GUNSENSE

A PLEA FOR CIVILITY: AN OPEN LETTER TO MY GUN-LOVING FRIENDS

Dear Gun-Lovers:

Let me speak personally to you, without statistics, without affiliation, without insult, without condescension.

Without history, in effect, which is impossible, I know, but worth trying.

I want to speak to you person-to-person. You know what I mean: the bill-paying, family-raising, slightly disgruntled, wish-things-could-be-better person who, if we were stranded on a lifeboat together, would find a way, if we had two oars, to row together toward a safer place. I would look at you, and you would look at me, and we would know what we had to do, and we would do it.

That's the person who's writing this letter, and that's the person I want to address.

I know, in fact, that you are such a person most of the time—wanting and willing to help your fellow citizen when the chips are down. But like me, you have opinions that often divide us. Like me, you want your opinions to be right. Even better, you want them to be founded on facts. Why? Because you want your opinions to be founded on something that can't be overturned. And if they can't be overturned, then they must be right, and by extension, you too must be right. 

After all, being right is a good feeling. No doubt about it.

But I want to suggest that being right at the present moment is less useful than being civil during every moment that we have left together. 

Why? Because I continue to believe that we can row this boat together; or I believe that trying to row this boat together makes sense, that it is our last option, even though Congress tells us every day, every hour, every minute, that co-operation is fatal to the health of the Republic. Together, we must stop listening to Congress and listen to each other—with civility. 

Remember: many of our politicians today are exactly those people that Washington, Madison, and Jefferson (you're always quoting them) warned us against. They are destroying the spirit of co-operation, the very spirit we need now to solve our problems. You know that, and I know that.

The problem is that the gun debate uses statistics, and you have your set of statistics, and I have mine, and we toss them back and forth at each other, as we have done, for years. But statistics, when they appear in polemical settings, are often designed to polarize, and now, at the current moment, this polarization is killing us, literally, every day. 

It works like this. I don't change my mind because I have confidence in my statistics, and you don't change yours because you have faith in your numbers. The only thing left to do then is to call each other "stupid," or "ignorant," or "libtard," or "ammosexual," or "racist," or "sexist," or if we're feeling compassionate, we might go with "liberal" or "conservative" because each label softly offends the other one.

And offending is what we're trying to do.

So have we wasted our time? Probably. 

Maybe there are those who haven't made up their minds on the issues that you and I have long ago decided, and maybe they're quietly watching our back-and-forth, and maybe they will finally embrace one position or the other based on our shouting match. 

But I doubt it. Why? Because uncivil rhetoric appeals only to those who have already committed both to the position and the attack-language associated with that position. If we ever do convince someone who hasn't already formed an opinion, the key ingredient in that act of persuasion, along with statistics, will likely be civility.

I believe that. The problem is I don't know if you do. 

But I have hope. I'll say it again, my new mantra: you and I have much in common because, as I said at the beginning of my letter, you're probably a family-raising, bill-paying American, and so we have much to lose at this current impasse if we don't respect each other's opinions when they differ.

To quote the great British folk-singer, Roy Harper: "We're both fighting for the very same breath, and what did you say were your reasons?"

So I think we should both re-boot, and start again with the premise of civility.

We already agree that we have important decisions to make regarding the future of guns in our culture, and we're going to have to do it together. Civility is not simply another word for "manners;" civility is about civilization, and civilization is a group project, and civilization can perish or prosper. We need to commit to that project, particularly that project of prosperity. And we need to do it now. And we need to do it together. 

If you don't think civility is a revolutionary concept, if you think it's something your parents preached, or your teachers insisted on in class, then you're not paying attention. 

Civility, wielded at the right time, is the revolution. And I believe that the right time is right now.

Very few people are doing it, and so we could, together, make history.

But I can't do it alone. And neither can you. 

That's the beauty of it.

Thanks for your time, and your civility,

Gunsense

SHANNON WATTS & MOMS DEMAND IN LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS

Shannon Watts (center), Jamie Ford (far right), and a few of the dedicated women of Moms Demand, Little Rock.

On Wednesday, April 27, I had the good fortune to hear Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, in a question-and-answer session at The Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, Arkansas.  I became active in the gun-violence prevention movement in January 2013 when our state legislators attempted to pass a campus-carry bill, and since Shannon had founded Moms Demand a year earlier, on December 15, 2012, I got to know her through various social-media channels.  But I had never met her.

Having met her, and spoken with her now, I see why Shannon is a powerful advocate for gun-violence prevention. First, she has no hidden agendas—she is not secretly attempting to confiscate firearms from American gun-owners; she isn't attempting to vilify gun-owners (in fact, her organization's members include gun-owners); and she isn't even attempting to repeal the Second Amendment.

She is simply trying to make America a safer place to live, work, and raise children. The organization's platform is difficult to criticize, once it's understood. (And the gun-lobbyists have worked overtime to misrepresent it.)

In fact, her major initiatives find broad support among the American public:  she advocates for universal background checks on all purchases of firearms, and she proposes to do this by closing the loopholes on gun-show and internet gun-sales, where background checks are not required.  (Amy Schumer, in fact, has weighed in on this enormous problem in another of her biting, hilarious videos. You can, and must, view it here.)

For the record, though, 90% of the American public support these proposals, as well as 75% of the NRA's membership. And gun-owners in general overwhelmingly support them as well.

Shannon also advocates for safe-storage of all firearms within the home, a simple and preventive measure that would stop the rash of child-shootings that are now part of our daily headlines—shootings that are routinely ignored by the national media.

The problem, of course, as Shannon said, lies with our politicians who continue to support bills that the public opposes, and they do so because they are paid to do it by the NRA.  It isn't news, it isn't complicated, but it is formidable: money and politics make powerful and, at times, destructive allies.

But 91 people in America die from gunshot wounds every day, and Moms Demand, like most every American, believes that this figure is a national embarrassment.  So, the organization is working to decrease that number, and they have been very successful to date in building a campaign with both short and long-term goals.  And remember, the NRA has been working its agenda for 30 years, and Moms Demand has been around for a little over four years.  Their impact has been little short of miraculous.

Of course, Moms Demand is part of a network of gun-violence prevention groups, such as the Brady Campaign, whose roots extend back to the 70's, but Shannon's organization, as its name implies, focuses on mothers (although everyone is welcome), and as a result has a distinctly grass-roots feel to it that is designed to allow even the busiest Americans to participate in meaningful ways, often through a few minutes at the keyboard using social media or on the phone calling an elected official. 

The success of Moms Demand in uniting mothers at this fundamental level was obvious in Little Rock. I knew many of these women previously through social-media connections, but had never met them.  Jamie Ford, Jaimee Alverson, Kat Koran Hills, Austin Gelder Bailey, Julie Dunekacke Jaeger, Shelley Adams—and others whose names I should, but can't recall—are working quietly in Little Rock, and well beyond, to make our country a safer place. 

The important thing to note about Moms Demand, as an organization devoted to reform through political channels, is that Shannon has insisted that no action taken on behalf of gun-violence-prevention is too small.  One tweet, strategically hash-tagged, will have an impact.  As her organization has grown, she has kept that message in the foreground, and this tactic has served the movement well.

It's also important to articulate one of the unspoken assumptions behind the success of Moms Demand:  the horrific and inexcusable levels of gun-violence in America are so clear and obvious that when one American becomes aware of these levels, the gun-violence prevention movement has gained another supporter. 

So, Moms Demand, first of all, is about raising awareness, and that can be done with just a few clicks a day. Their website is full of helpful suggestions about how anyone can do this, and once you become involved with this group of talented women, you will find solid guidance about getting further involved with the movement at a level that you can sustain. And that is one of the reasons the movement has grown:  sustainable involvement is the focus.

Anyone can make a difference.  It's an obvious, simple, and often overlooked truth. But it's also a profound truth.

Historical aside:  Gandhi repeatedly said the same thing about nonviolence—embrace it only to the extent that you can sustain it.  Sustainability is essential to a successful social action, and Shannon clearly knows this.

So finally thanks to Shannon Watts, thanks to Jamie Ford, who oversees the organization of several states in this region, and thanks to all the women that I met in Little Rock who are working to make Arkansas a safer state, at times against heavy odds. While resisting gun-legislation in a red state is a multi-faceted operation, Moms Demand is in the fight with us in a big way.  They have extremely smart, energetic, and dedicated workers, and I am thankful that they are here.

Now, if we could just get a Fayetteville chapter started!

BERNIE SANDERS, THE NRA & HIS GROWING GUN PROBLEM

Anyone who was listening to the Democratic debate on Sunday, March 7, and heard Sanders make the comment that the NRA promptly endorsed knew that this was a bad moment for him. If you're a progressive candidate of any sort, you don't want to wake up the next morning and find the NRA standing by your side, particularly when your opponent, Hillary Clinton, has been for months unflinching in her criticism of that organization and their reckless gun policies.  

But that happened to Sanders, and now, as if having the NRA sing your praises weren't bad enough, The Washington Post published on Friday, March 18, an op-ed by Mark and Jackie Barden. The title of the piece is chilling, direct, and heart-breaking:  "Sanders Is Wrong About the Lawsuit We Filed After Our Son's Murder in Newtown."

Their son, Daniel, of course, fell victim to Adam Lanza and his Remington Bushmaster AR-15 on December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary. In a  matter of days, Senator Sanders had hit a dangerous double:  he gained the NRA as a supporter and the parents of a child murdered at Sandy Hook as an adversary. 

By any stretch of the progressive imagination, this was a bad run for the Senator from Vermont.  

But it speaks to one of the problems that faces the Senator as he turns to face a nation increasingly hostile toward the NRA and the destructive culture it has produced—he comes from a state that is a "gun-rights paradise" and has led the nation in allowing, even encouraging, unrestricted gun ownership. Sanders' constituency is about the size of Memphis, TN, but is 97% white, and as of 2012, was the most rural state in the Union. Vermont also has one of the lowest rates of gun-homicide in the country, a result of its largely rural population and still very active tradition of hunting, an activity, as opposed to self-defense, where gun-violence is relatively rare.

But Senator Sanders has now entered the national stage—diversity, complexity, and hard, nuanced choices are the order of the day, and he arrives there from a racially homogenous, rural, and gun-friendly state. His constituency is white, and they are well armed. Go after guns in Vermont, and you will go out of office.

So his problems now are more complicated, and he shows signs of lacking the tact to negotiate them. He finds himself wedged into the difficult position between a gun-toting constituency in Vermont and the NRA, the radical and dangerous organization that speaks for many of Sanders' supporters back home and has the potential to weaken his progressive stance.

That he has compromised here by leaning toward the gun manufacturers is particularly unfortunate for him. And particularly telling—the massacre at Sandy Hook has emerged, whether rightly or wrongly, as a litmus test on gun-control for our politicians, and Sanders has chosen sides. He has chosen to avoid directly confronting the gun manufacturers and their unfettered marketing of a specific kind of weapon to an untrained public—a weapon that is capable of killing quickly and widely, and would seem unnecessary for civilian purposes.

The law suit that the Bardens and others are filing against Bushmaster does not, as Sanders inexplicably indicated, hold Remington accountable for manufacturing the weapon that Lanza used in his killing spree. Manufacturers cannot, of course, be responsible for every misuse of their product. That is simplistic, and Sanders must know that, but his insistence on misrepresenting the law is baffling. The law suit, instead, holds Remington accountable for their marketing of the product, an entirely different issue:

Indeed, Remington promotes the AR-15’s capacity to inflict mass casualties. It markets its AR-15s with images of soldiers and SWAT teams; it dubs various models the 'patrolman' and the 'adaptive combat rifle' and declares that they are 'as mission-adaptable as you are;' it encourages the notion that the AR-15 is a weapon that bestows power and glory upon those who wield it. Advertising copy for Remington’s AR-15s has included the following: 'Consider your man card reissued,” and “Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered.'

The law that looms both over Sanders' comment and the suit against Remington is called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). The bill was signed into law by George W. Bush on October 26, 2005, and was heavily supported by Wayne LaPierre and the NRA. It provides unprecedented immunity for gun manufacturers and their products, and is partly responsible for the violent ad campaigns that some of these manufacturers are now waging. The law does not, as the gun lobbyists rightly point out, give them immunity from selling defective products. Still, as many legal historians argue, in passing this law, Congress was particularly aggressive in allowing the gun industry this particular kind of shield. Clearly, no other product on the market has quite this kind of protection.

From the beginning, Clinton has aligned herself against the law, and said that she would act to repeal it if elected. Repealing the law could potentially do much to alter the militaristic, macho culture that gun-manufacturers like to promote in their advertising. Sanders, on the other hand, voted for the law in 2005—his constituency would have supported it—but under increased national scrutiny, has recently back-pedaled a bit, indicating that he might consider repealing portions of it. He is clearly trying to avoid the issue. Clinton is embracing it.

Every political candidate at the national level is involved in the project of winning votes. Period. And in the most difficult moments, winning votes encounters a bedeviling problem:  What happens if personally held and private convictions, when publicly articulated, will not sway as many voters as a slightly modified version of those same convictions certainly would?

Most of the time, our candidates compromise, and offer up a version of their convictions that will appeal to the largest demographic that seems palatable to them at the moment.

Senator Sanders, of course, has made a career out of claiming that he refuses to make these compromises, and I respect him for that.

But as he enters the national spotlight, the Senator has found that life for a so-called "principled" candidate is hard. And compromises must be made.

The first one he made, of course, was running as a Democrat, the party that he has spent decades vilifying, condemning, and disparaging. But to mount a viable campaign for the Presidency, he also saw that he must become part of the system he disparaged for years. 

But now he finds himself praised by the NRA and corrected by a Sandy Hook family, and that's not a good mix for him.  

So maybe he's making compromises; maybe he's trying to garner votes from an unlikely demographic. Perhaps Senator Sanders is dog-whistling members of the NRA with his refusal to attack the PLCAA, hoping to attract a few of their votes. I can easily see how more moderate, gun-owning Democrats would desert Clinton and move toward Sanders based on this tactic alone (many gun-owners are single-issue voters, and their single issue is guns). Clinton has led Sanders, however, kicking and screaming, into a more centrist position concerning firearms (as he has led her on economic matters), but it is precisely this kicking and screaming that makes many gun-violence prevention advocates uneasy and unwilling to support him.

And since gun-violence in America is unparalleled among developed countries, for many voters this has become a central issue in the 2016 election. I count myself among that number.

 

 

 

 

Related articles

The Only Three Facts That Matter About Gun-violence: a Primer for Beginners

WHY BUSH'S "AMERICA-GUN" TWEET SHOULD BE ROUNDLY CONDEMNED

Mid-afternoon, February 16, 2016, GOP Presidential hopeful, George Bush, dropped this little Tweet.

It's directed, of course, at South Carolina where currently 30% of Bush's followers support a compete ban on all Muslims and 35% favor keeping a data-base on them. Fifty percent support the Confederate flag and 30% wish the South had won the Civil War even if they couldn't tell you when it occurred (source). South Carolina gets an "F" ranking in their gun policies from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, so I understand why Bush would direct such a Tweet at the citizens of this state.

Some of their citizens obviously love guns (however irresponsibly they do so), they want guns everywhere, and they want them unrestricted, from .50 caliber down to the lowly .22.  These are the citizens that Bush hopes will vote for him—those that support discrimination against Muslims and historical revisionism regarding the war that divided our country in the 19th century, and apparently still divides the citizens of South Carolina.  After all, a vote is a vote.

But when I saw this Tweet, even I, who have spent a lot of time reading aggressive Tweets, was shocked:  Have we come to a juncture in American history where a former governor of a state can have his name engraved on the barrel of a sidearm and braggingly—to my ears—picture the weapon with the one word caption, "America?"

A word that to most Americans means many more things than a firearm, and to just as many would not include this particular image at all.  How about the Statue of Liberty? No, that would imply those huddled masses and immigration.  How about amber waves of grain?  No, that's a threat to the oil industry and corn's a problem too, amber or not, grain or not.

So I guess Bush's advisors thought that for South Carolinians, the ones that Bush hopes to attract, the gun's the thing.

Obviously, though, we have come to this divisive juncture. That Tweet, after all, just happened. And just as obviously we must realize that such aggressive tactics, while hardly confined to this candidate, or to this party, are particularly odious because they appeal to a demographic that looks no further into the future than the end of their gun-barrel allows.

That is a dangerous inclination, and for Bush to encourage it is reprehensible. Responsible gun-ownership is one thing; but this kind of braggadocio behavior with firearms must be pointed out and resisted. It is unconscionable. 

#ICYMI: OBAMA'S ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON GUN-VIOLENCE

In case you missed this powerful address on gun-violence given by our President on January 5, I post it here, for the record.  It is a passionate, compassionate, and well informed plea to our nation to take action in the prevention of needless gun-deaths.  At a little over 19 minutes, he asks the crucial question:  "How did this [gun-safety] become such a partisan issue?"  And he spends the rest of his address answering not only that question, but also outlining his modest initiatives to save lives. But at a little over 37 minutes he cuts through all of the ideological propaganda and speaks from the perspective of a responsible and experienced politician:  "The reason Congress blocks laws is because they want to win elections. If you make it hard for them to win elections, they'll change course. I promise you."

That is really all we need to know. And so it's time to get busy.

REMEMBERING SANDY HOOK THREE YEARS LATER

Amidst all of the tributes for Sandy Hook that will take place today, I would point to only one thing: our clear need to develop the space for an ongoing civil discourse about gun-violence and its effect on American life. Period.

There will always be divisions, anger, heated exchanges, but we must also have moments of reciprocated respect and civility. Moments—we can start with those, and only those.

Charles Blow in his New York Times op-ed today is already calling for such a demilitarized zone of discussion, and I'll close with his plea:

I thought of how productive it would be if more people with discordant views on gun regulations could have as civil a discussion as I had with my brother — full of mutual respect, adults disagreeing but not attempting to demonize, honestly searching for solutions.

The gun lobby poisons these conversations. It pumps out and promotes a never-ending stream of worst-case scenarios until it builds a level of fear and paranoia that only profits gun makers and grinds all progress to a halt.

So if you're concerned about gun-violence in this country, you might make room on your list of talking-points for civility and productive discourse:  ask for it when it seems to have disappeared, and cease the conversation when it refuses to return.

That's my resolution for the New Year, which nowadays begins on December 14.

WHEN OUR WORK SEEMS UNPRODUCTIVE, WHAT THEN?

Note:  I wrote and originally posted this piece a day before the Paris Attacks.  It remains relevant, so I have reposted it in light of the sound advice that Krishnamurti gives all of us as we grapple with our responses to the latest act of savagery of France.

In a slight departure from working the fields of gun-violence prevention, resisting the NRA's propaganda, and generally spreading the gospel of gun-safety . . .   

What Krishnamurti wrote in Freedom from the Known, chapter XVI, helps us keep the energy flowing when the work gets tiresome, unproductive, and downright aggravating: 

Every day we see or read of appalling things happening in the world as a result of violence in man.  You may say, “I can’t do anything about it,’ or ‘How can I influence the world?’” I think you can tremendously influence the world if in yourself you are not violent, if you lead actually every day a peaceful life—a life which is not competitive, ambitious, envious—a life which does not create enmity.  Small fires can become a blaze.  We have reduced the world to its present state of chaos by our self-centered activity, by our prejudices, our hatreds, our nationalism, and when we say we cannot do anything about it, we are accepting disorder in ourselves as inevitable.  We have splintered the world into fragments and if we ourselves are broken, fragmented, our relationship with the world will also be broken.  But if, when we act, we act totally, then our relationship with the world undergoes a tremendous revolution.

After all, any movement which is worthwhile, any action which has any deep significance, must begin with each one of us.  I must change first; I must see what is the nature and structure of my relationship with the world—and in the very seeing is the doing; therefore I, as a human being living in the world, bring about a different quality, and that quality, it seems to me, is the quality of the religious mind . . .  [and] the religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no fear and therefore no belief whatsoever but only what is—what actually is.

I have often thought this, even attempted to say this, but never have I seen it so well expressed.

 

3 HOPEFUL SIGNS THAT AMERICA'S GETTING GUNSENSE

After the Umpqua Community College shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, which occurred on October 1 and left ten dead and seven wounded, America sat up and noticed.  

As we always do.  

We were shocked, and we said so, and we prayed for the victims, and we denounced our legislators.

Since then, Mass Shooting Tracker has registered ten more mass shootings (fewer than one a day), and while these incidents received little coverage, our country seems to be growing increasingly impatient with the NRA's stranglehold on our politicians.  

Last night, as I stumbled on these postings, I entertained the hope that maybe, just maybe, the prevention of gun-violence in this country is inching its way up the importance-scale in the lives of everyday Americans—what the statisticians call the "saliency" factor.  

So it's time to share some good news.  Here are three recent indications that we are making, in fact, real progress toward real solutions in preventing the senseless gun-violence in this country that many are now comparing to a disease. I'd recommend that you follow the links and read the articles because they contain a lot of important information that I couldn't include in this piece. Plus, you'll start to feel hopeful, and we all need that.

1. A recent Gallup poll found that 55% of Americans support tighter laws surrounding the purchase of firearms.  This figure represents a sharp rise of eight points from last year, and registers a year-long movement toward support for stricter controls.  At the very least, this shows that the NRA's campaign to loosen our laws is no longer winning the hearts and minds of the American people.
2. A study of the NRA's membership reveals that its constituency is moving toward extinction, or irrelevancy (only 7% of American gun-owners now belong to the organization).  Largely white, male, rural, and comparatively uneducated, this demographic is being statistically diminished in the American population by the growth of Black, Hispanic, and to a lesser degree, Asian populations.  The bad news for the NRA is that these groups support strict gun-control by substantial majorities. Add to these populations, the majority of other Americans who support stricter controls on firearms, and the NRA's future begins to resemble the Brontosaurus—large, unwieldy, and harmless.
3. California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom recently unveiled a ballot initiative that, most significantly, would require background checks for the purchase of ammunition as well as ban possession of "large capacity" magazines. Most importantly, I would point to the fact that Newsom is explicitly taking on the gun lobbyists in his state, basing a political career on it, and bypassing the politicians who have been purchased by the NRA.  He is trying to float this initiative because he believes the people of his state are ready for these changes. It's a creative work-around that must be giving nightmares to the NRA.  This much is clear:  Newsom now considers the NRA to be both vulnerable and aligned against the interests of the people of California.  Even twelve months ago, this initiative would have seemed improbable, at least, if not impossible, and as we all know, as California goes . . . 

So in the wake of the horrific shootings that crowd our daily calendar, is it overly optimistic to hope that the American people are waking up?

Is it too much to claim that we are realizing that the will of a distinct minority can no longer indulge its interests and line its pockets while the majority of the country suffers the devastating consequences of gun-violence at such a high and unjustifiable level?

I don't think so.

I think our country is righting itself once again, as it always has, and we can be proud of the hard work that many have undertaken to move us toward real and equitable solutions to this national problem.

Thanks to everyone who has helped! We are making progress.

CONFESSION: I DON'T TRADE INSULTS WITH TROLLS ANYMORE (AND WHY YOU SHOULDN'T EITHER)

I've decided not to trade insults anymore with people who don't like the fact that I'm trying to  prevent gun-violence in America. Most of my friends made this decision a long time ago.

Why it took me three years to do it I don't know—and don't care to know—so I will probably relapse from time to time. My bad.

But here's the long and short of it:  insulting others, particularly if you're good at it, can become addictive, and it's a habit you should avoid.  It is, however, a constant temptation in the gun-violence prevention movement.

So for those of you new to this struggle, let me draw out the scenario that leads you into this nasty addiction, and I'll hope that you can avoid it and not make the mistakes that I made.  

We need you healthy and free of addiction.

I've sketched out the sequence of events that can lead you into this quagmire, and I hope you'll memorize them and so avoid the kind of trouble that dogged me for several years.

First, you post an article late one night that questions the current American gun-policy, sometimes with statistics.

Next, a troll makes a wise-crack (one that is often sexual in nature) and cites an article that supports his point. These people are usually white males, and if they have a picture associated with their account, it will either feature guns, or flags that they associate with an historical epoch that never existed as they believe it did, or sometimes dead animals, and most commonly a skull with a bandana and a badly written slogan—because skulls are scary to trolls and writing is not something your troll has tried very much.

If it's a photograph of the troll's face, he'll have a goatee and a shaved head; or it'll feature a cowboy hat, which dishonors cowboys, or a baseball cap, that disgraces ball-players, with a slogan that calls up a fantasy-league of forgotten dreams which they take to be history because Rush or Breitbart told them it was.  

They appear not to have engaged in any sort of physical exercise, unlike cowboys and baseball players, for many years. 

It's getting late now, and you're tired, but you can't stop.  You're credibility is on the line, after all. (No it's not, but the fog of war, and all that . . . )

So you drop a link that sources numbers supporting your original posting, and the troll will then attack your new source as being unreliable, un-American, and cited only by cowards like yourself who are having, by the way, children with your sister; or at least that's the implication because, as you'll note, these words are poly-syllabic and beyond the reach of your troll. If he attempts those words, however, he will mis-type them because typing is not something your troll has tried very much either.

And you respond that his source is equally unreliable (I've never indulged the sexual slurs), and that the webpage he cites has one of those twirling globes that even your mother, who is 93, thinks are dated and stylistically embarrassing.

At this point, neither of you has convinced the other one to abandon his opinion and run in slow motion through fields of flowers to embrace at sunset.  

But a lot energy has been spilled in erecting this red-faced standstill, and it's really late.

Now, your troll ramps up the name-calling to the point that you wonder if it might be actionable. (It's at least "totally gross" in my 6-year-old daughter's sense of the phrase.)  

At this point you will lapse into an emotionally exhausted silence, desperately trying to convince yourself that you've gained an intellectual superiority of some sort because you baled out just before a defamation suit against you became conceivable.  

The point is you haven't done anything productive. Those who are quietly watching this online exchange are only impressed by how quickly adults can begin to behave like children in a school-yard spat.

In fact, you've taken time away from other tasks that might actually help you move others toward the solutions that we need. And so your adversary has, in fact, won because his diversionary tactic has succeeded. (Which I believe, by the way, is a conscious strategy of the gun-fringe.)

O, and I forgot this part:  Just before the exchange grinds to its halt, you'll often get a mini-lecture dimly related to American history and the founding of our country.  Names are dropped.  Like Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, whose prose so intimidates your troll that he wrongly assumes that you too will be intimidated too by a language that you've mastered and he hasn't.  

Don't go there.  Just don't. 

The only productive place you go now is to bed. It's late; you've wasted a lot of time and even more energy.

Tomorrow you will do much better.

And everyone will be stronger, happier, and more willing to tackle the real problems that lie before us.

And the trolls can't deal with that.

 

GETTING STARTED WITH GUN-VIOLENCE PREVENTION

If you want to become involved in the gun-violence prevention (GVP) movement, the options might seem a bit daunting at first. 

Do I need to join an organization? 

Do I have to engage those social-media platforms that further drain what little time I have to commit to this cause?  

And with my limited time, how can I locate the most reliable websites with the most reliable information? 

And most importantly, what is the most efficient—meaning, the least time-consuming, yet effective—way to have an impact on this problem?

I will try to answer those questions for you.

But first of all, let me say that I do understand your questions. I work a full-time job at an American university where I teach, write, and direct a large program.  With my wife, I am also raising a family.

I figured I didn’t have time for GVP activism either. 

Until I did.  Until our state legislators tried to put guns on our public college and university  campuses.

Until I felt what many Americans have felt about our country’s dysfunctional relationship with firearms—that it has to be made healthy again because too many innocent men, women, and most tragically, children are being sacrificed to it.  My particular focus has been guns-on-campus, but I now support a broad range of gun-violence causes.

Over the past three years, as I have undertaken this work, I have met exceptional folks who have devoted their lives to reducing gun-violence in this country, and if you get involved, you will meet them too because they are very generous with their time.  

These are the brave souls who are in the trenches and running the GVP organizations; the first-responders to every piece of legislation that furthers the gun-lobbyist’s agendas; the watchdogs to every ploy by the NRA to increase the presence of firearms in American life, and the fact-checkers for all of the misinformation disseminated by the radical gun-fringe in this country.

They do the heavy-lifting, and they do it every day. But they need your help.

So I have put together a primer on how the rest of us can pitch in and sleep better at night, knowing that we have made a contribution, and can still survive our busy days, taking care of our families and our loved ones.  

And even ourselves, if we think about it!

What follows then is the road-map that I wish I had several years ago when I began. 

Three words are useful in organizing this road-map:  LEARN, JOIN, ACT.

If you approach each one of these stages in moderation, you'll make real and long-lasting contributions to eradicating this national embarrassment.

LEARN

First, spend some time learning the terminology and the specific challenges that you might face as you wade into these waters. Like any socio-political movement, GVP has its own vocabulary and acronyms, and you'll need to know the fundamentals.

But the problem is pretty straightforward: people are dying needlessly because America has let the gun lobbyists and manufacturers set the policies that will most line their pockets. And our politicians, in the face of this money, feel that they are powerless to resist this carnage. The fundamental concept and wedge-issue is gun-control, and the best introduction to this topic comes from the The New York Times.  Read this piece carefully, and you will have a grasp of the basics:

• "Gun Control Explained"

As I read more and more over the past few years, I kept a list of the pieces that I found most helpful, and I have posted them on my blog, Gunsense. You will be interested in some topics, in others, not as much.  That's as it should be.  At this stage, you're discovering what part of this movement most attracts you, and reading through the relevant literature is the best way to locate your major interest.  You will find the specific list here:

• "Talk Back to the NRA"

JOIN

This is my favorite part of the process because here I get to list the pages and websites run by those dedicated folks I mentioned above. Note:  this is a highly selective list, and there are many more organizations and individuals doing vital work. You will find them as you work through this list and broaden your field of reference, and I encourage you to begin building a stockpile of your own trusted sources. I have listed here both websites and Facebook pages. Find a few that you like and join them, like them, get on their mailing lists, drive their numbers up, and you will heighten their profile and deepen your knowledge. I haven't annotated these entries.  Suffice it to say that they are all major national organizations, often with state branches tailored to the agendas of your own region.

I have worked most often and most successfully with the first one listed here, Moms Demand, and I have had very productive interactions, both on and off-line, with its founder, Shannon Watts.  Her group is efficiently organized on a national basis—she is, after all, the mother of five children, so efficient organization is a job requirement that all mothers will understand—and she has made it a Moms Demand goal to  accommodate all levels of commitment and knowledge about the issues. No one will feel out of place at a Moms Demand meeting.  The other groups, many of them older, have different and equally effective perspectives on the American gun-violence problem, and all of them are worth investigating.

• Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
• Students Demand Action:  End Gun Violence in America
• The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
• The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
• Women Against Gun Violence
• Everytown for Gun Safety
• Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
• Americans for Responsible Solutions
• Parents Against Gun Violence
• Violence Policy Center
• No Notoriety
• Gun Violence Archive

 ACT 

You will eventually want to do something, right? Perhaps the most effective, traditional, and least time-consuming way to act is so simple that it defies credibility:  call your Congressmen and Senators and give them your opinion on the issue. Congressional staffers who work the phones tally the calls (pro and con) and report the results to their legislators.  The gun-lobbyists have been very successful in this simplest of all political actions, and it has had a real effect on their success.  We can do the same thing. Pick up the phone and call.  Many of the organizations that I listed will keep you informed of what you need to consider, when to call, and what to say.  It's an action that is extremely influential and very efficient. Here are a few websites that will help you locate your representatives quickly:

• Find Your Representative
• Find Your Senators

Also you'll find a helpful round-up of thirty decisive actions that you can do immediately to help in this cause:

• 30 Gun Control Actions You Can Take Now

And remember: as soon as you begin visiting these sites, you will find plenty of other ways to become involved and help push this cause forward.  You have lots of support, however you wish to become involved.

Of course, social media plays a large role in the GVP movement, and you'll need a Facebook page to access some of the sources listed above and a Twitter account, if you choose to help out in Twitter campaigns, or even if you want to use Twitter simply to follow GVP news in general. But that's another posting.  

IN ARKANSAS

The conventional wisdom with gun-violence prevention always encourages local and state action first, often inspired and fueled by the national organizations. I live and work in Arkansas, and gun-violence prevention in this state, while alive and well, does not currently have a great deal of resources, aside from the energy and devotion of its proponents, which are substantial and focused. 

Those of us who are active in this area have good working relationships with the state legislators who support our goals, and we have created a social-media presence as well. If you live in Arkansas, you can start here: 

• Central Arkansas Brady Campaign Chapter
• Moms Demand Action AR — the FB page for our state
• Gunsense — my own FB page, dedicated to state and national GVP
• Arkansans Against Guns on Campus — a FB page administered by one of my colleagues
• Gunsense — my blog, which you're currently visiting, and the only one devoted to GVP in the state (that I can find).
• @sidburris — this is my Twitter account, and I generally try to tweet & retweet, on a daily basis, the major voices in gun-violence prevention, as well as brief forays into nonviolence and community-building through mindful awareness.  I generally follow-back, as soon as possible.

Nothing that we do is insignificant because anything that we do will raise awareness of this problem among others.

As Mahatma Gandhi, wrote: "The 'fabric of society is not finished . . . It is on the loom, and it is made up of constantly changing relationships."  

We can do much now to change our destructive relationship with guns and strengthen the fabric of our society.  Thank you for wanting to help out!