In the last eighteen years, almost 200 school shootings have taken place in the U.S., and this number far exceeds even the total number of mass shootings in many other countries. Sadly, school shootings have become a norm, happening too often to allow any time to process one tragedy before another takes place. Again and again, news headlines have flashed across the television screen and announced that more children have been taken away from their families and the futures ahead of them.

Why is nothing being done to enact some kind of change? Why does this keep happening? Enough is enough. There have been too many shootings for us not to do something about it.

Just this month, I saw another tragic headline. Seventeen killed at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. For the first time, the mass shooting was not just another shooting I heard about in the news. For the first time, it hit close to home. Parkland is in my home state, not too far from my cozy hometown of Tallahassee, Florida. I know a number of people who had friends or family at the school during the shooting. With each shooting, this disturbing trend of tragedies is getting closer and closer to home.

Although I have always known that gun laws needed to change, that school shootings could not be allowed to be normal, this one sparked something in me. It is time for real change. It is time to stop talking about doing something and actually do something. The ball is in our court, and it is our turn to make a difference.

I wholeheartedly believe that the tragedy sweeping through our nation is a gun problem. It is a gun problem, it is a mental health problem, and it is a lack of morals. Only one of these three things has a rational and accessible fix, though not without overcoming disagreement and conflict first. That acceptable solution is gun control.

Not everyone is advocating for a gun ban, and people that counter with that do not know what this fight is about. It is not about getting rid of guns; it is about keeping them out of the hands of the wrong people. It is about bringing our world back to where kids are not terrified to go to school. It is about saving lives.

But more than any of that, it is first and foremost about overcoming our political differences, working past the division that has manifested itself in our society, and coming together to find a solution. Politics are involved, yes. I think I can speak for any person of reasonable morals, though, in saying that conservatives and liberals alike want to put a stop to this madness.

So let us stop fighting each other and start fighting the issue. Let us find a way to stop this. Division will only set us back, but unity is the what we need to see a real change in our country: to make sure that no more kids leave home in the morning not knowing they are telling their parents they love them for the last time. Enough is enough.