It hasn't even been a year since the tragic mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. You wouldn't know it by listening to Congress, but since then almost 10,000 more people have been killed by guns in our nation – and that's only what the media has reported. Since Newtown, Slate Magazine has partnered with a twitter group called @GunDeaths to track gun-related fatalities. By crowdsourcing media reports about shootings, they determined that at least 9,900 people have died because of guns.

In case that wasn't alarming enough, by analyzing 2010 data from the Centers for Disease Control, Slate estimates that the actual number of deaths is over 28,000 – just since that tragic day in December of 2012. And, a new study presented by the American Academy of Pediatrics indicates that hundreds of those deaths were children. That study says that about 7,500 kids are admitted to hospitals every year with gunshot injuries, and at least 500 children don't survive.

Yet, even in the face of these powerful statistics, Congress can't even pass a bill to require background checks – let alone stronger legislation that could actually prevent some of these tragedies. Many of our elected leaders would sooner work to shut down the government, obstruct proposed legislation, and fight for the corporate elite, than stand up to the gun lobby to prevent the deaths of more innocent children. There are 64 days left in this year, but Congress only plans to work 18 of them. Perhaps lawmakers should stop naming post offices and court houses, and start getting to work on immigration, a real budget, and passing legislation to prevent the deaths of more innocent children.