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Making improvements to our background check system and cracking down on illegal gun trafficking are common-sense ways to prevent violence without punishing law abiding gun owners. We owe it to the American people to take real action to reduce gun violence in our communities.

While different states and cities might look to different strategies for protecting public safety, we all can agree on this: we lose too many American lives to gun violence.

There are a lot of people getting killed by guns in our country for reasons, from my understanding, that are preventable. So many guns that are left loaded, unlocked. So you can educate. That doesn't seem to be too controversial - education.

Getting guns off the streets does make communities safer. We can't stand here and say because we don't have the perfect solution, we shouldn't try.

Understanding the long, sordid history of gun control in America is key to understanding the dangers of disarming.

We're trying to publicize this one and make people realize that the gun industry can clean up its act and can operate in a way that can reduce the likelihood of guns killing police officers and other innocent people.

Nobody is denying we should investigate and do what we can to prevent gun crime in our cities and towns. But, we should not scapegoat the American gun owner for complicated, cultural problems we are just beginning to understand.

The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment - in deterrence, and perhaps most of all in the meting out of condign justice for horrible crimes - outweighs the risk of error.

That guns do more than protect us from criminals; more importantly, they protect us from the ongoing threat of government.

The fact that you own a gun and shoot to defend your life is a very American way of thinking.