I’m sure you agree with President Obama, of course we can’t tolerate massacres of children and teachers at school such as the horror last Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. The President not only called the depressing roll of towns previously brutalized by gun massacres, he also decried the daily toll gun violence takes in communities of every size, shape and socio-economic status across the country.

Connecticut Senator-elect Chris Murphy went even further than the president on ABC’s “This Week” television show yesterday, saying the following:"...yes, there needs to be a conversation about gun control, but also about the way we treat mental illness, also about the culture of violence in this country, which may have contributed to the way in which this very disturbed young man thought."

Yes, we need conversation about all those issues, including our society’s culture of violence, but we also need action, right now, and getting serious about gun control is a great place to start.

Call your congressperson and Senators via the Congressional switchboard, 202-224-3121 and demand immediate action on gun control.

Also, you can sign this petition on the White House’s “We the People” petition site 

This petition already has about 150,000 signers, the most popular petition ever on the site.

Here’s a tool to help you “Know your Congress:” check out this webpage on Open Secrets to see who took campaign cash from the National Rifle Association in the most recent election. 

On Friday, President Obama said every parent would hug their children tighter that night. At the time, my heartsick reaction was that, actually, I couldn't even look my children in the face, such is my shame at letting them grow up in such a violence-addicted country, and at my utter failure to help build a society worthy of their beauty, innocence, hopes and dreams. And of course, the parents in Newtown aren't the only ones who can't hug their kids tonight, that's also true for the parents of the kids the president’s drone strikes killed in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere.

I certainly don’t have all the answers right now. But our country’s addiction to violence, to guns, to war and militarism, must end. Thank you for all you do to help make a more peaceful path for our nation.

Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.

Humbly,