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It’s been almost a year since a student opened fire on his schoolmates and teachers at a Florida high school, leaving 17 dead and another 17 wounded.
The usual outrage ensued. Students walked out, events were held, people lobbied and called for change, politicians talked, and here we are. While we talk, no one from one side seems to be hearing someone from the other.
So, we’re still seeking solutions nationally regarding gun violence.
But there’s a group in Richmond, The Solution Is Us, that seeks to bring all sides together to continue the conversation and, hopefully, lead to some constructive actions.
They’re staging a forum on Wednesday, Feb. 13, the eve of the anniversary of the Valentine’s Day shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The event is free and begins at 6:30 p.m. in the lower multipurpose room at UR Downtown, 626 E. Broad St.
The two-hour session, offered in partnership with Share More Stories, is designed for metro Richmond residents to share their experiences with firearms, as a way to help people understand how those experiences shape our perspectives on guns. The conversation asks participants to consider their earliest and their most vivid memories involving firearms.
“Those type of memories are really rich in how they shape you and your values,” says James Warren, a founder of The Solution Is Us. He’s vice president with Johnson Marketing and also a founder of its storytelling startup, Share More Stories, which is a partner in the Wednesday forum. Warren is also a Richmond magazine family columnist who detailed the origins of The Solution Is Us in his June 2018 column.
The project is an outgrowth of feelings of frustration and helplessness in the wake of the Parkland shooting. Its first year has been a time of growth and of learning about the issue, and the extent of the divide. “It’s big, really complex and extremely emotional,” says Warren.
The goal is to share and to find common ground, but it’s hard to get agreement between Second Amendment gun rights backers and people with less investment in firearms. Still, Warren notes, there is one unifying idea: No one want kids getting shot or dying from guns.
Warren describes the Wednesday event as a discussion of formative experiences or transformational events regarding guns.
The Solution Is Us is not intended to be a primarily political initiative; other groups are already doing that, but Warren sees that approach as stepping into the divide, not bridging it. He wants his group to help “define this vague goal, then bring people together.”
They want to help people understand the issue and talk in a nonpartisan way. And sharing personal stories can help create a dialogue on a difficult issue. Shared stories are expected to run the gamut from those who have been traumatized by the loss of a loved one to gun violence to those who share a family heritage of hunting or gun collecting.
“First and foremost, our goal is to start this shift of the narrative,” Warren says.
Warren will serve as a moderator, and he also will share his own gun story, about an attempted mugging on a New York City subway and a friend who stepped between him and the gun.
“I’ll never forget what it was like to have a gun stuck in my face,” he says.
Everyone has a gun story, and it frames their views, he says.
The Solution Is Us has detailed its findings online in a detailed open letter.
Warren is in this for the long haul, and knows that it will take time to lay groundwork and grow consensus. It will take a series of talks to articulate and share experiences, to access voices that have not been heard. We need to know where we are coming from and what we can do next, he says, in order to provide a roadmap toward an answer.
“Maybe that insight might inform action that can get us to a place [where] a vast majority can form a consensus,” he says.