On Sept. 10, Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in front of a crowd of college kids. On that same day, a 16-year-old fired off about 20 rounds of ammunition in Evergreen High School. There were waves of sympathy, outrage, and shock over the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The Colorado school shooting was a footnote.

In 1999, when the Columbine massacre happened, shock waves rippled across the country. Politicians promised change. Yet, here we are with 1,655 deaths and injuries due to gun violence on school grounds, just in the last ten years.

When do we get the changes we deserve? What will it take for people to realize that lanyards and metal detectors are not enough? When will the number of deaths due to gun violence in a year be less than the previous year?

On my eighteenth birthday, I sat crouched in the dark, huddled together with my classmates for an active shooter drill. We have become so desensitized that we treat this horror the same as a tornado. Tornadoes are acts of nature that are unavoidable, which is something a school shooting is not. It is so insulting to insinuate that nothing can be done when just across the ocean, there are substantially fewer instances of these tragedies.

Kirk was wrong; gun violence is not “worth it.” He did not deserve to be gunned down in front of his friends, his family and college students.

The unidentified 14-year-old from Colorado shouldn’t have felt the responsibility to confront the shooter to protect his classmates. He should have been safe in his school. We need serious reform to address this issue. The Second Amendment was made to protect people from a tyrannical government, and now our government dismisses the harm it’s caused.

Why are we as a country so emotionally attached to our weapons of mass destruction? Why are we so vehemently opposed to trying to intervene when people notice people struggling? Why are we not paying close enough attention to notice when someone is beginning to show signs of violence? Why do we prioritize our pride and not our people?