RICHMOND, Va. -- In the wake of mass shootings, Americans remain polarized on how to prevent these gun massacres.
As long as you're 18, most Virginians can walk into a gun store and buy a gun the very same day as long as they pass a background check.
That is not the case in many other industrialized nations.
15 years ago, Joanna's childhood best friend Rachel Hill lost her life in a school shooting at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people.
"It alters a community, it alters people."
The mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that killed 19 children and two adults on Tuesday threw Joanna right back to that tragic day.
"How I felt the day we got the news she was shot in the face while she was closing her locker."
Joanna has a four-year-old son. She also recently gave birth to a daughter Evelyn who was stillborn.
"I know the pain of child loss and I don't understand why we are still subjecting our children to this," Joanna said.
She frequently talks to her husband who is in the military about wanting to move out of the United States to escape the prevalence of mass shootings.
"The ubiquitous nature of guns. There are more guns in the United States than there are people," Dr. William Pelfrey, a criminal justice and homeland security professor at VCU said.
He said the reasons why these shootings happen in the United States are complicated. Among the possibilities include the ease of getting guns, including semi-automatic assault rifles, like the one that was used in the Texas school shooting.
"In the U.S., we place very few restrictions on who can get a gun. We also make it easy to buy lots of guns," Dr. Pelfrey said.
He also said that other first-world countries, like England and Australia, have gun policies that are far different from the United States.
"You can't buy mass quantities of ammunition. You can't buy the kinds of guns we have seen affect the mass shootings that have plagued the United States for the past 30,40 years," Pelfrey said.
Another concern being raised is that of mental health in America.
A study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund in 2020 found the United States has one of the highest mental health burdens among the high-income countries studied.
However, its structural capacity to meet those needs was relatively lower than the other countries.
It's that mental health piece that has Hunter McAnney wanting to see mental health reform as opposed to gun reform in the United States.
"I don't think it's something we have to live with. I think instead of finding ways to restrict the tool that's used, we should find better ways to restrict the people committing them because guns don't kill people, people kill people," McAnney said.
Hunter's father served in the Navy and he said living in the United States is a huge blessing.
"Why are people pouring over into a country in the amount they are? Why people spend their whole life trying to emigrate over here because of opportunity, because of freedom," McAnney said.
Maintaining the right to bear arms enshrined in the United States Constitution is a top priority for him.
"The Second Amendment protects our country. Mainly, it allows us to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government," McAnney said.
Joanna, Hunter, Dr. Pelfrey and Dr. Holsworth all agree that something must be done to make a dent in the problem.
"Let's get away from this situation. Because that wouldn't have solved this particular issue. There is nothing that can be done, I don't think we should be so fatalistic. I think we should have some optimism in our ability to solve problems or at least to make them better."
