A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about the uproar over the shortage of Macklemore tickets and asked why this was the only thing Wash. U. was capable of getting mad about. Despite an incredibly intelligent and passionate student body, Wash. U. seemed to me to be incapable of organizing and uniting. As I sat in the audience at the Clinton Global Initiative University opening plenary session last Friday, I heard a lot of the same things I had been thinking. Bill Clinton made an impassioned call to the students to realize that we do not have to be “tomorrow’s leaders”—we can be leaders in our communities today. I have never felt as inspired as I did when I walked out of the Athletic Complex Friday night, energized and ready to change the world.

But when I looked back at my article, I realized that I’m part of the problem—other than some occasional volunteer work, I’ve done next to nothing as far as activism goes during my time at Wash. U. So I sat down and thought about what issues I care about and what I should do. One of the first things that came to mind was gun violence and the campaign to instate universal background checks on gun buyers.

The United States has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the industrial world, and our current background check system is simply not effective. Only about 1 percent of potential buyers are denied, and 40 percent of buyers aren’t screened at all because of loopholes in the law. Most judicial policy experts agree that more thorough background checks would be the most efficient way to curtail gun violence. Think about it like the car license plate system. If you purchase a car anywhere in the country, be it from a new car dealership or a random person on the street, you have to fill out paperwork and have already proven that you are capable of operating that car by passing a driver’s license test. If you use that car to commit a crime, a police officer in any state can identify where it came from and who the current owner is. If we can have such an efficient system for cars, why can we not have something similar for a weapon with the explicit design function of harming other people?

I don’t think this should be viewed as a liberal-conservative issue because I don’t think background checks infringe on Second Amendment rights. If our culture accepts denying felons the right to vote, why can we not accept denying felons the right to purchase deadly weapons? Instituting a background check system would not prevent people from purchasing guns for self-defense, nor would it in any way allow the government to seize people’s guns in a socialist takeover like several politicians have suggested. In fact, according to a CBS News poll, more than 90 percent of Americans support expanding background checks. If Congress cannot pass a logical policy that 90 percent of its constituents support, then there is something seriously wrong with the way we do politics today.

But I can sit here and write about it all I want—to make something happen, I have to take action. So I’ve started writing to my congressmen, both here in Missouri and at home in Alabama. If background checks are something you’re passionate about, then join me in writing to as many of your representatives as possible. Roy Blunt, the Republican senator from Missouri, is a good place to start. He is generally opposed to gun control but has indicated recently that he may be open to the idea of more background checks. You can email him directly at his website, www.blunt.senate.gov. If gun control is not something you’re passionate about, then find something that you are passionate about and do something about it. No one has ever changed the world by posting on an Internet comment board. Make your voice heard, and remember Clinton’s words—we don’t have to be “tomorrow’s leaders” because we can be leaders today.