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.

Many of Judy Blume's books - which I devoured when I was growing up and where I found characters that were believable because they were a lot like me - caused considerable consternation when they were first published, but now they're widely accepted as an essential part of the children's literary canon.

Having a Congress with a more diverse educational and professional background would serve the country well. And given the budget challenges facing America today, we might benefit from a few more cold, calculating problem solvers, and fewer courtroom impresarios.