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How about merging the two sentences? True, shorter sentences are usually better than long ones, but eliminating redundancy is generally better still. If we merge the two sentences, we get:

The Child Firearms Safety Act will probably do little to protect minors from fatal handgun accidents unless some critical modifications are made.

The result is shorter, and still communicates the same message: The word “unless” concisely indicates that there's a problem (a lack of “significant protect[ion of] minors,” which is the same as a high “number of minors lost to handgun accidents”) that will remain until something is done (“some critical modifications are made”).

We can improve the sentence still further by changing the bureaucratese “unless some critical modifications are made” to the clearer and more colloquial “unless it is modified”:

The Child Firearms Safety Act will probably do little to protect minors from fatal handgun accidents unless it is modified.

4. Let's now look at the new first sentence together with the old third sentence:

The Child Firearms Safety Act will probably do little to protect minors from fatal handgun accidents unless it is modified. These modifications should include: compelling either that the gun be kept in a locked container or unloaded; the inclusion of long guns in the Act; and making violation of the Act a felony offense.

One sentence now ends with “unless it is modified” (originally, it called for “some critical modifications”), and the other begins with “These modifications should include.” If we merge them and cut the repetition, we get:

The Child Firearms Safety Act will probably do little to protect minors from fatal handgun accidents unless it is modified to compelling either that the gun be kept in a locked container or unloaded; the inclusion of long guns in the Act; and making violation of the Act a felony offense.

The new sentence is shorter than the original two put together, and still not unreadably long.

5. We now need to fix the grammar to match the changes in sentence structure (“it is modified to compelling” is wrong), but in the process we see that the original grammar was itself flawed: The three proposed modifications—“compelling” / “inclusion of” / “making”—weren't grammatically parallel. (Editing often exposes logical and grammatical errors that had been obscured by the excess words.) Tidying up the grammar and trimming yet further, we get:

The Child Firearms Safety Act will probably do little to protect minors from fatal handgun accidents unless it is modified to cover long guns, to treat violations as felonies, and to allow guns to be kept in a locked container or unloaded.

Before: 88 words, 454 characters.

After: 42 words, 198 characters.

All the information, fewer than half the words.

Now, on to the second paper's opening paragraph:

The proposed Child Firearms Safety Act (the “bill”) is an inconsequential piece of legislation. Aside from the significant political impact of the bill, it carries little weight and makes little difference. Despite public misconceptions, the few benefits of the bill, notably the probable slight decrease in the number of childhood gun accidents, do not exceed the drawbacks, such as the inaccessibility of guns during a home invasion and loss of civil liberties. Therefore, unless some strong amendments are made to the bill, I recommend that you oppose the bill.

Here's a quick mark-up of all the word- and phrase-level problems:

The proposed Child Firearms Safety Act [(the “bill”)] [obvious] is an [inconsequential] [word choice] [piece of legislation] [legalese]. [Aside from the significant political impact of the bill,] [throatclearing/obvious] it [carries little weight] [word choice] and [makes little difference] [redundant]. [Despite public misconceptions,] [throatclearing] the few benefits of the bill, notably the probable slight decrease in [the number of] [not really necessary] childhood gun accidents, do not exceed