Eighteen. This may be just a number to some. To others, this may be seen as an age. Well, how about the number of school shootings so far in 2018?

People say that school shootings happen because of gun laws not being strict enough. I get it, everyone is scared; however, why don’t we start thinking about the people that are holding the guns?

The mental health of a person is a huge factor in school shootings. Take the recent tragedy at a Florida high school as an example. They escorted the shooter away from the school in a hospital gown because he wasn’t mentally stable.

Many people say that strengthening the gun laws will take guns away from everyone but the “bad guys” will still have all of their guns. They then say that there would be the result of no one being able to buy guns to simply protect themselves. While I do agree that it will be a little harder to buy and obtain a weapon if the laws are strengthened, what’s the bigger issue here? The gun or the person who is holding it?

If we were to help people get assistance with poor mental health, then just maybe these types of tragedies wouldn’t occur as often. Many school shooters are previous or even current students of the schools that they are targeting. Whether they do this because of people in the school that they don’t like or they simply hate going to school, there is obviously something going on in their heads.

Don’t completely blame the weapon whenever something bad happens, because the person behind the weapon is truly the reason why it happens. Instead of only focusing on the weapons, everyone should think about strengthening the facilities that help people that are mentally unstable. We need to get people the help that they need to ensure that these tragic incidents don’t keep occurring.