The gun violence newsadvocacy organization The Trace and I see guns in America quite differently. They don’t call me (anymore) or engage with my work, but I still read The Trace for its particular take on guns in America. (For those who read Gun Curious, recall my take on the parable of the blind men and the elephant.)
I was recently reminded of a story that ran in The Trace whose subtitle caught my attention. In it, Chip Brownlee interviews Dr. Tim Kummer, who was the first doctor to respond to the mass murder at Annunciation Catholic School in August.
“He wants a ban on assault-style weapons — and a way for Americans to have a healthier conversation about the gun issue.”
Now that is an eye-catching passage. I decided to read beyond the headline. Brownlee reiterates the idea in the story:
Kummer, an assistant medical director and an emergency physician at Hennepin Healthcare, has seen the damage assault weapons cause up close — and triaged a high number of victims that an assault weapon paired with powerful ammunition and a high-capacity magazine can produce. But perhaps equally as important, Kummer also wants to be able to talk about guns in a less extreme, more nuanced way.
As The Bob Ross of Guns, I can definitely get behind talking about guns in a less extreme, more nuanced way.
What is the path?
I’d like to see them put a ban on assault weapons — whether we call them assault weapons or assault rifles or weapons designed to do mass amounts of harm. Whatever the term is, legislation would contain a list of actual guns. I would like to see that legislation passed. Of course, I would like to see high-capacity magazine restrictions passed, for sure.
More importantly, I would like to see our country be able to have a healthy conversation about a topic that has become wildly political and puts the pain and suffering solely on the shoulders of children. And so while passing all of this is really, really important, I would love to live in a space where I can have a conversation with someone who has a different belief than me and come to a common understanding. It’s not that I’m questioning their morality as a human; I’m just asking them to look at it from someone else’s shoes.
I wanted to find a roadmap to better dialogue. But reading closely, I was disappointed. Does this qualify as talking about guns in a less extreme, more nuanced way?
To be sure, guns have become “wildly political.” But, as my gun studies colleague Jennifer Carlson has recently reflected, centering the AR-15 contributes to this problem rather than guiding us toward a healthier conversation.
If we don’t agree with Kummer’s proposed AR-15 and high-capacity magazine bans, are we then guilty of “put[ting] the pain and suffering solely on the shoulders of children”? Is this the “less extreme, more nuanced” part of the program?
From where I stand, this is not a very welcoming invitation to a “healthier conversation.”
Like Kummer, I “would love to live in a space where I can have a conversation with someone who has a different belief than me and come to a common understanding.” Unlike Kummer, I actually do live in these spaces at times, and advocate for this at every opportunity.
How does Kummer ideally envision these conversations?
“It’s not that I’m questioning their morality as a human; I’m just asking them to look at it from someone else’s shoes.”
To me, a conversation is a two-way street, a back-and-forth aimed at mutual understanding. What Kummer is proposing here is that those he disagrees with come to understand him.
To be fair, the interview with Kummer was edited by The Trace for length and clarity, so perhaps he went on to say that he reciprocates and tries to look at it from other people’s shoes. Whether he didn’t say it or The Trace edited it out, the effect is the same: Not a conversation but a one-way street.
This mode of talking at people rather than with them is all too common in our uncivil times, especially around the gun issue, on both sides. It’s not healthy. But what Kummer and The Trace offer here is no more healthy, no less extreme, no more nuanced.
So I’m genuinely curious: What does a healthier conversation about guns look like to you? Have you experienced one - where people with different views on gun policy actually listened to each other and found some common ground? What made it work? And how do we create more spaces for that kind of dialogue?
Unfortunately, this doctor’s particular attitude — “Let’s have an honest and open discussion, and then you should adopt my opinion” — is common on many if not most contentious issues, including firearms, abortion, and immigration. I wish I knew a good fix for it.
I have healthy conversations in therapy sessions all the time, about many very thorny subjects. They usually begin by asking what the problem is (and defining it clearly), followed by asking what the goal is, (and defining it clearly) and then discussing reasonable, accomplishable interventions to achieve the goal.
Healthy(ier) conversations, in my experience, have never started with the interventions first, leapfrogging the goal.