What You Can Do About Gun Control TODAY

20 children have been murdered in Connecticut. This what you can do about it right now:

1. Write and call your Congressman. Writing to your Congressional representatives is the most important thing you can do, more important than writing to the White House. Write and call your House member first, and then your two Senators. You can find their contact information at house.gov and senate.gov.

Tell them you want them to bring back the assault weapons ban from the 1990s. You may want them to do more than that, but getting them to do more than that will take a long time. This is the easiest gun-control measure to vote for, and the hardest to vote against. Tell your House member and Senators that the gun used to kill those children was illegal fifteen years ago, and that it should be illegal now.

Tell them that passing the assault weapons ban is the least they can do, and that they need to show you that they are leading on this issue.

Tell them that you are very, very angry.

2. Write to the President. You can contact the White House here.

Tell the President you want him to bring back the assault weapons ban that President Clinton passed. Tell him that you want him to show leadership on this issue, and that you are very, very angry.

Also tell him that you want Attorney General Holder to enforce all existing gun laws and make firearms enforcement a top priority. The President does not need Congress to do this. He can do it tomorrow. Tell him to do it.

3. Write all of the same people next week and tell them the same thing.

Elected leaders do not do things because voters want them on the day something terrible happens, no matter how badly the voters want those things or how terrible the day. They do things because they know voters want those things every day,  and will not change their minds. Show your leaders that your mind will not change.

Write to your Congressmen and the White House next week and say that you still want the assault weapons ban and strict gun law enforcement. If they have not done anything by next Friday, tell them you are very disappointed. If they have done something, tell them they are doing a good job and encourage them to do more.

Then write to them the week after that. Write to them every time a gun-control bill comes up in Congress.

If you really want to do something about gun violence in our country, it will take a long time and many stages. It will take steady determination even to get the assault weapons ban back. It will take years of effort and determination to do more than that.

Politicians in our country have learned to fear the gun lobby. They will not back meaningful change until they are more worried about angry voters who want gun control then they are about powerful lobbyists who don't. This is going to take us many, many hard days. Today is the day to start.


cross-posted from Dagblog