Doctors utilize all available resources, strategize treatment plans, run meticulous tests and screenings, and perform every procedures fit for their patients, so in cases when all the attempts at treatment and resuscitation fail and patients do not survive, they can say to the grief-stricken families,“we did everything we can.”

But what do we say to the families of the 26 individuals — 20 of them small children between the ages of five and ten — who had their lives taken away during a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut?

“Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children — all of them— safe from harm? Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know that they are loved, and teaching them to love in return? Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?” said  President Obama at the multi-faith vigil in Newtown on Sunday.

Obama answered his own question, stating, “The answer is no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change.” The President’s call for change resonates with many Americans, whose hearts are broken once again by another school shooting.

One image after another from Newtown breaks hearts in our nation: the pictures of the young victims on television, their smiles beaming; the survivors, having their innocence robbed from them too soon; the interview with the first grade teacher who hid all 15 of her students from the gunman, reassuring them that “the good guys are coming”; the eulogy written by a mother for her six-year-old son, giving us a small glimpse of the unimaginable grief the families are experiencing.

America, sadly, is no stranger to mass shootings. Mark Follman of Mother Jones, who has been studying mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. over the last 30 years, stated on the National Public Radio last friday that the shooting in Newtown has been the seventh case of mass killing in the U.S. this year alone and that this is “the worst year yet in terms of both the frequency of the events and the number of casualties.”

But the absurdity and the utter senselessness of this particular case – a man slaughtering 20 small children- seem to be a tipping point for a national conversation and legislative actions regarding gun laws.

In just the few days following the tragedy in Connecticut, we see the first signs of the thawing of the iceberg of inaction that had become typical of the Obama Administration’s response regarding gun violence. President Obama fought back tears in the two times he publicly addressed the tragedy and called for change. A number of Democratic senators, even those who have been long-time gun rights supporters, voiced their concern over gun violence in America and showed their new willingness to discuss actions that can be taken to prevent such tragedies from happening in the future.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a prominent gun-rights advocate who once fired his rifle at a cap-and-trade bill in one of his political ads in 2010, showed a change of heart in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary.

“We’ve had horrific crimes throughout our country, but never have we seen so many of our babies put in harm’s way and their life taken from them and the grief,” he told CNBC. “That’s changed me, and it’s changed most Americans I would think.”

The largest pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, has not yet made any comments regarding the issue besides offering its condolences to the people in Newtown. But other pro-gun supporters such as the so-called “no-compromise” gun lobby, Gun Owners of America, argue that schools should not be gun-free zones and that arming schools can prevent future school shootings. Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, blames the tragedies on the current gun-control policies, specifically the Gun-Free School Zones Act, saying that “gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands.”

What the pro-gun advocates are basically rooting for is — using more guns to solve gun-violence.

Currently the U.S. has the highest number of guns, approximately 270 million, privately owned by civilians as well as the highest gun ownership per capita in the world, a research by the Small Arms Survey showed.

And then there are those who blurt out the overused slogan “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” every time there are talks about gun violence. While it is equally imperative that our nation’s mental health care system be improved to better assist with individuals suffering from mental illness and who are prone to violence, we should not ignore the fact that loose regulations of guns and gun sales in this country make lethal weapons fall too easily into the wrong hands. And how, when reason and common sense are actually taken into consideration, will introducing even more firearms into circulation, as suggested by the extreme pro-gun-rights supporters, be an effective and civilized pathway to restore peace and order in a society?

There are hopes for real legislative actions for gun control. President Obama announced his support on Wednesday to reduce gun violence, putting Vice President Biden in leading to create “concrete proposals” by as early as January.

“No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society,” the president said on Sunday.

“The fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing,” Obama added Wednesday. “The fact that we can’t prevent every act of violence doesn’t mean we can’t steadily reduce the violence and prevent the very worst violence.”