Alice Shea, MD, a physician and mother of four young children, formerly attended Annunciation Church in Minneapolis, the site of a mass shooting on Aug. 27. She lives in Bath.

The heart-wrenching and awful scene that unfolded recently at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis shook the whole nation but particularly the Catholic communities. This marks the first time a Catholic Church has been the site of mass violence in the United States.

The events that occurred were even more jarring for me personally, as I have attended that church myself and my childhood home is located within walking distance of the church. Additionally, my sister and sister-in-law both work at the associated elementary school. All of my oldest sister’s children have attended that school — her youngest child only graduating this past spring.

After this kind of carnage occurs, a flurry of questions arise — who, how and why. We now know “who,” as the perpetrator took their own life at the conclusion of the murders. With such a heinous act, however, there is no reasonable explanation for “why.” I am left with the question of “how.” The answer to that question is the most disturbing and troubling, as it’s the same answer for all of the mass murders that have become so frequent in the United States: guns.

Unraveling America’s fixation on guns and gun rights is complex. There is a complete dichotomy of the American view on guns: those who view possessing weapons as an inalienable right and those who want weapons banned. The gun “rights” advocates will repeatedly use the Second Amendment to the Constitution as their justification. However, the Second Amendment’s statement that citizens have a right to “keep and bear arms” was made in 1791 — a time when a cumbersome single-shot musket or similar weapon was the “arms” being referenced.

The current state of weaponry in the United States includes rifles/machine guns that can spray dozens of bullets in minutes. This type of weapon was not being referenced in the Constitution. Rather than a weapon of personal protection that the Constitution mentions, the current guns are better classified as weapons of mass destruction that result in thousands of innocent citizens losing their right to life over the course of a single year in this country.

For me, in simple terms, I believe the right of an innocent child to live and attend church and school without being massacred (or fear being massacred) supersedes the “rights” of the citizenry to bear these deadly weapons.

Nonetheless, I doubt the absolute right to buy and own weapons will ever be forfeited in the United States — given the dichotomy I previously mentioned. Banning the sale of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines is a more attainable goal. It is hard for even the most ardent gun rights advocate to argue for the utility of an assault rifle to the general (non-military) populace.

In fact, there was a short-lived act that was signed into law in 1994 that prevented the manufacture of civilian use of certain assault-style firearms and high-capacity magazines. However, this law only applied to weapons manufactured after that date and the act subsequently expired in 2004.

As another strategy, we must make the impediments to possessing guns much greater. The often called for “background checks” have missed all of the perpetrators of largest mass gun murders simply because those individuals had not committed prior crimes. Perhaps a thorough psychiatric examination needs to be a prerequisite to the owning of this potentially deadly weapon. Certainly that would add time and expense to the routine gun buyer looking to purchase a rifle for deer hunting, but something needs to change.

We should not have to question whether our children will be the next victims of gun violence. And the possibility of that violence should not have to loom over their school experience, with active shooter drills now a part of their school routine.

The first time a mass murder was carried out using high-capacity firearms was a tragedy. All the subsequent events that have occurred with the same type of weapons represent a grave lapse by us, the voting citizens, and the lawmakers to properly contain this known threat to the innocents of our country — both young and old.

The attitude that guns are here to stay and we just need to put additional barriers in our places of work and school and teach people defense strategies is inverted logic. The foremost guiding principle should be the right of free people to live without fear of random assault by guns. The secondary right to possess guns should be an earned privilege in our country.

As a nation, we need to protect kids, not guns.