We’ve launched national and global campaigns against poverty, against nuclear and chemical weapons, against all manner of diseases.

Is it time to get serious about a campaign to eradicate violence? And if not now, after a string of horrendous events this month, then when?

Two of those events were right here in the Chicago area—in Tinley Park a gunman killed five women at a clothing store. Then in DeKalb, at Northern Illinois University, another gunman killed five students before ending his own life.

Out west, in California, a 14-year-old boy teased a classmate about being gay, then shot and killed him.

If we say something is terribly wrong with any society that produces people who so easily turn into cold-blooded killers, we’re told that it’s not society’s fault when people’s brains go haywire. If we say that we’ve become hostages to a system that makes getting guns as easy as buying a six-pack of beer, we’re told guns don’t kill people, that killers would find other ways to express their deadly violence even if we made it impossible to ban gun ownership.

But isn’t it obvious that we need to do something? Isn’t it just common sense to say that we can’t just continue to act as if these things are a part of everyday life over which we have no control?

We cannot accept that violence is inevitable. And we cannot accept that there is nothing short of becoming a police state that we can do to prevent it.

For starters, we simply need to make violence prevention a higher priority. Given recent events, now would be the time, for example, for our president to give a major, primetime address on the subject. Presidents often use their bully pulpit to focus national attention on an issue of overriding importance. Well, this is just such an issue, here and now.

The president and Congress could also take concrete steps, such as allocating resources for our public schools to add comprehensive anti-violence education to their curriculums at every level—K-12. Children need to be taught—repeatedly—that violence is never a proper and acceptable solution, whether it’s over a perceived slight, someone else’s skin color or sexual orientation, a personal difference, a drug deal—anything. Kids need to be constantly told that we do not solve our problems with guns.

Don’t say that we can’t teach such things or that humans can’t change. It was once morally acceptable—not that long ago, in fact—for one human being to own other human beings. It was once morally acceptable for a man to abuse his wife. It was once morally acceptable to kill people because they didn’t follow the prevailing religious beliefs of the day.

None of that is acceptable now. These days it is considered in almost every quarter to be morally indefensible to own slaves, abuse women or kill “heathens.” We can teach morality. We can change and evolve, if we want.

The last thing we need to do is just let these senseless killings pass without serious national discussion. Doing that means that we’re willing to sit around and wait until something equally tragic and horrendous ends with the loss of more lives. That cannot be what we want.

We should demand that our political leaders do more than issue statements. We should press for concrete action to try to prevent such violent acts from taking place again. If outside forces were periodically coming into this country to brutally kill people, we’d demand action. Just because the killers are coming from within doesn’t mean we should demand anything less.