Open thread for night owls: A national conversation on guns and violence

The White House website hosts a petition page where citizens can raise matters of concern. The administration will respond to any petition that receives 25,000 or more signatures. Petitions run the gamut, from those seeking legalization of marijuana to those seeking an end of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. Recently, petitions seeking the peaceful secession of states from the Union made a splash in the traditional media.

In the wake of the shooting deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut today, several petitions relating to guns appeared.

While some people, including White House press secretary Jay Carney, argued that Friday was not the day to begin talking about changing the nation's gun policies, some congresspeople and tens of thousands of citizens had other ideas. Among them were those who started a petition urging President Obama to introduce legislation in Congress restricting access to firearms. Just before Night Owls was posted, the petition had more than 65,000 52,000 signatures:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: Immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress. The goal of this petition is to force the Obama Administration to produce legislation that limits access to guns. While a national dialogue is critical, laws are the only means in which we can reduce the number of people murdered in gun related deaths. Powerful lobbying groups allow the ownership of guns to reach beyond the Constitution's intended purpose of the right to bear arms. Therefore, Congress must act on what is stated law, and face the reality that access to firearms reaches beyond what the Second Amendment intends to achieve. The signatures on this petition represent a collective demand for a bipartisan discussion resulting in a set of laws that regulates how a citizen obtains a gun.

Another petition took a sharply different approach. As posting time, it had more than 800 signatures:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: A gun in every classroom. Arm every teacher and principal to defend themselves and their students during an attack. If teachers and principals are armed and trained to defend themselves during a school attack there would be fewer casualties and less attempts to attack schools. Fact: Crime rates decrease when the people are better armed. It is time we gave our teachers the ability to defend themselves and stop pretending like a door buzzer is enough of a defense. Take a stand for school safety. Arm the teachers and principals today. A gun in every classroom will protect our students from massacres like the one in CT today.

Daily Kos also initiated a petition today asking President Obama to initiate a national conversation on gun control. You can sign it here.

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