Every three days guns kill more than 20 children and teens, enough to fill a school classroom. We have likely had the equivalent of 67 Newtowns in the numbers of child deaths since December 14.

America has a spiritual problem when it protects guns rather than children. Why are we not all calling our legislators and expressing outrage? How can we let the voices of gun dealers and manufacturers drown out the cries of children?

The "Faces of Courage" campaign is focused on honoring gun violence victims and their families -- and taking action so fewer mothers who are celebrating Mother's Day this weekend will be mourning their own children next year and in years to come.

The United States Senate's failure to pass common sense gun safety measures -- the Manchin-Toomey Amendment to expand background checks to keep guns away from underage or dangerous people, and amendments to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines designed only to kill as many human beings as possible -- is a moral failure of great magnitude. Once again the safety of children has been sacrificed by political leaders in service to the gun lobby. As Americans do we value guns more than the lives of children? Do we really want to continue to have political leaders who kowtow to the threats and money and half-truths of the gun lobby and who think their political jobs are more important than the right of children to live and learn and grow up in safety?

Despite the loud voice of the National Rifle Association (NRA), scholars, experts on school safety, and teachers overwhelmingly disagree with turning schools into armed camps rather than places of nonviolent positive learning.

For years the NRA has actively fought against and prevented research on the causes and costs of gun violence. Why have we put up so long with efforts to block all research on a huge public health threat that injures and kills tens of thousands of Americans every year?

Although the U.S. accounts for less than 5 percent of the global population, Americans own an estimated 35 to 50 percent of all civilian-owned guns in the world. We can free our nation of this scourge of gun violence.

The heartrending massacre of 20 6- and 7-year-old children and six educators in Newtown, Conn., has galvanized public attention once again after a mass shooting. But the killing of children by gun violence is not new. In 2013, as we prepare to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the dream of our gun-slain prophet of nonviolence, let us truly hear and follow rather than just celebrate him. Now is the time to free ourselves from the plague of gun violence which has taken over 1.3 million American lives since Dr. King and Robert Kennedy's assassinations in 1968. This is twice the loss of life than all American battle casualties in all the major wars we have fought since our nation began.

Though the blather is designed to reveal how ignorant the public is about firearms, even as it tries legislate them, the truth is we get buzzed just talking about weapons.

Remember the 20 children who died in Newton Connecticut.

Let's take a look at eight common activities that require more time, information or effort than owning a gun.

Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and 300,000 gun-related assaults in the U.S. Firearm violence may cost our country as much as $100 billion a year. Toys are regulated with greater care and safety concerns.

It's a tragedy that five years after Virginia Tech so little has changed. How many years must we wait until tragic headlines about school shootings, children dying, and people using the "shoot first and ask questions later" defense to take the law into their own hands go away? When will we finally get the courage to stand up as a nation and say enough to the deadly proliferation of guns and gun violence that endanger children's and public safety? As a nation we can't afford to keep waiting for common-sense gun control laws that would protect our children and all of us from indefensible gun violence. The time to act is now.

The outcry over Trayvon's death is absolutely right and just. We need a nation where senseless deaths no longer happen.