One of our most valued rights as Americans is our right to bear arms, and while there are several laws that the United States have placed in order to make our country safer, many agree that these laws are not enough.

In the past five years–2013-2018–there have been almost 300 gun-related incidents at or near a school, 16 of them taking place within the first month of 2018. The gun laws that we have in the U.S. are seemingly not doing enough. According to Michele Gorman, a journalist for Newsweek, “A majority of Americans–57 percent–say it’s ‘too easy’ to buy a gun in the United States.”

By not enforcing the gun laws that the United States has and/or putting new ones in place, the United States is not only endangering the adults of the United States, but its children as well.

Only a dozen states in America require permits to purchase guns, and even those laws are very loose and it is not required to have a permit for rifles and shotguns. While it is required in the U.S. for sellers to conduct a background check on buyers, many people are able to get around this law by buying from private sellers, and only six states have passed laws to get around this loophole.

The United States owns up to 50% of the world’s firearms and has the highest homicide rates by guns in the world.

In the late 1900s, many other countries took action to pass and enforce stricter gun laws due to mass shootings. For example, after a massacre in 1996 that killed 35 people, Australia passed the National Agreement on Firearms. This agreement took many actions such as mandating licensing and registration and implementing a temporary buyback program as well. These laws are proven to be highly effective and a mass shooting in Australia has not been reported since.

The United States has already endured several massacres that could have most likely been prevented by gun-control laws, yet we are so obsessed with the idea of the second amendment that no real change ever happens. Will it take another large-scale murder for the United States to start taking gun safety seriously?