On December 2 in San Bernardino, California, a couple targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and holiday party killing 14 and injuring 21. So far last year there were 312 mass shootings in the United States alone, statistically becoming more and more frequent every year.

For hundreds of years now, gun control has been a highly debated topic. The Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns due to the notion that guns are needed for self-defense from these threats ranging from local criminals to foreign invaders. The sad reality of this is that most of the mass murder sprees that happen are not caused by the average hunter or parent trying to protect their family in case of a robbery.

According to ProCon.org, 464,033 total gun deaths between 1999 and 2013, guns were the leading cause of death by homicide by a whopping 66.7%. There have also been 12,220 deaths by firearms in 2015 alone and 24,721 casualties. Of those 12,220 deaths 1,126 of them were from self defense, meaning for every 12 people killed, only one of them was killed in self-defense.

There is not one “perfect” law that can solve these mass shootings and massacres, but there are several laws that can be implicated to help lower the gun related death rate and stop these horrible tragedies from occurring.

For example, when drunk driving was becoming a huge problem at the beginning of the century, stricter blood alcohol limits were enacted. The drinking age was raised, enforcement and penalties for drinking and driving were ramped up and bartenders who serve drunks began to be charged. Huge public service campaigns have stigmatized the dangerous behavior and helped lower the death rate caused by drunk driving by 2/3 in a little more than a decade. The same thing can be applied to the use and availability of firearms.

Banning high capacity gun magazines is also an idea that is debated by many anti-gun supporters. High capacity magazines are devices that dramatically boost a weapon’s firing power. They were prohibited from 1994 until 2004, when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was in place.

In the 2011 Tucson shooting, Jared Lee Loughner allegedly used a high capacity magazine in Tucson, Arizona, where he was able to fire 31 bullets in 15 seconds because he supersized his Glock 19 handgun with a high capacity magazine. In that attack, Loughner injured 18 and killed six people.

The National Rifle Association labels these guns as “standard equipment for self-defense handguns.” Why would an act of self-defense require the unloading of at least ten bullets? Sounds a bit overkill if you ask me.

Statistically, guns are used to murder more than 9,500 people in our country in a single year. By comparison, about 5,900 American troops have died in Afghanistan and Iraq during the past 10 years.

Sadly, these days mass murders are things that don’t surprise most Americans anymore. In the end, we can only hope that the people can agree on the right choices and implement laws that help create a safer country for us and for future generations.