5 Ways To Have Your Say On Gun Control

DO YOUR RESEARCH – Make sure you are familiar with the issue you are writing about. What's President Obama's position on the matter? What is the voting record of your representative or senator? Discover that information at www.govtrack.us. (Pictured: Library of Congress) Getty Image

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Interacting with elected officials doesn’t have to include snail mail

Natalie Barden has a message for President Obama: “Only police officers and the military should get guns.”

The 10-year-old’s younger brother, Daniel, 7, was killed in the Newtown, Conn., shooting on Dec. 14. The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults, not including the gunman who killed himself.

“If people want to do it as a sport than they could go to (a) shooting range and the guns would not be able to leave there,” she wrote in a handwritten note to the president.

Unfortunately, her letter didn’t get to the president and was instead read on air by CNN’s Anderson Cooper a week after the shooting. Cooper obtained the letter from Lillian Bittman, former Chair of the Newtown Board of Education, who said it was passed to her at Daniel Barden's wake. Bittman said the family wanted Cooper to share the letter publicly.

While Natalie took a somewhat old school approach to reaching out to the White House, electronic means are clearly faster – a tweet, an online petition or a rapid-fire comment on a forum.

Check out our guide for contacting elected officials as they take on gun control.

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