About 300 college presidents have signed an open letter urging Congress to enact new gun controls in the aftermath of the school shooting this month in Connecticut, reports the Washington Post. “For many years now, our nation’s leaders have engaged in fevered debates on higher education, yet lawmakers shy away from taking action on one issue that prevents thousands of young people from living lives of promise, let alone realizing their college dreams,” the presidents wrote. “That issue is gun safety.”

Among the goals in the letter: a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines; consumer safety standards for guns, such as safety locks; and a requirement for background checks for those who buy firearms from unlicensed sellers at gun shows. The Post said many big-name universities were not on the list--no signers were from the U.S. News list of the top 20 national universities, except for Susan Fuhrman of Teachers College at Columbia University. There were no signers from any public university in Virginia, the state was the scene of the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007.