On Thursday, February 14th, 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, stormed into a classroom at Northern Illinois University with a shotgun and two handguns. Kazmierczak killed five students and wounded sixteen others before shooting himself.

This incident follows closely on the heels of another major college shooting at Virginia Tech University last April that left 33 people dead. After any major shooting, the firearms industry is put under intense scrutiny for their sales practices, and gun-control advocates seek all the press they can get.

Before I go any further, let me make clear how I feel about gun control. I would identify myself as a political moderate, and my beliefs on gun control also fall into the middle of the political spectrum. I do believe gun control is necessary, but I also believe owning a firearm is not a privilege but a right as declared in the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights.

I am also a strong proponent of the Brady Bill, named after James Brady, an assistant to Ronald Reagan who was shot during the assassination attempt on Reagan’s life. The Brady Bill states that a citizen wishing to purchase a handgun must be submitted to a background check by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) which checks for criminal records.

But even with a background check, Kazmierczak had no criminal record to speak of, and he was of legal age to purchase both rifles and handguns under current United States gun laws. Thus, it is illogical to place blame for this shooting on the shoulders of the gun companies. The only person responsible for this horrible deed is the shooter himself.

No bill currently being considered by Congress would stop a man such as Kazmierczak from purchasing firearms. There is no bill proposing we submit gun purchasers to psychological evaluations. There is no bill that would alert gun sellers that Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, had been referred to counseling by one of his professors.

Many people feel the Brady Bill is not strong enough to regulate the sale of firearms. Firearm sellers are constantly criticized for trying to sell more guns. They are accused of ignoring current gun laws and selling guns to minors or without conducting background checks.

Proponents of more stringent gun-control laws claim that gun sellers are encouraged by gun companies to sell more guns. They claim if the gun companies were not so encouraging, then sellers would be more careful about whom they sell guns to. However, when one stops to think about this, you realize the ridiculousness of it. The company simply wants to make a profit. The companies are not encouraging the sellers to sell guns to minors; they are trying to entice a citizen who walks in to buy a single gun to buy more than one gun. A similar practice occurs at Best Buy and GameStop where the checkout clerks are given instructions to try to sell magazine subscriptions to customers.

At this time, I encourage you not to look for someone to blame. Do not try to think of ways to punish the firearm industry. At times like these, we should instead look at how to stop these incidents from happening.

Many gun-control advocates say the only way to stop these shootings is to ban the sale of handguns to civilians, a practice adopted by the United Kingdom in 1997. However, since the ban, the number of firearms injuries in England and Wales has more than doubled. Clearly, a firearm ban is not the answer.

I would rather look at a smaller sampling. Instead of trying to stop gun crimes in the entire country, I would look at how to stop a shooting at Penn.

After the Virginia Tech shootings many universities across the nation, Penn included, instituted systems that would alert professors and students to a shooter on campus and warn them to stay indoors or away from certain buildings. You can now go to Penn InTouch and enter your cell phone number to receive text message warnings in case there is such an event. However, systems like these do little to stop shootings from occurring.

NIU also has an alert system. Once Kazmierczak began shooting students and professors were warned, but the system did nothing to help the students in the lecture hall where the shooting began. While warning systems may help limit the scope of school shootings, they do little to prevent the shootings.

The question then remains: how do we stop massacres like this from happening?

I don’t have an answer for you. We cannot have guards constantly patrolling hallways. I don’t believe metal detectors at building entrances are the answer either. I don’t have an easy answer, and I don’t know if there is one.

My thoughts and prayers go out the families and friends of those killed on February 14th. Do not think I am ignoring the losses suffered. What I am trying to do is to focus us. Instead of lashing out at gun companies or sellers, we need to find ways to prevent shootings like this from happening again. The University of Pennsylvania is supposed to be filled with the brightest students in America, many of whom design award winning inventions or service projects. I am begging you to put your minds to another task now. Devise some way to stop these shootings so that no other family has to suffer like so many have.