Michael D. Barnes

We've got activists all across the country like the members of the Million Mom March organization, some of their leaders are here tonight. We're phone banking congressional offices and pursuing editorial boards.

If today is your typical day in America, 80 of our fellow citizens will die from gunfire. In the last two weeks, more Americans have died from gunfire here at home in the United States than in the entire war in Iraq since it started.

Who's paying the million bucks? The insurance company. We've been trying for years to get the insurance industry to say to the gun industry, We won't insure you unless you have policies that will reduce the likelihood of guns falling into the wrong hands easily.

It got to the point where most of my time went toward writing novels. I would still occasionally write short stories, but only when I was commissioned by an editor to write for a themed anthology or special issue.