Collaborate for a solution on guns
Step 1: Establish a mutual goal, such as “no more school shootings.” Step 2: Separate people from problems, meaning no personal attacks or name calling — stay on the issue.
Step 3: Focus on interests, not positions (positions are demands; interests are the reasons behind the demands). In other words, explain why you want what you want. For example, why you want stricter gun laws or why you don’t.
Step 4: Generate alternatives for mutual gain, such as arming teachers, having retired law enforcement patrol school campuses, banning semi-auto- matic weapons, raising the minimum age to buy firearms, etc.
Step 5: Use objective criteria (like money and time) to evaluate the options. For example, do you have the money to arm every teacher, hire retired law enforcement for every school campus, ban semi-automatic weapons, or raise the minimum age? Do you have the time to arm every teacher, hire retired law enforcement for every school campus, ban semi-automatic weapons, or raise the minimum age?
Step 6: Choose the best option (based on practicality, majority rule, or whatever method you establish), and live with the decision, defining success in terms of real gains, not imaginary losses. For example, instead of saying, “My freedom was taken away from me because I can no longer buy a semi-automatic weapon”; say, “Hopefully, we will prevent children from losing their lives at school.” Or, instead of saying, “I can no longer go anywhere — not to church, a club, or the grocery store — because all we’ve done is arm teachers”; say, “Hopefully, we will prevent children from losing their lives at school.”
What I have described above is the standard method of collaboration that I use in my conflict resolution workshops (although training participants try to figure out where to go on vacation together, not how to prevent school shootings). Unfortunately, most people never learn how to collaborate (work with others toward a common goal), including, it seems, most of our nation’s leaders. I think we can all agree that our country is suffering greatly as a result.
To collaborate, we need to be able to engage in civil discourse, which is the process of talking to each other about our different perspectives, opinions, experiences and identities without getting upset or being mean. I had the opportunity to do that the Sunday before Memorial Day. I learned that morning that a custom-built AR-15 rifle was being raffled off at a local celebration the next day.
You’re probably aware that the AR-15 rifle has been in the news lately. According to news reports, the gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24 used an AR-15-style rifle. So did the men who killed 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, 58 people at a Las Vegas concert in 2017, 26 people in a Sutherland Springs, Texas church in 2017, 49 people in a Florida nightclub in 2016, 14 people in San Bernardino in 2015 (there was also a female shooter), and 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
Daniel Defense, the gun manufacturer of the AR-15 that the Uvalde gunman used, backed out of the National Rifle Association meeting held in Houston shortly after the shooting in respect for the dead saying, “We believe this week is not the appropriate time to be promoting our products in Texas at the NRA meeting.”
So, I found the news that an AR-15 would be part of a raffle at a local Memorial Day celebration to be incredibly inappropriate, and I said as much to two veterans collecting donations in front of a Vons store that Sunday afternoon. We engaged in civil discourse about a very sensitive issue. We didn’t raise our voices or call each other names. We explained our perspectives and demonstrated respect for the others’ viewpoint. Most importantly, we agreed we have a common problem, that there are numerous causes of the problem, and we need to work together to find solutions that are acceptable to everyone. Most of our politicians seem unable to engage in civil discourse about guns. It might be up to us to have the conversations.