Gun control has been an extremely important issue in the past years, and this year is no different. This topic is so controversial because it’s difficult to decide what to do for the safety of the nation. Everyone should be able to go to the movies, school, and malls, without fear for their lives.

The biggest problem with the current gun control laws is that it’s so loose. CNN writer Doug Criss published an article on June 6, 2016, named “It’s easier to Get a Gun Than to Get a Puppy,” which compared the gun buying process to the process of getting a divorce, a passport, a pet, a driver’s license, and cold medicine. Getting a gun takes less time than getting a passport, it takes less tests than getting a driver’s license, and has fewer background checks than buying a puppy. That’s a problem, and it has to be solved.

Those loose gun control laws lead to a heartbreaking number of fatalities and injuries. According to BBC News, there were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015 leading to the death of 475 people and wounding 1,870 others. There were 64 school shootings in 2015. In total, excluding suicides, in 2015, 13,286 people were killed in the US by guns, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and 26,819 people were injured.

The US spends about $100 billion per year against terrorism, but according to figures from the US Department of Justice and the Council on Foreign Affairs, 11,385 people died on average annually in firearm incidents in the US between 2001 and 2011. Out of those 11,385 deaths, only an average of 517 people were killed annually in terror-related incidents. That’s less than five percent. The other 10,868 deaths were by firearms bought by people in the US.

The death toll can be lowered if the US government was as focused on ending national violence as it is in ending international violence. The billions of dollars used against terrorism could be used within the US to save us from each other by tightening security and deeper background searches before buying a gun.