There has been 374 mass shootings in 2017. This number is far too high, but these tragedies are not the NRA’s fault, as many people claim. Yes, these are horrible occurrences that should be prevented at any cost. But, in the words of sophomore Maham Khanum, “If someone wants to kill someone, not having guns is not going to stop him or her”. This is a common argument for keeping gun regulations the same. These mass shootings have changed the way we view life in the United States for the rest of our lives. We walk into schools, concerts, movie theaters terrified that we won’t walk out. This is also not the fault of the NRA.

At 18 years old, in Florida, you can legally purchase an AR 15 rifle, a weapon of war. This is obviously a problem. Nikolas Cruz cannot drink but he can buy a military level weapon. Any criminal who has enough strategy could find a weapon of the same caliber. Criminals don’t follow laws or regulations, so changing them would really not do anything.

In 2018 alone, there have been 34 school shootings, according to gunviolencearchive.org. These shootings have ranged from California to the District of Columbia, from Texas to Michigan. Twenty seven million guns were sold in 2016, according to the New York Daily News. That number is awfully high but there were not that many mass shootings. Gun regulations are perfectly suitable currently for a hunter. They’re lax for criminals. The small percentage of the population should ruin commerce for the people who use guns for a good purpose? People also can use rope to murder, but there are no regulations on rope. Regulations just serve to drive a stake between the people and the government, leading to distrust, anarchy, and violence, which defeats the whole purpose of changing the regulations from the state of them now.

There is clearly a problem in the country, but the problem does not lie in the NRA or gun regulations. The problem lies in the humans who take advantage of loopholes in the regulations.