17, that is the number of people that were killed in a horrifying school shooting at a high school in Parkland Florida on February 14th, 2018. In my opinion, this is not a gun issue, this is a people issue. Before we even need to start worrying about gun reform we need to talk about mental health. According to The National Alliance of Mental Illnesses, 1 in 5 teens is likely to experience a serious mental illness throughout their life. This may not seem like a lot until you look at five of your friends or even just five your peers and realize one of them will most likely have a serious mental illness throughout their lifetime. This can be scary and once you put it into that perspective you only start to realize how much of a problem this really is.

This mental health problem is what's causing these mass shootings, it's the people behind the guns, not the guns themselves. Taking away guns will leave the good people of America unarmed and defenseless against the people who do have guns. You are wrong if you think that if we take away guns than people won't have them because making certain drugs illegal means no one uses those either right? People are always going to find ways to get guns either legally or illegally so banning guns is not the right answer. So if banning guns isn't the right answer then what is?

Arming teachers in schools, no, even increasing security in schools is only a short-term fix to this long-term problem. There is no right way to end this kind of brutality we are seeing today. There is never going to be a perfect solution, but we can at least try to minimize the issue. I believe that we need stricter background checks and we shouldn't allow anyone with any sign of mental illness to own a gun of any kind. If they really want a gun they need to go get treatment first, having good mental health is more important than owning a gun. Also, even though I do not think that banning guns is the answer, I think we need to ban all assault rifles. Your first reaction might be “This is a violation of the second amendment the government cannot take our guns.” My response to you is that the second amendment was written back in a time of war where guns were not as deadly as they are now. To compare the guns they used then and the guns we have access to now is like trying to compare a small innocent kitten to a large ferocious lion and saying the two are the same, there are not. If we take away assault rifles, not hunting rifles or any other less harmful gun, we will be better off. If that kid went into that Florida school with a hunting rifle he sure wouldn’t have killed as many people as he did.

This still wouldn’t be a permanent fix and there will never be a permanent fix until we get mental health under control. Don’t consider this as taking away guns think of this as when you were little and you got in trouble your parents would put you in “timeout” until you could handle your self. This is what America needs, a timeout to figure out who we are as a country and to realize that this mental health issue is really what is killing us, not guns.