How do we reduce gun violence in America?
Next Wednesday evening, the residents of our community will wrestle with the issue of violence in America from several perspectives, with the hope and expectation that we can work toward finding areas of common ground. This is your invitation to join that conversation. Peter Buckland and Rosa Eberly’s articles on this page offer two perspectives; hopefully, you will bring yours.
The primary goal of the Public Issues Forum is to provide opportunities for citizens to work through complex, controversial issues, such as gun violence, in a way that allows us to get to the heart of what is important to each of us.
Deliberative forums offer the public an opportunity to think deeply about critical issues by examining what is valuable in different approaches, and weighing the tradeoffs. An important goal of any forum is to have those who attend come to a better understanding of why people with different view points see the issue in the way they do. Another is to discover our areas of common ground for moving forward.
Your voice is essential. Please join us April 19.
David Hutchinson is chairman of the Public Issues Forum of Centre County.
If you go
What: Public Issues Forum: How do we reduce violence in America?
When: 6-9 p.m. April 19
Where: The Fairmount Avenue School Building (just south of Memorial Field)
▪ Approach 1: Change the culture so that violence is less acceptable. Why is there more violence in American than other “civilized” countries? What could we do as citizens to change that?
▪ Approach 2: Restrict access to lethal weapons from the dangerous and mentally unstable. Who should be considered dangerous, and who decides?
▪ Approach 3: Allow local communities to decide. Each community is different, and should have the right to decide the most effective approach.
This story was originally published April 14, 2017 at 9:57 PM with the headline "How do we reduce gun violence in America?."