Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

Once again, we celebrated the Fourth of July in what tragically has become the new American way. When the dust settled after the long holiday weekend, more than 20 people had been killed and 125 wounded in mass shootings.

Some people brush off numbers like these as “normal” now. My friends and I refuse to believe that for a minute. This is why we are writing to you. We never want to see another Independence Day, or any other day for that matter, marred by these random, senseless acts of violence.

• How many more mass shootings, like the ones at Sandy Hook in 2012, Las Vegas in 2017, Parkland in 2018, or Buffalo and Uvalde last year, need to happen before lawmakers in Washington say  enough is enough?
• “Thoughts and prayers” haven’t prevented any mass shootings from happening. It’s time to rethink America’s strategy when it comes to ending what many call a “gun violence pandemic.”
• Gunshots continue to ring out from military-style weapons like AR-15 rifles, leaving law enforcement officials and victims’ families with little more than gruesome images of bloody bodies to clean up after or prepare for burial. We fear the same will be true if/when youngsters get their hands on thousands of new Wee1 JR15 weapons. 
• So what is the solution? Simple. You, Sir, need to convene a summit on guns.
• As a first step we urge you to invite representatives of the NRA, 2nd Amendment proponents, law enforcement and grieving families to Camp David to come up with new, commonsense gun laws.

If this sounds familiar, it should. This is what Jimmy Carter did in 1978 when he invited Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin to Camp David. To be sure, their discussions were long (nearly two weeks) and difficult (people often threatened to return home); but, in the end, the peace agreement these three leaders crafted still exists today.

So the obvious question needs to be asked now: How much longer are people willing to continue thinking and praying mass shootings are going to end soon? 

It's time you convene a Camp David gun summit now.