On Sunday, October 1, Stephen Paddock broke two windows in his 32^nd floor room at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest Concert, attended by 22-thouasnd people. Paddock killed 58 people and wounded 515 before killing himself when police got to his room.

The Las Vegas massacre is now the worst mass shooting in modern United States history and has become the third shooting to obtain that label in the past decade.

The first mass shooting in the past decade to obtain that label occurred in April of 2007. Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year old senior at Virginia Tech killed 33-people on campus with two semi-automatic pistols. The mass shooting that surpassed the Virginia Tech tragedy took place in June of 2016 when Omar Mateen killed 49-people and wounded 58 at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando with a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun.

In all three of these shootings – Virginia Tech, Orlando, Las Vegas – the shooters legally purchased their weapons of choice. This happened even though each shooter’s past behavior showed that their attempt to acquire a weapon should have at the very least been flagged to be investigated by some level of law enforcement.

Cho had been diagnosed as, “mentally ill and in need of hospitalization,” by the New River Valley Community Services Board a little more than a year before he began purchasing his weapons. Mateen had been on the FBI’s terrorist watch list twice before he made his purchases, and Paddock had purchased enough weapons and ammunition to start a Las Vegas militia.

This happened because even with these mass shootings and 30-thousand gun related deaths annually in the past decade, there hasn’t been any federal legislation on gun control passed, let alone legislation that would prevent mass shootings.

So how can the United States put an end to these tragedies? Well, like many said after the Las Vegas tragedy, you can’t eradicate evil. People with lethal and evil intentions will always exist, especially in a country built on giving its citizens as many freedoms it can within reason. But what you can do, is eradicate the ease at which evil are able to obtain these weapons.

Those who are in favor of gun control have been fighting this fight for some time now with a bipartisan approach and it hasn’t worked. Those who are pro-gun have insisted that gun control is a slippery slope, that one piece of legislation that regulates guns will eventually lead to a full repeal of the Second Amendment.

For some reason, the gun control lobby believes there is still hope for the meticulous approach they are currently using which is insane.

These are desperate times in America, which means impactful change will require desperate measures.

The act of desperation that the gun control lobby needs to pursue is a thorough legislative re-examination of the Second Amendment.

A thorough legislative re-examination starts with recognizing that the language used in writing the amendment in 1789 does not fit modern times. During the Civil War – which occurred roughly 70-years later – an expert gunmen was able to shoot three rounds per-minute (RPM). Paddock used an AR-15 and a legal bump stock modification which allowed him to shoot at a minimum rate of 600 RPM.

That leads to the first piece of legislation the gun control lobby needs to press Congress on, a ban of all assault-rifles and any weapons that are of greater strength than a handgun or a low-grade single fire bolt-action rifle that can be used for hunting purposes only.

There is no need for any American to own a fully-automatic assault rifle, sub-machine gun, or any weapon of that nature. There is no threat or task that is faced by your everyday American citizen that requires a weapon that strong, and for that reason they have no place in this country.

Imagine Paddock opening fire on the concert from the 32^nd floor with a handgun or hunting rifle. Hard to imagine the tragedy having the extreme outcome it had isn’t it? Mateen’s shooting probably would have had a significantly different outcome if he only had two handguns instead of a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun.

The Virginia Tech shooting only involved handguns which means a repeal of rifles would not have made a difference. While the goal is to eliminate all mass shootings, a piece of legislation that would put a significant dent in the two greatest mass shootings in modern US history would be a great sign of progress towards protecting the lives of Americans.

There is a piece of legislation that can be passed that may have prevented the Virginia Tech shooting as well, and it still isn’t a full repeal of the Second Amendment.

The next piece of legislation that the gun control lobby needs to push for that could put an end to mass shootings is the implication of an incredible background check and vetting process for all wannabe gun owners.

A great example of a country that has used this effectively is another country where citizens have freedom, Japan.

Back in 2007, Japan experience 22 gun-related homicides and it became a scar on the nation. In response, the country upped their already impressive background check process for anyone who wanted to obtain a gun.

To start out, future gun owners need to attend an all-day class and pass a written test. These classes are only held once a month. From there, those who passed step one need to pass a shooting range test with a mark of 95-percent and then go to a hospital for a mental test and drug test which will then be checked out by the police. Then the final step in the process is an in-depth background check to any ties with criminal or extremist groups. Once a citizen passes that, they can own a gun, but the close evaluation by the country persists. Police need to be provided with proof of the exact location of where the gun is being stored, as well as the location of ammo that is owned and the two must be locked and stored away separately. Police also examine the gun annually and the class and exam from step one need to be re-taken every three years.

Police in Japan even avoid the use of firearms as much as they can, choosing to rely on martial arts instead. They even avoid violence, when dealing with drunks they tend to roll them up in futons – like a Chipotle burrito – and bring them to the station to calm them down.

Japan enforced these gun laws back in 1958 and the executive director of Action on Armed Violence, Iain Overton, stated, “They [Japan] are the first nation to impose gun laws in the whole world and I think it laid down a bedrock saying that guns really don’t play a part in civilian society,” when he was talking to BBC in January of 2017.

Overton is right, guns don’t have a role in civilian society. It’s time for America, one of the most developed nations in the world, to realize that it’s time to develop their gun laws as well.

However, this development won’t happen overnight, it will take a long time. For that reason, the gun control lobby needs to start this debate now and start it with their foot pressed all the way down on the gas. They need to go after a near full repeal of the Second Amendment and a use of nearly the exact same gun ownership process that Japan has. With this approach, once they start to make any progress in Congress those who are pro-gun will realize it’s time to listen to a bipartisan approach to gun control. That will get rid of assault rifles and enforce a serious background check for those who want to own guns, and those two laws could put an end to mass shootings in America.