December 1, 2023 • 20 mins
Imagine unraveling the intricate web of gun violence in our society. Promise us your ear, and we'll guide you through the maze of perspectives and experiences related to guns and violence, the prevalent issues casting a long shadow over our communities. You’ll find yourself immersed in a profound discussion on our societal identity and the urgent need for its realignment. Our dialogue highlights the critical necessity for effective communication while seeking solutions to these pressing matters.
Then, we'll take you on a journey to the heart of fear, a potent force propelling the cycle of violence in our society. As you join our candid conversation on honesty, safety, and the interplay of guns, you'll begin to comprehend the complexity of the world we live in. We not only underscore the importance of confronting our fears but also advocate for collective efforts to end the cycle of violence, making way for a more peaceful and inclusive society. So, lend us your time, and we promise you a thought-provoking experience that will inspire you to ponder and act.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the MK Ghandi Institute for
Non-Violence PodcastPerspectives on Peace
Transforming Tomorrow.
This episode of Perspectives onPeace begins an examination of
the state of our community andthe role that violence,
especially violence committedusing guns, plays in our culture
.
Public conversations about whatgives rise to gun violence and
(00:23):
what to do about it oftendevolve into well-worn talking
points that reflect polarpositions, and it can feel like
nuance and balance get lost inthe noise generated by both
sides of the issue.
So in this episode, our goal isto set the table for an
upcoming Ghandi Institute-hostedRochester Community Dialogue on
(00:46):
this very issue of violence andguns by sharing some of the
podcast Cruz Thoughts on andExperiences with Guns and
Violence, and then by leavingyou with some questions to
ponder leading up to thecommunity roundtable.
We envision this roundtable asan opportunity for Rochesterians
to express ourselves, hear eachother and reason with one
(01:07):
another.
We believe it's incumbent on usto take the steps that we can
locally, here in Rochester, tosolve our community problems,
and purposefully effectivelycommunicating with one another
is at the heart of that approach.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hi, I'm Michael and I don't like guns.
The purpose of guns kind ofplays into the philosophy of
might makes right, achievingpower through harming others.
I don't think guns like theobject or item in itself are bad
, but what they represent in thecycle of things that's
(01:46):
detrimental to our society.
Tools and technology bringspeed and convenience to masses
and now we as a society arefeeling the impact of our
technological advances orweaponry.
Life can be ended or changed ina split second.
(02:07):
I understand people who feelthey need guns.
They need it to feel, toprotect what's theirs, to feel
safe because of how things are.
But it doesn't feel right forme.
It reminds me of the shortstory by Miriam Kava Justice.
Justice is about a small placewhere weapons aren't necessary.
(02:27):
They don't even know themeaning of danger or fear.
Conflicts are resolved throughtrust and love.
The Swan Place holds humanity,life and community close to the
heart of how they are and act.
So things look a little bitdifferent over there.
There's a lot of constantstruggle or fighting against,
(02:49):
but are connecting andreconnected with, even if just a
little.
I'd like to live like that.
I understand that my decisionand ability to live nonviolently
is related to my privilege.
I'm not in a spot where I needguns, but I refuse to willingly
(03:10):
participate in the cycle of thestruggle of harm and the
struggles for power that leadsto the destruction of
relationships and community Lawshas changed me so much that I
can no longer accept things forhow they are.
Am I tied or like guns?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Here's Katie Thomas.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
In my own life, in what seems like the lives of
many other people in America andinternationally, nonviolence
really feels like it's becomingmore of a common and frequent
phenomenon that covers our newsfeeds and is inching further
into our daily lives.
It's really becoming more clearthat the issue of gun violence
(03:54):
is more than an issue.
It's an epidemic.
This is a trend that we see allover the United States, in
which gun violence is becoming amore prominent threat to us and
our daily lives.
My fear of guns has spanned allthe way back to being a young
kid and playing with my cousinsand sister at my grandparents'
(04:14):
house in East St Louis, missouri.
We were running around, playingtag and laughing with each
other until we found ourgranddad's hunting rifle under
the bed.
Even at that young age, I couldgrapple with the weight that
came along with this object andthe horrible violence that it's
capable of.
As much as I hate guns, they'venever been too far from me.
(04:38):
I can recall my father keepinga gun in our home for protection
in nights that I think aboutthat weird metal object that can
so easily end someone's life orchange their life with one
simple motion in that same placethat I laid my head at night.
(04:58):
I remember the fear and thediscomfort that came along with
knowing that there was a gun inmy house, but in the same breath
, there was a similar anxietyand a fear of a scenario of my
family being defenseless in thecase of someone else using a gun
against us.
(05:19):
The complexity of thesecompeting fears has led me to
intensely just dislike anythingthat has to do with guns and
leads to my leavingconversations on the state of
guns and violence in our worldfeeling honestly overwhelmed and
drained.
My stance hasn't changed muchsince then.
I've been constantly andincreasingly haunted by the idea
(05:41):
that guns exist in this worldand yet more anxious about what
protection and safety reallylooks like for all of us in a
world in which bearing arms,both legally and illegally, and
the use of guns in general, isbecoming more of a norm.
With my perfect world, wewouldn't need guns and everyone
(06:01):
would get along and settleconflicts and issues without the
use of weapons like these.
But if only it was that simpleright.
Unfortunately, we live in aworld in which violence and guns
are really becoming woven intothe fabric of our day to day
lives, and I don't really knowhow to grapple with that.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Here's Jordan Campbell.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
There's a quote out there that says guns don't kill
people, they make it easier.
I don't think that there's abetter quote to describe the
current situation around gunviolence in America.
I think that when you starthaving these conversations about
(06:50):
gun violence, it begins to getcomplicated because there's so
many different routes you cantake.
I think that that's becauseAmerica in itself is built off
violence.
It's built from violence andusing guns.
It's something that ourforefathers fought for and it's
(07:11):
something that we're seeingstill to this day, whether it be
school shootings, whether it beblack and brown people brutally
being killed in the street bypolice officers.
We see it with gang violence onthe regular.
It's a part of the Americanidentity.
I think when we start talkingabout solutions, we need to
(07:32):
start facing those facts.
It's who we are and we have tochange what the identity of
America is in order to move on,in order to improve and get
better.
I personally am not the biggestfan of guns.
I don't like guns.
I've never liked guns.
It's been really weird,considering.
(07:56):
I've spent a lot of my time,most of my life, around people
who were all for guns, peoplewho glorified the idea of having
guns.
I remember having a closefriend and this was before
middle school, maybe elementaryschool who would bring a gun to
school.
The idea that he didn't feelsafe and the idea that we were
(08:23):
living two different lives.
That always amazed me because,like I said before, I'm not the
biggest fan of guns, but myunderstanding for some people is
they feel unsafe on theday-to-day basis.
They can't walk towards certainstreets without feeling like
(08:44):
they need something like that.
I feel like I get reallyconflicted when I hear things
like that because, like I said,I'm on the side of.
I don't like guns, I don't thinkguns should be used, but also I
think I get really affected bythe fact that maybe one day I
will need one, maybe one day Iwill need to protect the people
(09:09):
that I hold dear and that holdsa lot of weight for me, and I
think that that sometime swaysmy look a bit.
I think that gun violence andthe idea that we all need guns
(09:29):
is a sickness.
I think that we're all affectedby it in some way and I think
once we stop playing this gameof follow the leader where it's
hey, because he has a gun, Ifeel like I need a gun, and so
on and so forth.
With the next guy, we will beworking backwards.
We won't be working towardsprogress, we'll be working
(09:53):
towards destruction.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
This is Aaron Thompson, and what follows are
some of my personal views onviolence, on firearms and on the
state of our community today.
H Rapp Brown once famously saidviolence is a part of America's
culture.
It is as American as cherry pie.
(10:20):
I believe that sentiment to betrue when uttered by H Rapp
Brown originally and I thinkthat that continues to be the
case today.
We live in a very violentculture.
Thinking about our violenceproblems locally here in
(10:41):
Rochester, and how theydisproportionately are affecting
black people, hispanics, peopleof color, I think something is
critically different between nowand in the 60s when, when Rapp
Brown made that statement.
I think that in many ways,black people have lost their
(11:03):
sense of solidarity that H RappBrown felt, and it helped to
drive him, and we have nowturned the guns on ourselves.
I think that black folks havesuffered disproportionately from
(11:25):
violence and from violenceperpetrated by guns, because
violence is embedded in thesystems that affect us.
It's embedded in our housingand our economic systems.
I feel like we are awash inguns.
America was founded inrevolution and founded by the
gun by the use of the gun, andit has been clung to as a
(11:51):
representation of what Americanculture is, and American culture
oftentimes is not valued blackpeople, and that's been
reflected in all of our bigsystems, and it's trickled down
and it's crystallized in theform of physical violence that,
(12:12):
as I mentioned now black folksare perpetrating upon each other
.
You know what makes the news isoften the mass killings, and
you know it's newsworthy tragedy.
Of course, what goes oftenunreported are the many killings
(12:34):
in the inner cities and incommunities of color, poorer
communities.
That happens all the time andthere's not much interest in
that until you know, until whitefolks' interests are impacted
somehow.
I think that any conversationabout guns and violence has to
(12:57):
look at what's going on in theculture generally.
How are we trending?
What has fundamentally changedas far as quality of life and
how we relate to one another?
I think focusing on the objectthat is being employed in acts
of violence misses the point.
It's a point and it's relevant,but it misses the bottom line,
(13:19):
though, of what is driving thisurge to harm, to kill, to take
from.
That's a harder conversation tohave.
It's easier to focus onpolitical talking points.
It is easier to imagine thatthe evil that people do is
(13:40):
driven by the object thatthey're using.
You know, the thing about it isthere's a unique history here
in the US between black folksand the government.
Simply put, I don't have a lotof trust in the government.
I don't trust government.
I don't trust the police, thedifferent organs of the state,
and I feel that I'm on solidground in my reasoning for that.
(14:02):
You know, police have no dutyto protect.
That's legally established.
So they have no duty to protectthe people and they often, in
fact, are sources of terror forblack and brown people.
I'm an advocate for nonviolence.
I take my role and position atthe MK Gandhi Institute for
(14:26):
Nonviolence very seriously.
I am also of the mind that itis ultimately incumbent on me to
see to my own self-preservationand that of my family, because
we do not have systems in place,relational systems or legal
(14:47):
systems in place that will do sofor me, and I take that
responsibility extremelyseriously.
That's kind of my bottom lineresponsibility is to do what I
can to see to it that those thatI love live lives that are free
(15:08):
, dignified and just.
I see, quite frankly,hopelessness as the driving
factor, the primary drivingfactor, for our gun violence,
and I think that's the commondenominator, whether you look at
mass shootings, whether youlook at the daily violence
(15:32):
that's related to hustling,whether you see it as if you
look at economic driven gunviolence, robberies and
burglaries.
But I also see other otherfactors.
You know, there is adiminishment in the appreciation
(15:56):
for life, I think for our ownlives and for the lives of
others, like life has somehowstarted to feel cheap, and I
think that in this, in this age,the rise of the internet,
things have really started toget confused.
People have started to confusereality for virtual reality and
(16:22):
for narratives that are createdand, in some cases,
intentionally proliferate.
People's values and sense ofwhat is real and important are
up in the air and upside down,and I think that it's reflected
on all of our cultural fronts,in the music we listen to, in
(16:45):
the media we consume online, inthe replacement of person to
person interactions, withinteractions mediated through a
screen, through an app, that aremodified by those who control
(17:08):
the hardware and software thatwe're using, and there are,
there are impacts, you knowwhere affected.
I think that you cannot unringa bell and when we talk about,
you know, moving to a place ofpeace and disarmament.
That's the ultimate goal,that's what I want, that's what
(17:31):
the beloved community represents.
Is this shared sense ofbelonging, inclusion,
accountability, a shared senseof humanity, of seeing ourselves
in one another.
But you cannot unring a bell,and I think there's a necessary
order of operations that we haveto engage in when we talk about
moving from our current stateof armed to the teeth and out of
(17:55):
control to the ultimate endgame of living in peace and
harmony with one another.
There are, there are certainsteps we're going to have to
take, and I think theconversations that are calling
for disarming people,eliminating semi automatic
rifles as an example, I don'tthink that's, I don't think that
(18:17):
has legs, I don't think it'sgoing to work.
I think that so long as themajor powers that be used the
tools of war as a means ofworking out conflicts, as a
means of securing resources, andas long as we allow ourselves
to give into the baser aspectsof human nature which lead to
(18:40):
subjugation, which lead toexploitation, then there's no
real reason for the people to bewilling to disarm themselves
and render themselves even morepowerless before forces who
would continue to perpetrateinjustice like we see that
exists in the world today.
(19:00):
I think it's just that simple.
You know, when politicians talkabout disarmament, they're not
talking about disarmingthemselves.
They're talking about disarmingcommoners, because you best
believe that their securitydetails are going to be armed
(19:20):
with the most efficient killingmachines available to them.
And I think that's a significantpoint that there is a certain
looking at the divides in thistopic of gun violence.
Where the divides lie is aninteresting study.
My comments are running superlong now so maybe I'll get into
(19:43):
this more during the communityround table, but we've got some
hard work to do and it's gonnarequire real honesty in naming
what is really keeping us inthis state of fear of one
another.
We fear one another, we don'tfeel safe and secure and so we
(20:09):
turn to guns as kind of anattempt, in an attempt to feel
more secure, and it leads tothis vicious cycle keeping us
destabilized and othering eachother or to come.
These are my initial thoughts.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Hey everyone, it's Katie here and thank you for
listening to Perspectives onPeace.
Welcome to the MK Ghandi Institute for
Non-Violence PodcastPerspectives on Peace
Transforming Tomorrow.
This episode of Perspectives onPeace begins an examination of
the state of our community andthe role that violence,
especially violence committedusing guns, plays in our culture
.
Public conversations about whatgives rise to gun violence and
(00:23):
what to do about it oftendevolve into well-worn talking
points that reflect polarpositions, and it can feel like
nuance and balance get lost inthe noise generated by both
sides of the issue.
So in this episode, our goal isto set the table for an
upcoming Ghandi Institute-hostedRochester Community Dialogue on
(00:46):
this very issue of violence andguns by sharing some of the
podcast Cruz Thoughts on andExperiences with Guns and
Violence, and then by leavingyou with some questions to
ponder leading up to thecommunity roundtable.
We envision this roundtable asan opportunity for Rochesterians
to express ourselves, hear eachother and reason with one
(01:07):
another.
We believe it's incumbent on usto take the steps that we can
locally, here in Rochester, tosolve our community problems,
and purposefully effectivelycommunicating with one another
is at the heart of that approach.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hi, I'm Michael and I don't like guns.
The purpose of guns kind ofplays into the philosophy of
might makes right, achievingpower through harming others.
I don't think guns like theobject or item in itself are bad
, but what they represent in thecycle of things that's
(01:46):
detrimental to our society.
Tools and technology bringspeed and convenience to masses
and now we as a society arefeeling the impact of our
technological advances orweaponry.
Life can be ended or changed ina split second.
(02:07):
I understand people who feelthey need guns.
They need it to feel, toprotect what's theirs, to feel
safe because of how things are.
But it doesn't feel right forme.
It reminds me of the shortstory by Miriam Kava Justice.
Justice is about a small placewhere weapons aren't necessary.
(02:27):
They don't even know themeaning of danger or fear.
Conflicts are resolved throughtrust and love.
The Swan Place holds humanity,life and community close to the
heart of how they are and act.
So things look a little bitdifferent over there.
There's a lot of constantstruggle or fighting against,
(02:49):
but are connecting andreconnected with, even if just a
little.
I'd like to live like that.
I understand that my decisionand ability to live nonviolently
is related to my privilege.
I'm not in a spot where I needguns, but I refuse to willingly
(03:10):
participate in the cycle of thestruggle of harm and the
struggles for power that leadsto the destruction of
relationships and community Lawshas changed me so much that I
can no longer accept things forhow they are.
Am I tied or like guns?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Here's Katie Thomas.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
In my own life, in what seems like the lives of
many other people in America andinternationally, nonviolence
really feels like it's becomingmore of a common and frequent
phenomenon that covers our newsfeeds and is inching further
into our daily lives.
It's really becoming more clearthat the issue of gun violence
(03:54):
is more than an issue.
It's an epidemic.
This is a trend that we see allover the United States, in
which gun violence is becoming amore prominent threat to us and
our daily lives.
My fear of guns has spanned allthe way back to being a young
kid and playing with my cousinsand sister at my grandparents'
(04:14):
house in East St Louis, missouri.
We were running around, playingtag and laughing with each
other until we found ourgranddad's hunting rifle under
the bed.
Even at that young age, I couldgrapple with the weight that
came along with this object andthe horrible violence that it's
capable of.
As much as I hate guns, they'venever been too far from me.
(04:38):
I can recall my father keepinga gun in our home for protection
in nights that I think aboutthat weird metal object that can
so easily end someone's life orchange their life with one
simple motion in that same placethat I laid my head at night.
(04:58):
I remember the fear and thediscomfort that came along with
knowing that there was a gun inmy house, but in the same breath
, there was a similar anxietyand a fear of a scenario of my
family being defenseless in thecase of someone else using a gun
against us.
(05:19):
The complexity of thesecompeting fears has led me to
intensely just dislike anythingthat has to do with guns and
leads to my leavingconversations on the state of
guns and violence in our worldfeeling honestly overwhelmed and
drained.
My stance hasn't changed muchsince then.
I've been constantly andincreasingly haunted by the idea
(05:41):
that guns exist in this worldand yet more anxious about what
protection and safety reallylooks like for all of us in a
world in which bearing arms,both legally and illegally, and
the use of guns in general, isbecoming more of a norm.
With my perfect world, wewouldn't need guns and everyone
(06:01):
would get along and settleconflicts and issues without the
use of weapons like these.
But if only it was that simpleright.
Unfortunately, we live in aworld in which violence and guns
are really becoming woven intothe fabric of our day to day
lives, and I don't really knowhow to grapple with that.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Here's Jordan Campbell.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
There's a quote out there that says guns don't kill
people, they make it easier.
I don't think that there's abetter quote to describe the
current situation around gunviolence in America.
I think that when you starthaving these conversations about
(06:50):
gun violence, it begins to getcomplicated because there's so
many different routes you cantake.
I think that that's becauseAmerica in itself is built off
violence.
It's built from violence andusing guns.
It's something that ourforefathers fought for and it's
(07:11):
something that we're seeingstill to this day, whether it be
school shootings, whether it beblack and brown people brutally
being killed in the street bypolice officers.
We see it with gang violence onthe regular.
It's a part of the Americanidentity.
I think when we start talkingabout solutions, we need to
(07:32):
start facing those facts.
It's who we are and we have tochange what the identity of
America is in order to move on,in order to improve and get
better.
I personally am not the biggestfan of guns.
I don't like guns.
I've never liked guns.
It's been really weird,considering.
(07:56):
I've spent a lot of my time,most of my life, around people
who were all for guns, peoplewho glorified the idea of having
guns.
I remember having a closefriend and this was before
middle school, maybe elementaryschool who would bring a gun to
school.
The idea that he didn't feelsafe and the idea that we were
(08:23):
living two different lives.
That always amazed me because,like I said before, I'm not the
biggest fan of guns, but myunderstanding for some people is
they feel unsafe on theday-to-day basis.
They can't walk towards certainstreets without feeling like
(08:44):
they need something like that.
I feel like I get reallyconflicted when I hear things
like that because, like I said,I'm on the side of.
I don't like guns, I don't thinkguns should be used, but also I
think I get really affected bythe fact that maybe one day I
will need one, maybe one day Iwill need to protect the people
(09:09):
that I hold dear and that holdsa lot of weight for me, and I
think that that sometime swaysmy look a bit.
I think that gun violence andthe idea that we all need guns
(09:29):
is a sickness.
I think that we're all affectedby it in some way and I think
once we stop playing this gameof follow the leader where it's
hey, because he has a gun, Ifeel like I need a gun, and so
on and so forth.
With the next guy, we will beworking backwards.
We won't be working towardsprogress, we'll be working
(09:53):
towards destruction.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
This is Aaron Thompson, and what follows are
some of my personal views onviolence, on firearms and on the
state of our community today.
H Rapp Brown once famously saidviolence is a part of America's
culture.
It is as American as cherry pie.
(10:20):
I believe that sentiment to betrue when uttered by H Rapp
Brown originally and I thinkthat that continues to be the
case today.
We live in a very violentculture.
Thinking about our violenceproblems locally here in
(10:41):
Rochester, and how theydisproportionately are affecting
black people, hispanics, peopleof color, I think something is
critically different between nowand in the 60s when, when Rapp
Brown made that statement.
I think that in many ways,black people have lost their
(11:03):
sense of solidarity that H RappBrown felt, and it helped to
drive him, and we have nowturned the guns on ourselves.
I think that black folks havesuffered disproportionately from
(11:25):
violence and from violenceperpetrated by guns, because
violence is embedded in thesystems that affect us.
It's embedded in our housingand our economic systems.
I feel like we are awash inguns.
America was founded inrevolution and founded by the
gun by the use of the gun, andit has been clung to as a
(11:51):
representation of what Americanculture is, and American culture
oftentimes is not valued blackpeople, and that's been
reflected in all of our bigsystems, and it's trickled down
and it's crystallized in theform of physical violence that,
(12:12):
as I mentioned now black folksare perpetrating upon each other
.
You know what makes the news isoften the mass killings, and
you know it's newsworthy tragedy.
Of course, what goes oftenunreported are the many killings
(12:34):
in the inner cities and incommunities of color, poorer
communities.
That happens all the time andthere's not much interest in
that until you know, until whitefolks' interests are impacted
somehow.
I think that any conversationabout guns and violence has to
(12:57):
look at what's going on in theculture generally.
How are we trending?
What has fundamentally changedas far as quality of life and
how we relate to one another?
I think focusing on the objectthat is being employed in acts
of violence misses the point.
It's a point and it's relevant,but it misses the bottom line,
(13:19):
though, of what is driving thisurge to harm, to kill, to take
from.
That's a harder conversation tohave.
It's easier to focus onpolitical talking points.
It is easier to imagine thatthe evil that people do is
(13:40):
driven by the object thatthey're using.
You know, the thing about it isthere's a unique history here
in the US between black folksand the government.
Simply put, I don't have a lotof trust in the government.
I don't trust government.
I don't trust the police, thedifferent organs of the state,
and I feel that I'm on solidground in my reasoning for that.
(14:02):
You know, police have no dutyto protect.
That's legally established.
So they have no duty to protectthe people and they often, in
fact, are sources of terror forblack and brown people.
I'm an advocate for nonviolence.
I take my role and position atthe MK Gandhi Institute for
(14:26):
Nonviolence very seriously.
I am also of the mind that itis ultimately incumbent on me to
see to my own self-preservationand that of my family, because
we do not have systems in place,relational systems or legal
(14:47):
systems in place that will do sofor me, and I take that
responsibility extremelyseriously.
That's kind of my bottom lineresponsibility is to do what I
can to see to it that those thatI love live lives that are free
(15:08):
, dignified and just.
I see, quite frankly,hopelessness as the driving
factor, the primary drivingfactor, for our gun violence,
and I think that's the commondenominator, whether you look at
mass shootings, whether youlook at the daily violence
(15:32):
that's related to hustling,whether you see it as if you
look at economic driven gunviolence, robberies and
burglaries.
But I also see other otherfactors.
You know, there is adiminishment in the appreciation
(15:56):
for life, I think for our ownlives and for the lives of
others, like life has somehowstarted to feel cheap, and I
think that in this, in this age,the rise of the internet,
things have really started toget confused.
People have started to confusereality for virtual reality and
(16:22):
for narratives that are createdand, in some cases,
intentionally proliferate.
People's values and sense ofwhat is real and important are
up in the air and upside down,and I think that it's reflected
on all of our cultural fronts,in the music we listen to, in
(16:45):
the media we consume online, inthe replacement of person to
person interactions, withinteractions mediated through a
screen, through an app, that aremodified by those who control
(17:08):
the hardware and software thatwe're using, and there are,
there are impacts, you knowwhere affected.
I think that you cannot unringa bell and when we talk about,
you know, moving to a place ofpeace and disarmament.
That's the ultimate goal,that's what I want, that's what
(17:31):
the beloved community represents.
Is this shared sense ofbelonging, inclusion,
accountability, a shared senseof humanity, of seeing ourselves
in one another.
But you cannot unring a bell,and I think there's a necessary
order of operations that we haveto engage in when we talk about
moving from our current stateof armed to the teeth and out of
(17:55):
control to the ultimate endgame of living in peace and
harmony with one another.
There are, there are certainsteps we're going to have to
take, and I think theconversations that are calling
for disarming people,eliminating semi automatic
rifles as an example, I don'tthink that's, I don't think that
(18:17):
has legs, I don't think it'sgoing to work.
I think that so long as themajor powers that be used the
tools of war as a means ofworking out conflicts, as a
means of securing resources, andas long as we allow ourselves
to give into the baser aspectsof human nature which lead to
(18:40):
subjugation, which lead toexploitation, then there's no
real reason for the people to bewilling to disarm themselves
and render themselves even morepowerless before forces who
would continue to perpetrateinjustice like we see that
exists in the world today.
(19:00):
I think it's just that simple.
You know, when politicians talkabout disarmament, they're not
talking about disarmingthemselves.
They're talking about disarmingcommoners, because you best
believe that their securitydetails are going to be armed
(19:20):
with the most efficient killingmachines available to them.
And I think that's a significantpoint that there is a certain
looking at the divides in thistopic of gun violence.
Where the divides lie is aninteresting study.
My comments are running superlong now so maybe I'll get into
(19:43):
this more during the communityround table, but we've got some
hard work to do and it's gonnarequire real honesty in naming
what is really keeping us inthis state of fear of one
another.
We fear one another, we don'tfeel safe and secure and so we
(20:09):
turn to guns as kind of anattempt, in an attempt to feel
more secure, and it leads tothis vicious cycle keeping us
destabilized and othering eachother or to come.
These are my initial thoughts.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Hey everyone, it's Katie here and thank you for
listening to Perspectives onPeace.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com