Kenneth Quinnell is the founder and executive director of the Florida Progressive Coalition.
I think I've mentioned this a time or two before, but the main reason that I got into online politics and blogging in the first place was Columbine.
Like most Americans, I was horrified when it happened, but I thought to myself, at least this will finally convince right-wingers that sensible gun control laws are necessary to reduce the loss of life we see in America. I was shocked at the response, which was, effectively, "no."
I had a hard time believing that, so I did what I usually do in those situations; I decided to catalog all of the evidence possible and make the logical case as to why gun control was the right thing to do. Other topics and blogging grew from that initial online project.
So when I recently found out about some common-sense efforts to bring the issue of gun control back to the public discourse, I jumped at the opportunity to write about them. And today, it seems, we've got some Florida-related things to write about on the issue of the gun problem in the United States.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns has launched a new campaign called "Fix Gun Checks" designed to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.