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Gun violence provides an opportunity for Americans to face their existential crisis to protect the rights of the Second Amendment while creating reasonable gun control laws to protect the safety of its citizens, especially its children. As in any existential crisis, there is an opportunity to reassess why guns are so integral to American identity and if America is living up to the ideals of the American revolution that every citizen can reach their full potential. Most importantly, do the American people want to exist in a world where no place is safe from gun violence? In the spirit of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, if America cannot achieve its basic physiological need of safety, can it create a society that is psychologically healthy?

If safety needs are not addressed, the existential crisis will worsen, as symbolized by the normalization of a gun culture, which means in the not-too-distant future Americans, to meet their safety needs, may feel the need to carry a gun as they go about their daily lives.