If we learned nothing from our friends across the pond in London, it’s that removing guns from the equation doesn’t make a city safer. Instead, the best you can hope for is that violent criminals will shift to another weapon. But again, this doesn’t do anything to make anyone safer.

Yet, a recent op-ed in the Kansas City Star caught my eye and pointed out exactly why violence will always be a problem.

Although adults have also done a lot to demand change, we still find ourselves in the same problems again and again. Groups such as Moms Demand Action and Everytown For Gun Safety have been working hard for years to get other adults involved in promoting safer gun laws. But are the rest of the adults in our country doing enough to demand change? Are the politicians doing enough to enact laws that will keep us safe?

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Our parents must do better. Our politicians must do better. Every American who has a voice must do better to protect our lives. The only way to enact real sensible gun reform is for us to reform our mindset regarding our involvement in politics.

So, as a child, a student, a citizen, I urge everyone to join this generation’s movement for change. How many more deaths must this country endure before we fully enact laws that will keep us safe? It is time for us to lay down our polarized politics and come up with a solution that will keep not just my generation, but future generations safe as well.

Allow me to boil all of this down for you. If you don’t support gun control, you’re apathetic to the issue of school safety.

Violence in this country will continue to be a problem as long as a large group continues to think the issue is the tool being used rather than the tool using it.

A violent person can be violent with any weapon or no weapon at all. Take a look at what happened earlier this week in a South Carolina prison. Seven people were murdered in an environment that is as tightly controlled as any in the world. It’s damn near impossible to get weapons into the facility, so the criminals made their own. Some appear to have been killed by makeshift knives. Others killed in other manners.

Yet the constant here isn’t weapons, but the violent people themselves.

While the author of this particular op-ed is a high school student and has yet to understand that guns don’t kill people on their own, it’s important to note that the sentiment isn’t unique to the young. Shannon Watts has made a career out of similar statements.

And all those statements ignore the reality behind all violent crimes, that they’re committed by violent people. Figure out how to minimize the number of violent people out there and you won’t need to restrict the weapons themselves.

After all, a lawful man could have a bazooka and no one have anything to fear from it while, as we saw in South Carolina, a violent man can murder with his bare hands.