States than to make an appointment at the doctor. All you need to have to buy a gun is license, and that’s only if you are buying a gun in a store because if you buy it from neighbors or family nobody is going to ask for your license. According to Mashable, the ¨a reporter from The Star walked into a gun store and purchased an AR-15 — similar to the Sig Sauer MCX used in the Orlando massacre — in seven minutes flat.¨ ⁵⁾ Also, according to CNN News, hundreds of stores sell guns “from big chains like Walmart to family-run shops like Ken's Sporting Goods & Liquor Store in Crescent, Ore. Or you can attend one of the dozens of gun shows that take place almost every weekend nationwide. People also regularly buy guns from neighbors or family members.” However, to get a doctor appointment you have to plan weeks ahead of time, and your appointment will cost much more than a gun. How is it fair that when a person who wants a gun, for God knows what can get it 10x easier than someone sick and in need of medical help?

This makes me concerned for our nation and is borderline ridiculous. ⁶⁾ There have been 109 mass shooting in the United States, in the year 2019 so far. It's April. ⁷⁾ New Zealand only took 6 days to plan new gun control after a man killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch. After that, there haven't been any problems. Why is it taking the US so long to get this under control?

Now I don’t know what to expect when I come to school. Every time an announcement comes on during school my heart drops because I feel like the school is gonna go on lockdown. You just never know, especially because the shootings have been happening everywhere. Is that a normal thing that I, and many more students, don’t feel safe somewhere they are supposed to feel the safest at? I think no.

 Did you know that most mass shooters are mentally ill? When buying a gun or getting your gun license nobody checks your mental health. We need to check that kind of stuff and if a person is mentally unstable or ill he/she should not be able to own a gun until he/she is better. ⁸⁾ Washington CNN says ¨How could a young man whose lawyers say he has been "experiencing and enduring mental illness his entire life" purchase a semiautomatic rifle?¨ People with mental issues have problems getting jobs, but yet getting a gun is no problem.

 We need to have stricter gun control laws to prevent so many shootings from happening. We can change the legal age to own a gun, which is currently under 18 in most states. We can make it harder to purchase a gun. And we need to check the mental health of a person who is buying a gun. This will prevent hundreds of shootings from happening and students will feel safe at school. ⁹⁾ In the UK, a 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton unloaded his handguns on children and staff at Dunblane primary school on 13 March 1996, gun control was on the cards. The aftermath of Hungerford brought to an end the right to own semi-automatic firearms in Britain; they were banned along with pump action weapons, and registration became mandatory for shotgun owners. After this happened gun crimes in England and Wales significantly decreased. After 2004 gun crimes went from about 24,000 a year to now, in 2019, about 7,000. This is what we should be reaching for.

It is now track season again. A year later, and every time I hear those powder guns go off I twitch. When I was at Worlds Of Fun a police officer had to use a gun to shoot into the air to break up a huge fight. It was like reliving a shooting again, but it was more chaotic. People started running and screaming, I followed them. That sound, that loud noise that makes your ears ring, it triggers me. Every time it goes off I have a flashback, a quick image of hundreds of students scattering down on the ground. That image I will carry with me for the rest of my life.