Week # 6 Questions

In our last seminar and in your latest blog posts, many of you have said that the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida and the intensifying debate over gun control and school safety have been on your minds recently. Many of you said you have been following the campaign led by Stoneman Douglas High School students, along with other young people and other groups, to push for stricter gun control and challenge to the prevalence of guns and violence in American society. 

We will be discussing these issues together when we see each other next on March 23. To get us started, I'd like you to listen to two different points of view on the issue, respond to the 7 questions below in a forum post on Jupitergrades, and respond to each other's ideas in the forum. 

The first source is a recent speech by Wayne LaPierre, the longtime Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association (NRA) to the Conservative Political Action Conference. The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbyist groups in the US. LaPierre has been its leader and one of its most ardent spokespeople since 1991.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?441475-3/conservative-political-action-conference-wayne-lapierre-remarks

Questions: 

1)  As you listen to LaPierre's speech, which ideas or specific phrases stand out to you as the most potent aspects of his rhetoric in favor of gun rights and against the NRA's critics? Why do you think these ideas appeal to many Americans?

2) What do you think of LaPierre's proposed solutions to gun violence?

For another point of view, please listen to this part of an episode from the podcast Intercepted, from the independent investigative journalism website theintercept.com. (The host happens to be an ICE dad, Jeremy Scahill.) The first 41 minutes, an interview with historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,  touch on many aspects of the guns issue, from its roots in the history of the United States, from the genocide of Native Americans, slavery, the origins of the 2nd Amendment, the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, etc. You can listen to it on itunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/intercepted-with-jeremy-scahill/id1195206601?mt=2&i=1000404155459)

or here (where a full transcript is also available): https://theintercept.com/2018/02/28/intercepted-podcast-white-supremacy-and-the-church-of-the-second-amendment/

(Just as a heads up, the beginning of the podcast is a bit, let's say, unconventional. Don't worry, you're listening to the right episode.)

Questions:

3) If, as Dunbar-Ortiz (and other historians) say, guns are so deeply embedded in our history, national psyche, and current reality (for instance, there is roughly one gun for every person in the US, the highest in the world by far), what do you think needs to happen to reduce the prevalence of gun violence in our society? If you agree with Dunbar-Ortiz, how might we start to address the more systemic factors that interconnect with our "gun culture" to reduce gun violence?

4) How does the prevalence of guns in the US affect you personally?

5) What have you learned about the ideas and tactics of the student activists who have emerged at the forefront of the gun control movement since the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School? If you have an opinion of their ideas and tactics, what are they?

6) To find other perspectives on the subject, especially on the activism led by young people, and to make our limited time together as fruitful and relevant to you as possible, search for interesting / powerful articles or videos (or segments thereof) about the subject that you think we could all look at together, and post links to at least two of them on your forum post.

7) What are aspects of the subject of guns, schools, and violence that you think will be most thought-provoking and debatable for us to discuss in seminar? It could be helpful to phrase these ideas in the form of questions for us to pose and examine together.

8) Read the forum post of at least one other senior and respond to their post.