To all citizens of the United States: today, Dec. 14, 2012, 20 children and 6 adults were shot dead by a gunman in an elementary school in Connecticut. Last night in China, 25 elementary school students were wounded by a knife attack, however not one person did not make it out alive. The reason why all of these children will be able to return home once again is because China has enacted laws ensuring that not everyone with an identification and drivers license has the right to obtain a gun. We will never be able to prevent people like the gunman and the knifeman from existing in our society, however we can decide whether we want our children recovering in the hospital after an attack like this, or dead. The difference is staggering between how much we spend to defend ourselves from foreign threats that have yet to make themselves present, and how much we spend to keep ourselves safe from mass shootings that happen far too often on our own soil. Gun manufacturers make billions of dollars from not having gun control. How much more of our blood can we afford to shed to maintain these industries? Countries like Japan and Norway are proving that we are falling farther and farther behind developed countries where people live a better life without wielding guns. The right to bear arms ends when the 89 percent of Americans who own guns were unable to protect 20 children from being shot dead, and when the good these arms do is a nearly nonexistent drop in the sea of devastation that they cause. Banning the use of all automatic weapons and having more strict gun control laws are the first steps to take in ending these fully preventable tragedies in the United States. I therefore ask all of my fellow Americans to consider while having their dinners tonight the twenty six of our families that will never have another meal with their loved ones again.

I haven't been personally affected by the shooting at the Connecticut elementary school but innocent children have died at the hand of deranged gun carrying citizens. These types of crimes are happening too frequently. I believe this is due to the lack of gun control. It is time out for crying. We need to CHANGE the gun laws ASAP and make it almost impossible for anyone to get or carry a gun.

Children dying in our Schools

This latest shooting in Connecticut of innocent children and adults is horrible. It's going to take mothers to sign this petition to get Congress to once again ban assault weapons and also provide funding for mental health so that these troubled angry shooters get help before they go on another rampage. I want to see millions of mothers (and dads) sign this petition. This senseless violence has to stop.

I have been to rallies and protests to end wars. To free Soviet Jews. To support exploited workers. To fight AIDS. For women's equality and reproductive freedom. Against the death penalty. And more. But i have never publicly protested our nation's willingness to allow guns of all kinds to proliferate, almost unchecked. New Year's resolutions are mostly useless. Perhaps this year, all of us could make one resolution we mean to keep. That before the end of 2013, we will all let our voices be heard on this issue. For efficiency's sake, why not just all meet on the National Mall on January 1, 2013. And please, bring the kids. Mourn, then organize!

Keeping weapons whose sole purpose is to kill people off the streets.

The senseless failure of Washington D.C. has opened the door for increased gun violence. We the People are demanding Congress to stand up to the NRA, and put the American people before politics and their careers.

People with mental illness should not be allowed to own guns. In light of the recent rash of shootings in the United States, tell to draft and enact a comprehensive mental health policy in the United States and require regular mental health screenings for gun owners.

Ongoing mass murders to to US lax gun control laws

When I file my taxes every year, I can only deduct about $5,000 from my income for student loan interest. There is no cap on how much I can deduct for interest on a mortgage and I'm sure there are other unlimited deductions. So why is the system biased against students? I pay more to loans each year than I do for taxes or my mortgage. This has to affect millions of Americans by keeping their AGI too high.

Have you ever been a patient or had a love one admitted to Alta Bates? Have you ever delivered a baby at Alta Bates? If you SUPPORT your local community hospital then please come out and support our 8th strike against Sutter Health's Cutbacks to BOTH the community and the nurses on: Monday Dec 24th, 2012 2450 Ashby Ave in Berkeley, CA 7am-3pm. Please bring a canned food item or a new toy to those in need that will be donated following our picket line. Key concession demands at various Sutter hospitals (partial list): •Eliminating paid sick leave, effectively forcing nurses to work when ill, exposing already frail and vulnerable patients to further infection. •Forcing RNs to work in hospital areas for which they do not have appropriate clinical expertise, again a safety risk for patients. •Huge increases in nurses’ out-of-pocket costs for health coverage for themselves and family members. •Limits on the ability of charge nurses, who make clinical assignments for nurses, to address staffing shortages, subjecting patients to the danger of unsafe staffing. •Forcing RNs to work overtime, exposing patients to care from fatigued nurses who are more prone to making medical errors. •Cutting the rest time between shifts to 6 hours, an unsafe precedent for patients and the hospital workforce. •Eliminating all health coverage for nurses who work less than 30 hours per week and slashing the pay in lieu of benefits for all non-benefited nurses.-- 435 RNs and 31 Techs would lose all health coverage at Alta Bates Summit, and 100 RNs at Eden and San Leandro. •Reduced pregnancy and family medical leave, undermining RN families. Sutter does not need to make these drastic cuts: •Sutter has accumulated nearly $4.2 billion in profits since 2005, according to its own audited financial statements. •Sutter is among the wealthiest hospital chains in the U.S. – and has the highest net patient revenue per employees among U.S. hospital systems, according to a Modern Healthcare survey •Sutter paid 28 top executives more than $1 million in compensation, an agregate $46.7 million in 2010 alone, by far the most lavish spending on executives among all California hospital systems. •Sutter is presently building a massive new, 300,000 square foot administrative office center in Roseville, another sign of its expansive wealth, and spending away from the bedside. •Sutter is spending tens of millions of dollars on a questionable computerized electronic medical system, Epic Systems, the same controversial system that has been charged with putting patients at risk at Contra Costa County’s correctional facility Sutter’s record of abandoning communities and patients (partial list): •End breast cancer screening for women with disabilities and most bone marrow transplant services for cancer patients at Alta Bates Summit in Oakland and Berkeley. •Stop providing psychiatric services under contract with Sacramento County for more than 225 Sacramento children. •Close acute rehabilitation services, skilled nursing care, and psychiatric services, and substantially downgrade nursery care for sick children at Eden Hospital in Castro Valley. •Sharply cut psychiatric care at Herrick Hospital in Berkeley. •Close a birthing center at Sutter Auburn Faith, forcing new mothers and families to travel up to 75 miles for obstetrics care, while giving a $1 million gift to the Sacramento Kings

The Republicans are demanding entitlement cuts. Give House Speaker Boehner and the Republicans what they are asking for but from a different list than social services. President Obama should offer a list of cuts from corporate entitlements. Avert the fiscal cliff with cuts to corporate entitlements: industrial agriculture, energy, forestry, mining, outsourcing, banking, to name a few.