To the Editor:Note: Newtown Action Alliance is a Newtown-based, national grassroots organization formed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

The Senate must stand with 67 percent of Americans who support a ban on weapons of war and vote down Judge Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the US Supreme Court. Judge Kavanaugh wrote the dissenting opinion when the DC Circuit Court upheld a District of Columbia ordinance banning most semi-automatic rifles and argued that the Second Amendment included the right to own semi-automatic rifles.

Since one AR-15 devastated our community in 2012, we know firsthand that AR-15s and other weapons of war have no business being in the hands of civilians. Judge Kavanaugh is an NRA gun rights extremist and a dangerous choice for the Supreme Court. If the Senate appoints Judge Kavanaugh, all parents should fear sending their children out of their homes. Our schools, streets, and other public places will be transformed into war zones, and more and more Americans will be killed and injured by weapons of war.

California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York have taken steps to ban assault weapons on the state level, and these laws are at risk if an NRA gun rights extremist is appointed to the US Supreme Court.

Federal inaction on regulation of weapons of war after 20 children and six educators were senselessly murdered by a gunman with an AR-15 and high capacity magazines in Sandy Hook has cost too many families their children and loved ones in towns and cities across this nation. Since the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, America has witnessed more and more devastating mass shooting incidents where gunmen used military-style semi-automatic assault weapons to brutally gun down innocent children, women, and men in schools, movie theaters, churches, concert venues, nightclubs, and other public venues:

12 killed, 70 wounded: July 20, 2012, Aurora, Colorado;

26 killed: December 14, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut;

14 killed: December 2, 2015, San Bernardino, California;

49 killed, 58 wounded: June 12, 2016, Orlando, Florida;

58 killed, 500 wounded: October 1, 2017, Las Vegas, Nevada;

26 killed: November 5, 2017, Sutherland Springs, Texas;

17 killed, 15 wounded: February 14, 2018, Parkland, Florida.

We implore all Americans who want to raise their children in a more peaceful, less violent nation to contact their Senators at 202-224-3121 to ask them to oppose Judge Kavanaugh.

Po Murray, Newtown Action Alliance

38 Charter Ridge Drive, Sandy Hook July 10, 2018