If you are here and outraged about gun control, and you haven't written to your Representative or Senator yet, stop reading, spend 10 minutes, and do it now. Don't just sign a petition to the President or a fill-in-your-name letter, but make it personal and request a response.
Here's what I wrote:
Dear Representative Rigell/ Senator Webb/ Senator Warner,
It's way past time to pass reasonable gun control legislation. In the wake of the horrific massacre of of 20 innocent children and 7 adults in Newton, CT, I implore you to work others in the House [Senate] to enact sensible gun control legislation:
--to ban semi-automatic weapons
--to limit large capacity ammunition clips
--to make it more difficult for people with mental illness to obtain weapons
--to require a criminal background check for anyone to buy a gun, eliminating gun show loopholes
People claim the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, but this is not an unlimited right. I claim the right NOT to bear arms and to feel safe doing so in my home, schools, malls, and movie theaters. We regulate everything from driving to drinking to buying cold medicine, yet we cannot touch gun ownership and use?
I appreciate your consideration and look forward to a response.
Yours truly,
myname
(mom of 2 girls, 11 and 8)
More thoughts after the squiggle...
This is my first diary. The dominant issue that has up until now motivated me the most is the environment, global warming, and ocean issues. I have worked in environmental advocacy as a lawyer and as an artist, but this is the first time I have been fired up as a citizen to push for gun control (and fired up enough to write a diary).
Well, not the first, because I wrote to my Congressmen after the Aurora shooting too, but I'm truly outraged today that:
-- we live in a country where people with paranoid, anarchic, and dystopian views of society can dictate what "freedom" means at the expense of the lives of innocent children.
--people's response to this kind of violence is to run out and buy more guns, reinforcing the arms race mentality
--we can't have a reasonable discussion of limits to gun control without bringing the crazies out of the woodwork
I also believe there are deep dysfunctions in our society, such as the lack of help for mental illness; gun/violence saturation in the media & entertainment; bullying and intolerance, etc. that we also need to address. But at a minimum, let's make it more difficult for dysfunctional, mentally ill, or tormented people to obtain guns to commit mass murder.