In a heavily attended public celebration in Kansas City for the recently crowned Super Bowl Champions, gunfire rang out sending thousands racing for safety. It was another tragic end to what has now become a common experience in America: the mass shooting event.

So long as guns and ammunition remain readily available and in the hands of citizens, no one is safe in America. Guns are freely and constitutionally protected in the concealed holsters of untrained and ill-equipped citizens in public spaces. In this present reality, the empirical conclusion is one that leaves sensible and rational people to expect that normal experiences will turn chaotic and deadly. Parades, schools, universities, places of worship, malls, theaters, stadiums, and city streets will forever remain unsafe from gunfire.

In America, mass shootings are increasingly no longer shocking, unexpected, and unthinkable. Today, they are anticipated, planned for, and plausible. With over 800 law enforcement officers on-site according to the Kansas City Chief of Police, budgeting, planning, training, and priorities are intentionally made in the full expectation that such events will occur. Despite these well-resourced and financed efforts, it was still not enough to prevent or stop a deadly outcome to a joyous celebration. Officials were quick to praise the immediate response by law enforcement. We too can be grateful.

Today, American’s need to be asking themselves, “Is this the world we want to be living in?”

Are we content to continue investing in and planning for the inevitability of every American tradition to end in mitigated tragedy? Are we content to surround every public space into something that resembles a maximum security prison? Isn’t this the very irony of arming every citizen with a lethal firearm? By claiming freedom and constitutional permissibility, we have imprisoned ourselves into a self-barricaded world where no one is free.

The growing mental health crisis in America is evidence that nearly everyone is a victim of some level of trauma that reshapes and distorts their perception of the world we live in. It would be foolish to assume that any one of us are somehow more superior than a “mentally disturbed” individual in a self-serving, senseless, or desperate moment. Doesn’t it seem logical that the very rise in access and gun violence actually contributing to the mental health crisis? Our children practice mass shooter drills. We witness real life pictures of death and chaos on nightly television and social media. Fears, not freedom, are spawned from this new American tradition of the mass shooting event.

Even if a such a weapon could be successfully used in the moment of self-protection by an ordinary citizen, how many are trained with enough skill and experience to know what to do in any given scenario that would eliminate the threat before them? Wouldn’t every firearm owner need to be regularly trained like Navy Seals or a highly trained rapid-response law enforcement team member? Is that even feasible let alone practical? Is this the world we want to be living in?

Are we willing to send our children to schools knowing the chances of encountering gun violence is only growing? Are we content to barricade our houses of worship with locked doors and armed guards, closing off the institutions that have historically benefited societies with open doors and arms? Are we willing to put our family’s lives at risk when we attend any public space where or cherished traditions like Super Bowl celebrations, trips to the mall, watching a newly released movie, attending class, Independence Day parades, and community events devolve into the new American tradition of a mass shooting event?

It doesn’t have to be this way. A more creative and compassionate rendering of our cherished Constitution can actually free us from the insanity that we are imprisoned by. We can legislate tough and punishing laws. We can repeal an amendment that has no place or sensibility in a modernized society where our weapons of war have no legitimate use in the hands of citizens. An industry that continues to profit off the deaths of innocent children and adults should be required to disband and forfeit their profits to buy-back and destroy every firearm and bullet left in the possession of our citizens.

In that world, the security and policing industry can turn their focus to other matters of public safety and crime prevention. They’ll be empowered to support our cherished traditions and public spaces by making them more enjoyable, open, safe, and equitable to all. Then, people will come out of isolation and make new friendships, find commonality, and collaborate together without fear of tragedy. The mental health crisis will no longer be considered a crisis, but a rarity because American’s will now begin living towards our full human potential where we can exercise compassion, curiosity, and creativity over fear, distrust, and nihilism.

Hope can still have the final word. It requires a collective belief that an alternative and better reality is possible. It also requires action at the polls, peaceful non-violent demonstrations, and standing in solidarity with victims of gun violence. The alternative to hope is to succumb to the new American tradition codified in a real-life dystopian future.

America, is this the world we want to be living in?