We propose a practical method to keep the second amendment right to gun ownership, while protecting society from accidents and senseless shootings.

We must break the grip of the gun lobby on our nation's leaders. Our civil right to live in a safe & sane society is now more relevant than the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. There needs to be reasonable restrictions on gun ownership including full & thorough background checks.

This petition is about the stale mate between the entire U.S. Congress and the President over spending cuts. Some Congressmen want to put the burden of spending cuts on the underprivileged citizens, poor, and elderly, who cannot afford them. I am asking that the Senators and Congressman share in the burden of the spending cuts.

Gun control

Dear Families and Friends in the Thoreau School Elementary School Neighborhood, We have organized a petition through Moveon.org to support the following issues in order to protect our children and adults affected by gun violence. Please sign and distribute the URL to your neighbors and any other friends. This petition can go out to anyone to sign who considers themselves a friend of our elementary school. If you have friends in other elementary school districts please urge them to organize a similar petition around their local elementary school. Please forward the URL of the petition or printed list of petitioners and we will collate them and send a printed copy of all the names of this neighborhood elementary school petition to the legislators, the Concord Journal and other media outlets, Patricia Llodra, the selectwoman of Newtown, CT and other appropriate contacts. If we reach 10,000 signatures we will also print and place it at the memorial at the Sandy Hook elementary school. Thank you for your consideration of this petition. Best wishes for a peaceful holiday season, Robin and Kent Carlson Concord, MA 01742

The recent tragic shooting that occurred in a school.

The residents of Sandy Hook deserve privacy. Their fear and grief should be private and the news media does not demonstrate decency or respect in these situations. You can simply report "The children and teachers of Sandy Hook returned to school today. Our hearts are with them." If you need drama you can have panels of experts or adults who have faced this situation explain what they must be going through. If you show pictures or news footage or interviews of kids on their first day/week back we will boycott your show and network. Decency needs to return to mainstream media.

The tragic killings at Newtown, CT was Friday. It is now early Monday morning and still that is the only story on the news. Is there also other news in the world that should be being covered? Do you want to know what else is going on?

We have heard it all before. Unfortunately, the status quo approach to gun control will fail. There is only one solution that will also maintain our justifiable right to bear arms and at the same time diffuse NRA incentives to undermine any and all efforts at gun control. And this solution will only require the support of a few correct thinking members of the U.S. House of Representatives:

Someone wrote a compelling and deep message on "Gun Control." Yes, we know about a criminal who entered a school in Connecticut and opened fire, killing 26 people, 20 of whom were children. Completely innocent unarmed victims. Gun control was already in effect in Newtown. The criminal in this case committed dozens of felonies that day... and we are witnesses to the futility and folly of counting on law alone to protect women and children when no man stands in the door to protect us. No increase in law or regulation would have prevented this horror, no paperwork would have saved a single child. In the face of a willful, angry, hostile person, only an equally determined man, soldier, police officer, sheriff or trooper can stop such an event. Columbine. Red Lake Minnesota. Essex Vermont. Lancaster. Aurora. Virginia Tech. You named many events. They all share one common thread: no single armed officer or citizen stood on the ground to STOP and KILL the attackers. Gun control? It is needed: a ready hand to aim and shoot when an attack is imminent or underway. How many more innocents must die at the hands of an antiquated and oft-misinterpreted amendment? None. The Constitution, the 2nd Amendment killed no-one. Angry, haunted, unstable people killed innocents, because there were not enough people in the lives of the killers who could identify the threat, who took an interest in the disturbed minds of such criminals, not enough police to walk the streets to save the victims when evil marched. It's time to stop the violence. But we don't do so by screaming for "Gun Control." Some suggest Gun show loopholes must be stopped. Why? No evidence suggests that any of the shooters obtained their guns at any gun show. Ammunition should not be sold online? Where is the evidence that a single bullet used in any murder was bought online? It has been said that mandatory wait periods should be enforced during which time a thorough background check, psychological and medical evaluation and character references should be completed. Really? We already have that in place, the FBI checks every application, since 1992. Perhaps more accountability should be placed in the hands of retailers? How? Define that. Some suggest that when patrons refuse wait periods, authorities should be notified. Guess what? The law already requires that, police and the ATF are called regularly, and retailers deny sales to non-compliant 'customers.' Would you mandate that gun dealers SHOOT such people on the spot? Some suggest that training and testing be mandatory, as should a renewal process that includes many of the above-mentioned evaluation terms. That is already the rule and law in most states. Why not expand the same concept to alcohol? Demand that every liquor store check customers for alcoholism, and make background checks for the sale of a fifth of vodka? It was illegal for Lanza to drive across town with loaded weapons in his car, as he was under-age (not yet 21) and illegal to drive onto the school parking lot with illegal weapons. The law didn't stop him. It was illegal for him to break a window at the school... the law failed to stop him. It was illegal for him to trespass on school property with a rifle, yet the trespassing laws didn't slow him down for a second. It was (and is) illegal for him to assault, maim, and shoot people, and a special crime to assault a child, yet those laws were meaningless when he chose to ignore them all, as he intended to die before any man could arrest him. He killed himself rather than face the law. How would anyone have prevented his suicide, which is ALSO illegal in Connecticut. The law didn't prevent his last act, either. We cannot trust in ""law" to protect us. Instead, we must rely on rough, violent men, men like myself and my brothers who walk and ride the streets of America to risk our lives and limbs to defend you. Only a bullet could have stopped him, no paper did, no paper laws ever will "protect" you from any person with malice in their heart.

The recent shootings in Connecticut have brought about an outcry for gun control reform, which is but one piece of a very complicated puzzle. As a society we should also be beating down the doors of the White House, congress and our local officials to do more to fund adequate mental health care in this country. We need an outcry to bring about a more meaningful dialogue on how society addresses all aspects of these acts of violence.

In Maine, if you are looking to get your license for the first time, and you are over 18, you must wait an entire year, during which time you are required to drive with another person in the car, who is over the age of 20, for 35 hours. This is called getting your "drivers permit." You must do 35 hours of driving, 5 of which must be during the night. After that time is up, you can send in for a drivers license test date . If you are under 18, you must do this, and also a number of other stipulations are placed on you when you do get your license, which I encourage due to them being under 18. I luckily got my drivers permit before this rule switched from 6 months to a year, but sadly I will not be getting my license until probably April. Not having my license means for me that I couldn't go to school this semester while working, and after my 5PM to 1AM shift, I have to walk home in an area that is unlit, and a large portion of which does not have sidewalks. The sidewalks that are there are not always plowed after a snowstorm. Making legal, taxpaying adults not able to pursue improving their situations in life, due to a lack of public transportation in a lot of the state, and an inability to get a drivers license in a timely manner, is wrong. I say that people should be able to prove that they are road-ready drivers WITHOUT spending a year of their lives to do it.