This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
To the Editor:
How do communities seeking a future free from the heart break of gun violence, while respecting the rights of gun owners, find a way forward? What roles should government institutions, churches, non-profit or service organizations, and activist groups play in a future with low risks and great respect? How do community members listen to, and learn from, one another respectfully enough to find strategies and implementation plans on which they can agree for realizing a future of safety and respect?
If answers to these questions were easy, common ground among residents living in fear of gun violence and those fearing compromised rights of gun ownership would have been discovered by now. That it has not yet been discovered may be a consequence of so many of us acting and reacting based on our worst fears rather than our best hopes.
What might be possible in Longmont if interested community members engaged with one another not only to share worst fears about these issues, but best hopes? Would we see new, yet undiscovered, options for creating a future driven less by fear and more by aspiration? We will only know if we try.
An opportunity to listen and learn together as a community begins on Sept. 12 at the Longmont Museum. Hosted by leaders in Longmont’s faith community, the first “Safety and Respect Cafe’” will give some of us a chance to test the hypothesis that moving this conversation beyond worst fears can lead to the kind of common ground that so many communities find so elusive.
Want to join the conversation? Register for it on the City of Longmont website at “A Community Conversation on the Risks of Gun Violence.” Because of limits to the number of people comfortably accommodated in the Museum, participation is limited to the first 120 people who register.
Respectfully,
Tim Waters
