The gun-control debate has spiraled into more of an argument in more recent years. The “pro-guns party” appears to be on the ropes and resorting to outdated myths and false information to dispute America’s yearning need to review the gun policy.

America’s gun policy hasn’t been updated since Dec. 15, 1791. While economic greed, mental health issues and population have increased significantly since then. Considering all of the variables, it’s imperative that this country updates it’s gun control policy.

According to the BBC, there have been 994 mass shootings in the United States (a shooting that involves more than four victims) since President Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012. In 2015 alone America has had to grieve over nearly 300 mass shootings. This equates to more than one mass shooting per day; and the shocking truth is, by the time this article reaches you, those numbers will be even higher.

Politics has a huge part in the debate. The Republican Party is renowned for it’s traditionalist American values, values that are plateaued and outdated. On political website www.ontheissues.org, the Republican Party’s stance on gun control refers back to the Second Amendment. The Democratic Party has no mention of the Second Amendment on the site but instead has a “strengthen gun and reduce violence” segment, which mentions the correlation between gun laws and gun crime. The Democratic Party states, “We increased federal, state, and local gun crime prosecution by 22 percent since 1992. Now gun crime is down by 35 percent [from 1992 to 2000]. Now we must do even more.” Gun crime has gradually declined even more so since the Democratic Party increased gun crime prosecution in the early ‘90s according to www.pewsocialtrends.org.

President Obama has also highlighted the link between stricter gun laws and less gun crime when he spoke from the White House after the tragic Oct. 1^st shootings in Oregon.

“We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths.” Obama said as he addressed the nation yet again in response to another mass shotting. “So the notion that gun laws don’t work will just make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals [to] still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence.“

The outdated Second Amendment has created and nurtured a country of paranoid traditionalists that think the only way to survive is to have a gun. People are not surviving because of guns, people are dying; thousands of innocent people are dying every decade because of the lenient gun laws.

Gun activists might say, “Don’t you want your daughter to have a gun? If your daughter is driving late at night do you not want her to have a gun for protection?” This argument is both asinine and shocking. This example exemplifies the state of paranoia that guns have put the citizens of this country in. The United States is not a country full of bloodthirsty murdering maniacs; nor should we believe that to be the case.

More fries won’t give you less calories; more guns won’t give you less gun crime. There will not be progress until The Second Amendment is completely overhauled. Pro-gun Americans are literally looking back trying to go forward.

Self-defense is one argument that gun activists confidently spew when claiming gun control is nonsense. As of this year, according to www.gunviolencearchive.org, only 914 of the 10,085 total deaths were in self-defense. Less than 10 percent of the total number of preventable deaths was in self-defense. The whole “guns prevent crime, guns protect people” argument is completely contradicted by this fact.

The problem isn’t the evidence; the problem is the education. People are unfortunately too blind to see that guns are the problem. Guns are for murder. If no one had a gun, murder wouldn’t be so easy. It wouldn’t be as easy to walk into a store and buy a gun, and it wouldn’t be as easy to go into a school and massacre innocent children.

Gun crime is high because it’s too easy to access guns. You can’t fight fire with fire; you must fight fire with water. Therefore, you can’t fight gun crime with guns, and you fight gun crime with gun control.