Keep the letters short and to the point, but DO write them.
Other pertinent factoids possibly worth mention:
- At Columbine, the guns were the back-up plan. The primary weapons were two bombs that didn't explode. If they had detonated, they would have killed hundreds.
- The worst school massacre in U.S. history was in Bath Township, Michigan, in 1927. The toll was 45 killed and 58 wounded/injured. No guns were used. The weapons were THREE bombs.
- In 1964 in Cologne, Germany, 10 people were killed and 22 seriously injured by an attacker using a home-made flamethrower.
The problem isn't what weapon the attacker chooses. The problem is the attacker. For someone who really REALLY wants to kill a lot of people, if he can't get a gun he'll make a bomb, or drive an SUV through a crowd of kids at a bus stop. All this hysteria about guns is distracting us from addressing the problem ... or even identifying what the problem is.