Dear Mr/Mrs president I respectfully ask that you take no action to further limit Americans right to own firearms. I make this request not so much to protect my right to own guns, but because, like millions of my fellow Americans, I am afraid. I am afraid of the seemingly endless ways the government tells me what I can and can’t do, I am afraid of the increasingly frequent ways that, in the name of “government” and “democracy,” it feels like the religious beliefs and moral values I share with millions of Americans are being trampled on. I am afraid of living in a nation, a great nation, that is moving in directions with which I disagree, but over which I have no control.

I guess what all this boils down to is how scary it feels not to be in control of how our lives are going, or of our future. Not economically. Not in terms of how we’d like to live according to our values and beliefs, but society is telling us we can’t. Not in terms of something as simple as owning a gun to protect ourselves, something that could give us at least a little feeling of control against these scary times. I am sure you can understand, Mr/Mrs President, as a person and as a father, how profoundly threatening it is to feel like we can’t control how our own lives are going.

I understand that this fear is hard to accept for people who are concerned about gun violence, as all responsible gun owners are. I respect that some people might even be somewhat worried that they will be a victim of such violence. But our fears run far deeper. They are a constant corrosive presence in our daily lives. Not being able to live your life the way you want to, or shape your future, is far more threatening than how worried people might be about being shot, which most people know is highly unlikely, despite occasional high profile shootings that get lots of attention in the news.

Our deep fear is why we are fighting so passionately on this issue, to assert control somehow, some way, over our lives. Restrictions on a constitutional right feed our fears, and that will make a fight that is already dividing America even worse, which no president should want.