The vast majority of Americans (90%, according to some polls) are in favor of common sense gun laws. These would include things like requiring gun buyers to pass a background check, and banning the sale of military-style assault rifles to average citizens not duly sworn and trained in law enforcement.

The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has passed bills that would address these issues, but the the Republican Senate minority killed the bills.

Republicans in Congress are in the thrall of the gun lobby. Republicans consistently vote against common sense gun regulation bills.

The United States Senate is the place where bills that a majority of Americans want passed into law go to die.

Bills that most Americans want passed die in the Senate because the United States Senate is an institution for minority rule.

Equal representation is a fundamental principle of American democracy. But PEOPLE are not represented equally in the United States Senate. STATES are.

The system is rigged in favor of the minority in two ways.

First, each state gets two senators, no matter how many people live in the state. And the populations of the states vary widely. Some states have big populations, and some have very small populations.

For example, the combined populations of two states, North Dakota and South Dakota, is 1.5 million people. Those two states are represented by 4 senators.

All four of the current senators from the Dakotas are Republicans.

The population of one state, California, is close to 40 million people. Those 40 million people are represented by only 2 senators.

The two current California senators are Democrats.

So in the Dakotas, there is currently one Republican senator for every 375 thousand people.

But in California there is only one Democratic senator for every 20 million people.

The disparity in Senate representation between residents of the Dakotas and residents of California is about fifty-three to one.

The second way that minority rule ís protected in the Senate is through the filibuster.

The filibuster is a rule that says for any bill to pass, a simple majority (51 votes) is not enough. A supermajority of 60 senators must vote in favor of the bill.

The filibuster rule is used by the minority to stop legislation approved by the majority.

The filibuster rule is just a rule. It is not a law. It is not in the Constitution. It has been changed many times in the past. It would only take a simple majority, 51 votes, to change the rule or discard the filibuster altogether.

The United States Senate is currently split, 50/50, between Democrats and Republicans. The Vice President, a Democrat, has a tie-breaking vote.

At the moment, Democrats have a razor-thin majority, 51 to 50, in the Senate. But they cannot modify the filibuster rule because two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema, won't vote in favor of change. Senators Manchin and Sinema are from states where most people vote Republican. They fear losing their jobs in the next election.

You could say that Senators Manchin and Sinema put their jobs over the lives of children, and, really, everyone. And that's also true about most of the Republican senators. They put their jobs over American lives. Because who knows where the next mass shooting will take place? It could happen when you go to the grocery store, or to the mall, or to your school or church or synagogue or mosque or temple. It could happen at the zoo.

In the last presidential election, Democratic votes outnumbered Republican votes by a margin of over seven million.

The states that the fifty current Republican senators represent have 118 million residents.

The states that the fifty current Democratic senators represent have 194 million residents.

One would think that it should be easy to pass common sense gun laws. But don't hold your breath.

There is a solution, however. Just elect a couple more Democrats to the Senate, and we will have enough votes to change the filibuster rule.

Think of all the lives that could be saved. It's too late for the kids in Uvalde, and the shoppers in Buffalo, and the thousands of others who are gunned down every year. But it does not have to he this way going forward.

If there is senate seat in play in your state this November, vote for common sense gun laws. Vote for the Democrat.