This was sent to me by my friend Steven Koltai, now living in Maine.

Here (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/25/us/gun-control-republican-senators.html) is a list of Senators and where they stand on gun legislation. Most of us have a home state (or vacation home state) on this list. Of course, we all have Congresspeople as well.

If you really care about chipping away at the control of guns in America, and you believe (as do I) that there is no realistic chance of changing the filibuster in the current 117th Congress OR, at least in the next Congress (118th), achieving 60 votes to change gun laws, then the very least we can do is write to our respective Senator to urge passage of pending legislation.

You can find a good list of pending legislation here (https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/other-laws-policies/key-federal-regulation-acts/).

You can find the address for your Representative and Senator here (https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm and https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative).

Feel free to copy and paste this letter.

BEGIN TEXT

Dear Senator ___,

Like 90% of Americans, I favor substantial tightening of gun laws. There are numerous (and soon to be even more) proposed bills that accomplish this. A good list appears here:  https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/other-laws-policies/key-federal-regulation-acts/.

I know you already know all the facts, including that guns are the #1 cause of death for children in the United States (true since 2020). There are no wealthy countries besides the US where this is true, and even among poor countries, most are safer for children than the US. We are in the same category as “failed states” or countries in outright state of war, such as El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Somalia, Sudan, Congo and Myanmar.

I know you care deeply about human life. We can debate at what point in gestation a life begins, but surely, we cannot debate that a child sitting in a classroom is not only alive, but is precious and is our responsibility to protect.

I hope you will not only consider, but actually help lead the campaign to pass one of the pending laws already on the books, before this Congress ends.

Thanks much for your consideration.

[Your name, town and state]