Shortly after 9:30 am on December 14, 2012 a mentally disturbed gunmen entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT and used a semi-automatic assault rifle and 2 semi-automatic pistols to murder 20 innocent children, mostly kindergarteners, and 6 courageous adults after he had killed his mother in their home. The hearts of Americans and people around the world are breaking as a result of this senseless violence. While broken hearts reflect our deepest values and humanity, they are not enough! It is time for all Americans to compel our government to make reasonable and common sense gun reforms NOW! President Kennedy, who was brought down by an assassin's bullets , said, "If not us, who? If not now, when?" While Americans are ambivalent about "gun control" in general, in repeated polls the MAJORITY of Americans support 5 simple reforms that can make our country safer for all Americans without infringing on our Constitutional rights: 1. Background Checks 2. Registration 3. No guns for felons/mentally ill 4. No semi-automatic weapons 5. No high capacity clips We are not a Republican America or a Democratic America. We are the United States of America and we believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans support reasonable, sensible gun reforms now. We ask ALL Americans - mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers, loved ones and friends, Republicans and Democrats, gun owners and non-gun owners, people of all faiths and people of no faith - to JOIN us in enacting common sense gun controls that protect all Americans, particularly our children, while affirming our Constitutional rights. We do not believe that these two objectives - affirming the Constitution and enhancing our safety are incompatible. In fact, we believe that strengthening both of these fundamental values affirms the highest principles - rights and freedom, compassion and community - upon which our country was founded. While some on both sides would support the extreme of "all guns" or "no guns," and there are those who will oppose us, we believe that sensible reform must balance respect for our Constitution with the protection of the most vulnerable members of society. We believe that common sense gun reform must be based on the following Four Principles: 1. Affirm and Respect the Second Amendment's "....right to bear arms"; 2. Universal Registration and Background Checks; 3. No Guns for Felons/people with Severe Mental Illness; 4. Ban Semi-Automatic Weapons and High Capacity Clips; If you agree with us, please SIGN our petition and SHARE this with everyone you know. In addition, please CONTACT our leaders and compel them to enact common sense gun reform based on these 4 Principles NOW! Contact the President at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact Contact your Senators here: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm Contact your Representative here: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ If you agree with these simple principles for common sense gun reform, you must make your voice heard in our democracy! As Abraham Lincoln, who was also brought down by an assassin's bullet, said, "With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds." Let us all come together as Americans in honor of the 20 innocent children and 7 courageous adults who were slain in Newtown, CT. and join together to bind up our nation's wounds. Let us not standby and let these 20 innocent children and 7 courageous adults deaths be in vain.

We've all been paying our own money into Social Security our whole lives. Why should that money be used as a bargaining chip? No one has the right to do such a thing!

It has been reported that President Obama has made a compromise offer to Representative Boehner to offer cuts to Social Security. While not yet a retiree, these cuts would negatively affect my financial security as I have no pension and like most people, my 401K is, and has been dramatically diminished due to the greed of Wall Street sharks.

Please, no Social Security cuts. I retired at 62 and now barely keep afloat on Social Security checks. Living in NYC and getting $839.00 a month is already next to impossible when you don't have enough savings. By my calculation I will draw all my savings in 3 years. What am I supposed to do, beg on the streets?

Don't touch social security! This is the peoples money! Not the govts.!

Dick's Sporting Goods suspended sales of modern sporting rifles in respect for Sandy Hook victims. We would like to thank them for their leadership and request that they continue this suspension, and that they continue to work with citizens, other retailers, and law-makers in working for a safer country for all of us.

In the wake of the Connecticut massacre, it is time for the country to get behind sane and responsible laws regarding the use of firearms. There is no need for automatic weapons or large clips of ammunition. We can get this done.

Children's Mental Health is the base cause of the Newtown tragedy. Access to certain types of weapons is a means, an enabler and tightening that will help. But to really do something lasting and have a greater impact on the problem, addressing inadequacies in the Children's Mental Health System is essential.

We want to have armed marshalls on duty in every school in America. The shooters of our innocent children like the gunman at Sandy Hook need to know that they will be met with force if they try to gun down innocents. We have them on all airplane flights since 911 and it serves as a very good deterrent.

I am 55 years old have been unable to find work for the last 3 plus years and I feel a lot of it is because of my age. I want legislations that prohibits this practice under any circumstances including loopholes that allow businesses and corporations to disquise this.

They should not be allowed to show their hatred, at military funerals. It is a disgrace. They should be reprimanded for hate crimes. My son is in the US Navy. Families should be able to mourn, without these people shouting awful words at them.

Lots of people have guard dogs or watchdogs! Imagine a dog who is trained to attack a wild student/crazy who is carrying an assault weapon? A pair or trio of dogs should be able to save lots of student lives. They could also be mascots, grade by grade. Imagine these dogs also can smell drugs.