Gun violence is an epidemic in our country.

Never has that been more clearly illustrated than when two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio claimed the lives of at least 31 people this weekend.

These shootings came less than a week after a shooter killed four at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California on July 28.

More locally, gun violence took over Dowagiac and South Bend this weekend. Saturday, two South Bend residents were hospitalized in shootings just blocks away from each other. On that same day, less than 25 miles away, two Dowagiac individuals were killed after Jason Clark allegedly shot his wife before turning the gun on himself.

The weekend before, a young man from South Bend was killed at a party in Howard Township, and another man was shot at Berrien Woods Apartments just outside the city of Niles.

This is madness. This is our new reality, and it is frankly insane that it is becoming so commonplace that we think this type of gun violence is just the way things are — that it is inevitable.

I will never forget Valentine’s Day 2018. Not because of any romantic gesture I received, but because it is the day that 17 students and staff were killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. I remember I was sitting at the same desk where I am writing this column when I began to see the news reports rolling in, naming the dead — those innocent children — as they were identified. Every photo of a smiling student’s face who would never go home again felt like a punch to the gut. I remember I had to get up from my desk and go to the bathroom to compose myself, I was so emotional. Later that night, I went home, and I cried with my boyfriend about the tragic loss of life.

This weekend, I shed no tears. I’m ashamed to admit that my first reaction was one of resignation: “It happened again.” My second reaction — the appropriate response — was one of anger.

Nothing has changed since the Parkland shooting, and gun violence has only increased to the point where we are all becoming desensitized to it. The shootings that claimed the lives of at least 31 people in El Paso and Dayton should not be normal. Children should not be afraid to go to school. People should not be afraid to gather for festivals, nightlife, or to go shopping at Walmart. Since the Sandy Hook shooting that claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults in 2012, there have been 2,178 mass shooting in the U.S., according to Vox Media.

That is not normal. It is unacceptable, and we cannot become desensitized to it. We have to do something about it.

There is something we can do.

For many, “gun control” is a dirty word that conjures up images of the government rounding up and hoarding every last gun in the country. That is far from the reality of gun control legislation. The most popular gun control reform proposals are common-sense measures to restrict domestic abusers’ access to guns, allow friends and family to flag individuals as a risk, and ban the type of assault rifles that allowed the Dayton gunman to kill nine people in the 30 seconds before he was shot down by police officers.

These measures would still allow Americans to keep guns for protection and hunting. They are not too much to ask, yet they have been fought at every turn by the National Rifle Association and the U.S. Congress.

So, we need to stop asking and start demanding.

Call your legislators. Make your voice heard. Use your votes in a way that counts, and vote in representatives and senators that vow to make a change.

Gun violence is not inevitable. There is something that we can do, and we need to do it.

Gun violence may be America’s reality now, but we need to do the work to make sure that it will not continue to be the reality for the generations that come after us.