Good evening and welcome. My names emily and im the adult programs librarian. Tonights event is the last of the author talks. For anyone who is not been in our library since our renovation, welcome back. Before we begin have a few housekeeping things to mention. I would ask everyone to silence her cell phones. If youre looking for the rest of their three upstairs and down the hall. Across lobby. Although we do not allow food and drink, if you like to continue your conversation after the event the cafe is often a 10 discount on food and nonalcoholic beverages. Without further do ill give the podium. [applause] thank you for being here for this essential, sadly sensual event. Limited be very brief, theres a lot to come tonight. I want to begin personal if thats okay tied it with the subject. Like all of you, we all are poor violence. I know violence fairly intimately. I had a violent youth, a lot of violence. I was a victim of a lot of it and i victimized victimizers and it was all ugly. Violence always is. It showed to me in shape, look at the world, i have a friend from massachusetts i come from north of boston and im get a read the beginning of a poem like matt w miller, this moment came in his life just recently im just gonna read a tenth of this poem. The greasy popup of the semi automatic rex fear before i can get off the couch. Before my wife yanks our baby dollars from the new followed front flesh a pomegranate and runs inside before their car is pastor fences true. Fits winter this town the ten to 15 seconds left to body with the heart instantly destroyed. With left of his or fence, 5 feet from the street. The front wall 4 inches of california bungalow and then her crib. I know there people in this room have lost loved ones take islands violence. I have not lost a loved one from gun violence, ive taken a lost friends to suicide by gun and im convinced if they didnt have easy access to it they would be a lie. We all have our story sadly. Whatever these moments of madness happen they happened far too often in our land, 30,000 plus every year die of gun violence. Nevermind the madness of the Mass Shootings were seen. I have the emotions and im sure you have two. It begins with grief and fear, terror and outrage and then range in this horrible, numbing kind of despair. I begin to feel helpless and powerless i cannot tell you how many young people, especially those i teach to work in malls and stores and they have the active Shooter Drill as part of their lives yet, despair will change nothing. Despair is an awful motion to live through. Going to reach a passage from one of my favorite american writers. The very act of writing assumes to begin with that someone cares to hear what you have to say. It assumes that people share in that people can be reached, that people can be touched and even in some cases, change. Many of the things our worldliness to despair, it seems to me the final symptom of despair silence and it story telling and poetry are some of the sustaining arts, they are the affirming arts, a writer may have a certain pessimism in their outlook but the very act of being writer seems to be an optimistic act. This book has been an antidote to my own despair. It got me to get up and start thinking more about not just wallowing in fear and outrage and rage and grief, audrey lord has a wonderful thing to say about the power poetry. Poetry, there are the songs on the street and the ones i can go back on the street and it read again and again. The quality of life by which we scrutinize our lives have direct bearing upon where we live. It is within this light that we form the ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realize. This is poetry is illumination. It is through poetry that we give name to those that are nameless and formless. Poetry is not a luxury, its a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the light which we predicate our hopes and dreams first made into language than into idea than into more tangible action. One of my favorite quotes is this. Artist transferring feeling from one heart to another. Mild view is the only thing that can transfer feeling from many heart is truth. Once truth makes the journey inside the changes lines it opens hearts and changes our lives. Its not her to be here. Thank you. Peace honor. [applause] good evening, brian one of the editors and andre thank you for being here tonight and for getting us started in a wonderful way. I want to thank my coeditors is an honor to work with you on this project and to all of the poets who are here tonight, thank you for your past and ongoing work. And thank you to beacon for publishing the book. Youre the reason we can do this. Thank you so much this book is part of a threepart project. This comprises supplemental material including interviews and essays on a website that is hosted. You can find it by googling the book. I hope youll take a look for more information including opportunities for action. The third part of the project is a National Series of events like this one across the country. Alexander has hosted one in idaho. Will be doing one event in every state in d. C. Over the next six months. Let your friends and family around the country know about the events. Will be going in three blocks tonight. You be doing a block of introductions and readings and then will have the opportunity for questions its my pleasure to introduce martinas father is the author of numerous poetry collections including those who have failed, imagine the angels of bread in the republic of poetry. Understand he will read this time. The response is from david and francine will for the parents have been was killed in the sandy hook shootings. They cannot be here this evening megan cannot be here from new jersey. Shes the author of a new language from falling out of love. Her poem will be read by my coeditor was a fellow and author of two books of poems she teaches at the university of idaho. The response from the poems from my wife abby who is a second grade teacher at sandy hook the day of the shooting. She now teaches at another school in newtown. Ill read my poem from the anthology in the response was written by kim murray, the executive director of Newtown National alliance. They cannot be here and another member was supposed to be here to read the response but i dont think she is shown up yet. Please welcome martina. [applause] thank you. I have very honored to be here part of this anthology. I want to especially thank the editors. This is hard work. And very important work. Granted the title poem to the anthology. This is a poem based on the visions newtown i was written for the location of a National Childrens day events entitled, within our reach at the Newtown Congregational Church on junjun, 2013. The first stanza refers to two different cities, first albania which is the site of the bell of peace. The other city in the first stanza is preventive, italy and the subsequent stanza refers to newtown itself. The title of the poem is heal the cracks in the bell of the world. For the community of newtown, connecticut were 20 students and six educators lost their lives to a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School on december 14, 2012. Now the bells speak with their tongues. Now, the bells open their mouths of bronze to say, listen to the bells a world away. This into the bell in the rooms of the city were children gathered copper shows like beach class and the copper boiled in the foundry and the billboard and the founder says, i was bored of bullets but now i sing of a world where bullets melt into bells. Listen to the bell when the city were cannons in the army of the great war sink into molten metal and the many mouth set one spoke the ton of smoke formed the one mouth of a bill that says i was born of canada but now i sing of a world where canon melts into bells. Listen to the bells the town the flagpole on main street. A rooster weathervane keeping watch atop the meetinghouse. The congregation gathering to sing in times of great silence. Here, the bells rock the heads of bronze as if to say melt the bullets into bells, melt the bolus into bells. Here, they raise their heavy heads is as if to say melt the cannons into bells, melt the cannons into bells. Here weapons crumbled deep into the earth and nobody remembers where they were very. Now the bells passed the world that in my the ancient language of bronze from bell to bell like ship smuggling use of liberation from island to island a song rippling through the clouds. Now, the bells chime like the muscle feeding in every chest. Killed the cracks in the face of every person listening to the bells. The chimes feel the cracks in the bell of the moon. The chimes seal the cracks in the bell of the world. [applause] a response from david and francine wheeler. In the time following the murder of our son, this poem was read at several gatherings. At one, i david spoke the words myself. If you the irony of the location of our loss, connecticut. The birthplace of the american firearm industry, newtown, the home of the industrys trade group. Nearby water very former breast capital were for mrs. Melted brass to make bells. Shifting their efforts to shell casings after the war. Eli whitney, to move through this landscaped after day carrying the weight of our murder boy in the whole of our hearts and the unwanted permanent texture of our lives. It is however the support assistance a love of our community tucked inside the same hills. Where we work to support, teach, help others the organization bends lighthouse created to help in on her bed. Helping his ceiling. So we stay and we listen for the bells. [applause] when a child hears gunshots by megan. When a child hears gunshots, she will say mom, is beating the pots and pans. She will say it sounds like home. Lets keep it this way. Our children misinterpreting the sound of dying this accrued progression. When they kneel at their beds in ascot where he was when there best friend stopping a life you say, was at the drive through, i so hungry he thought the gunshots were my stomach begging for food. It will say, i know nothing until strangers told me about it first. I could have Bullet Wounds in my hands and i would know nothing about what hurts and what doesnt hurt. What a god, making the world out of variations of madness, refusing to hold his face in its hands and say you, you are mine. It is not ours, the young blood, the unfinished drawings, the less blurry thoughts before world goes black. When god is busy wiping grease from his mouth we can stand in the line with the dead in our backpack next are pencils in our snacks, he wont notice when we give the whole damn world back. [applause] 154 shots, they heard them all. I thought they were folding chairs falling, we huddled into the coats and backpacks some of them cried some of them left, how could they know and if they knew, hope they believe we shared a waldo bottle, blue one passing it around little arms poking out to take it. We waited we had to believe the police were who they said they were. I open the door and they scattered. A few in my outstretched arms. We ran, we were lucky. Surviving is a gift and burden, what you do with that . For me as soon as i could i started to fight. I fight to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people ive fight to keep guns away from depressed teens and toddlers, the fight against Arming Teachers and i fight to keep guns out of College Dorms and classrooms, lack downs, active Shooter Drills and backpacks that morph into shields are not an answer. Parents should not have to worry about whether or not their kids will make it home from school. The year two after the tragedy one mom told me that every day after school she left a gift for her daughter setting on her bed, celebration for making it home. [applause] 22, the guy my girlfriend ran off with at 23. A 22 pistol runs to the bank to drop off nightly deposits. Swear i worked and saw rocky for about 20 times more than i wanted to he lived in a rat shack. A few streets over from the house for in 2004 a local tv reporter was murdered in her bed. Her face be beyond recognition. In 1988, an assistant manager at a restaurant down a fight broke out between the pimp in a private investigator who may also have been a pimp. A group of frat boys decided to jump in and knock it all over on the floor just on the other side of the bar from me, the pimp came up pointing a semi automatic directly at the closest object which happened to be my four head. He didnt shoot. He just waved his gun around until everyone cowered and then calmly walked out the front door and down the street. My best friend in sixth or seventh grade with arkansas from new mexico, ron was rough he raised hamsters and hermit crabs. We went out to his fathers farm a shot cans and bottles with his 22. Back in new mexico he had Health Problems and his mother had shot herself in the head. If you years ago a dead body was found buried under fathers property, ron son ended up shooting himself in the head as well. He was 22. On december 14, 2012 gunman entered the Sandy Hook School to push those, bushmaster 223, hundreds around with ammunition in the shotgun in the car. Rather than turn right towards my sons classroom where she pulled two kids he turns to the left of murder 20 children and six adults including the principal and school psychologist, both of went into the hallway to stop. After that a lot of other things happen but it doesnt matter what. [applause] [inaudible] i will read the response to my poem. It did not matter to the National Rifle association the republican congress, donald trump or others that my mother killed his mother in her bed and then gun down 20 children or that a hundred thousand americans are killed or injured by guns in our towns and cities across the nation every year, or theres nearly 300 Mass Shootings nationally. Theres more than that. The matter to us, where a group of newtown connecticut neighbors and friends perform an action alliance. The group advocating for gun violence in our nation. In matter to families of victims and survivors directly impacted by gun violence. Still matters to us we will work to hold all representatives accountable for standing with the nra instead of taking action to keep all of us stay. Despite the nra rhetoric, we know firsthand that guns kill and guns dont make us safe. [applause] my name is dean, one of the editors of the book, thank you all for coming. I want to go brian think he may coeditors ryan and alexander and all the contributors and activists, this has been an important and sobering project to work on. All i want to say before introduce the videos youll see in jill set theres a history in america of art, doing the cultural work that oped in journalism and essays do not two. Arts can create an emotional currency that works on a different level. Everything from Thomas Paines common sense to Uncle Toms Cabin to photographs, it can educate our emotions and sustain our intellect and get us to respond in ways. I dont know that this book will do all those things but my hope is the voices of the poet and the voices of the respondents can create a larger conversation that perhaps can move those outside a policy to address the serious issue. For my part i will introduce children who will read her amazing poem afraid, that will have a video response from Kim Parker Russell im going to read a poem with a response by clay summers gun violence survivor and activists. Then i will read my poem and the anthology with a video response. Jill is a threetime pushcart prize winner. And nra she teaches in a program her books include habeas corpus, where you live in here all night. The response to the poem is from a gun violence survivor and activist who works with the womens march. Kim couldnt be with us but she sent a video i will play after jills reading. Caution cannot be with us we know that he would like to be here you will get the emotional impact of his poem read by clay summers, storytelling and activists who believes each story must be held with honor and respect. Shes a caretaker farmer overly that allows for respite for gun violence. My poem will have response from joe clint cannot make it this evening from brooklyn. Photographer, activist and curator. [applause] this is hard. Im grateful for it. And im just gonna cry all the way through. Get a reach a poem called afraid. I work with some incarcerated children in a juvenile detention facility and when i first publish this poem i brought it into them and you write poems about things you going to employee explained that he wasnt afraid of anything i said thats fantastic. He brought along poem of very specific things he is not afraid of and i do not believe him. Afraid. Im not afraid of mergers apparently your walking alone at night. What im supposed to fear, 40 american white, employ, ive already won. But a quick shadow in the street gunshots breaking air open doubting with under my feet rachel says, youre afraid of everything and i flinch, because she is right. Im not afraid of getting shot, the noise just makes me want to cry. Heights, not a roofer bridge a plane, but ice, iceskating, ladders, and he jolted precarious perch. I remember the shipshape track i nickname lucky the summary painted houses, gripped aluminum ladders the cheerful song i sang under my breath dipping in reaching and keeping everybody save and hes are lucky rock, his name is lucky. Then i would sing it over again. Thank you. [applause] my name is kim russell and on the survival of gun violence. I want to thank everybody who helped put this book together my responses called the afraid. I sorta remember my life before a became afraid, i was curious, impulsive and still a little innocent. I realize they had been gone now for 20 years. Afraid, its not hard for me to conjure at all. My hairstyle, my person frank i remember the wine i drank the conversation i had at dinner. The just columbine happened just a few days prior. It was a wonderful evening i remember diving under an old truck for copper. I remember my body feeling like it no longer belong to me. I remember trying to pull dead i remember feeling the cold have a gun pressed him ahead i remember the shock when i figured out that i was a live but my friend was not. I wish i could remember my life before that night the specific details. This poem is called always and forever from oceans collection that cannot lester called night sky with exit wound always and forever openness when you naming most she said as he slid the shoebox wrapped in duct tape beneath my head. His thumb still damp from the shutter between mothers by cap circling the mall above my brow. The devils eyes these between his teeth or was he lighting a joint, tonight i wait, i have the shoebox with seven winters in here sunken folds of yellow newspaper lies the colt 45, silent and heavy like an amputated hand. Held it down in and wonder if the entry wound in the night would make a whole wide in the morning. That if i looked through it i would see the end of the sentence or just a man kneeling at the boy spent his overalls reeking of gasoline and cigarette. Maybe the day will close without the page turning as he wraps his arms around the boys shoulders, the boy pretending to be asleep while his fathers clutch titans. It must tighten around the bullet to make it speak. [applause] i tell you this, there is no language for night bullet. My stepbrother shot me with a hunting rifle when i was 13 years old. On the coldest of nights in january of 1970. He cut sliced its way through my back leaving shrapnel that still leaves my body. The force ruined the kidney and shock the nurse of my spine so i cannot walk for a month. I resist the language of the telling of being shot. Really, this is the truth of it. This truth of gun violence and domestic violence, first he be my mother and brother then, as i became the protector my family he took to chasing me along the Connecticut River with his gun and his dog. He leaned in to rate me and i resisted with theory only available to the knowing of a child. He would take that gun and hang me from a wall, night after night. Metal below the chin intent, i sit with parents now have had their child shot. I see the wild eyed terror of their children the seconds before their shot. It is a terror so visceral that i must tell the truth. [applause] thank you. My poem is called self portrait in charleston, orlando. I wrote this poem after the pole shooting in orlando and the shootings at the church in charleston, South Carolina. This poem came after what seemed is years of nonstop thinking of the confluence of the history and causes terrorism, gun violence, racism, the links between christianity and violence, and the ways in which these are all connected geographically and by way of the water. The news this morning said the ramadi had fallen phthisis the president did not have a plan to push them back into the and bar province. I have a plan to walk down to the beach in silence perhaps, where i will stand and water the temperature of most corpses. And look out under the ocean, the wave shifting from one color to the next. This moment, the shade of an old bruce. Toward pan which they see across the map of motion. The mystical country which is ohms completely rid itself of guns. Like the one the boy used to shoot nine people. That mystical man may have walked the streets of ramadi in the missing years between his youth and his destiny. Who knows how many of the slight he may have race into the long daylight of the not yet lived, back into the skin of suffering. Or how many would of dipped into the mystical waters that emptied into the gulf and then at the arabian sea before their long walkways across time in history of South Carolina and into charlston and then retreating to work their way down into florida perhaps inland into orlando in the back out again round every country, every boat, before arriving on the beaches of San Francisco on the far end of the other side of the mystical continent. Perhaps even where i am standing. I wonder if all life is somehow loaded into the chamber of a rifle. The long tunnel of darkness before us and even our destiny as close to the hammer as the width of these lines. Themselves inheritance of something i am now only beginning to understand. Now the door and saw, not even the man with his hand on the trigger or, the people ready to rise. [applause] spank good evening. , documentary photographer. For the last several years ive been traveling around the country. Im sorry cant be here this evening. Thank you for allowing me to be part of this project and to read what i wrote. Ill admit its easy to get hard and after working on a project such as mine for number of years. All the stories ive heard from gun violence survivors are tremendously powerful each in their own way, they dont affect me quite the same way as when i began. If anything this is a good thing. Allows me to get past my own feelings. Piece that hasnt changed and i dont expect it will is my amazement at the strength and resilience of these people. People im proud to call my friends. I cannot understand where they summoned the ability get out of bed in the morning. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] am not sure this is loading correctly. I think we have lost our internet connection. No one. [applause] thank you, alexander. Thank you so much for being here. Im so honored to be part of this gather and to be able to have spent the last two years working with brian and dean on this project. In the introduction to the anthology quotes Wallace Stevens line i have returned to again and again and it sums up the way i imagine this poetry working. That is, poetry should be the imagination of pressing back against the pressures of reality. I think it is what starts to look horrifying reality. I think those who read about it speaks to the certain social crisis as well. Its the work of the incredible respondents. Im thankful for the poets and respondents work. And for my editors into beacon for bringing this project forward so beautifully. My own poem is from my second book, the wise and foolish builders and it centers on the street of the winchester families and the western expansion of the Winchester Company. One of the many things i learned was how hard the Winchester Company had to work during the civil war and shortly after during westward expansion to market the guns and convince people they needed protection and guidance were essential. They sent gun sales people notice missionaries into the west. Much of the rhetoric about guns and power and safety of the necessity for self protection that carries on began in that time. As a criminologist friend of mine put it to me recently, dont brownstone expire. Unlike many products you have to continue to convince people there under threat. This poem takes much of the language the founder of the Winchester Company describing the repeating rifle. But it will sound familiar to our own time. Repeater. As a military genius to grasp this terrible engine, winchester road. The gun that can be loaded on sunday and fired all week. The gun that makes the man the equal of a company each minute, regiment and ten of the brigade and 30, this daylight full of lead. Wheres the genius to grasp it. The terrible engine can sink in the river and fire like its never been wet. He can travel west on sundays this gun makes a man always ready so he can never be captured. Wheres the military genius to grasp this terrible engine into look past its uneven first trials and to see like history, it repeats itself. And yes, sometimes stutters. To fire a gun makes a man safety loaded safe as the church mates. Yet, wheres the military genius to grasp this terrible engine, loaded on sunday, fire all week. This gun makes a man. [applause] in a moment will be reading the response to the poem. His activists in connecticut and founder of the peace center of connecticut which will help to organize and host an event similar to this one in connecticut. After that, we hear from Rebecca Morgan frank reading her poem, gunning for. Shes the author three collections most recently, were all living in a foreign country. She is a poet in residence at brandeis. Brian is unable to be here from South Carolina so Brian Clements will read his response matthew cannot be here tonight, ill be return to read his poem in response to that is from shannon, founder of moms demand action who cannot be here tonight, but amy is here to represent moms demand action following that, will have closing comments before discussion from doctor bell who is the er dr. On duty at Danbury Hospital where some victims of the sandy hook shooting were taken. Anything, before i read my poem i want to say this is an incredibly humbling experience. I didnt know what to expect. I want to say thank you tell of you for sharing your powerful stories. I was the First Responder at hartford and ive been to the scene of over 400 shootings in 13 years. I bear witness to 300 young people being murdered in different communities. Ive seen a lot and ive responded to a lot. Most painful response was that response my own brother. I never thought again made a man. I have very little experience with gun and i was never the victim of gun violence. The most dangerous victim was my education. The series of lessons about the human body and how to make it a weapon. Child abuse, physical abuse and verbal abuse. All the way someone can use a body to impose their will on someone. That was my experience. I grew up believing that hurting people is power and respect. When i was in the street culture i learned that Street Society lives with a different set of rules. The reduce me to the power of guns. That line of education may power worth more than my own sanity. God will lead to my greatest pain, my child to protector, teenage role model and it eventually make grownup responsibility, my brother was murdered. A gun made a man, silent one, brooklyn, lost one, forever empty one. That is the man who gun made. [applause] ive been reading from this over the last few days. I think dean brianna and alexandra for putting this together. Must really want to thank the responders who are making me face mild complacency. I feel like this book is already doing its work. Gunning for, have you ever smelled the residue . Surely a car has backfired on your street and center polls climbing up the back stairs. Have you ever held the cold power in your poem that he sent from your body. Close down the body it hits. Have you seen the warmth right out of skin . You havent numbers are gunning for you. The track you down anywhere with ease. Silent stress everywhere, even in your histories. Take me for an example. An ancestor shot a man and had once, he stopped a mass murder in his tracks. How do you explain the history like that. By telling the whole story how that relative left another manford dad having hit them over the head with rage. He had that kind of temper. The innocent man happen to live as the guilty man fell dead before hes took a street a lives. Just as just an accident. Goes into the history of merit. You touch the gun and it breeds in, breeze out. Has a future of its own, has it of righteousness. [applause] at this point you might be thinking this book is populated with a bunch of gun grabbers. Thats not the case at all. A number of the poem poets are gun owners. When first conceived this structure for the book we expected it would result in a conversation and thats what we ended up with. Some of the responses look at the whole conversation of guns in america. Its a complex issue. There many sides in many aspects. Brians response to morgans poems not necessarily the response that we held for or expected. But it tells some hard truths. Brian was a retired detective from the Oakland Police department. Rebecca Morgan Franks poem stirred my emotions. Good poetry does that. I spent 30 years in Law Enforcement saw gun violence firsthand. Hundreds of murder victims lying dead in streets, cars, homes, and city parks. Hundreds more were wounded and survived, at least physically. The problem with the emphasis on the gun is that it ignores the human component. Targeting guns is easier they said the grillo must move amongst the people. At the fish swims in the city. Our inner cities and gun violence epidemic shooters move among the citizens. Neighborhood residents know who they are but they look the other way. Term political protest back asked anarchy issue guns and put throw firebombs and the melt back into the crowd while the Peaceful Protesters look the other way. More signs on doors reading no firearms permitted. Limiting to ten rounds per magazine wont solve the problem. Criminals disobey the loss with murder. I support gun control but until we stop excusing violence the problem will not subside. I think it overstates in my personal opinion but hes not alone in pointing out community responsibility. Several of the respondents have made the same point on the very own communities and in innercity chicago some people who are committing the violence are protected by their neighbors. That in itself is a complex issue. How do you to turning your neighbor or brother or cousin. Its a complex issue. [applause] im going to root reading matthews poem. Its one of the first poems i wanted to include when we began envisioning it. Its called letter beginning with two lines. Usually cannot save, listen to me. Can we agree kevlar backpack should not be needed for children walking to school, the same children should not require suit of armor when standing on their front lawns first the first to watch their backs as they eat at mcdonalds. They shouldnt stop to consider the speed of a bullet for how it might reshape their bodies. One winter in detroit i had one student who opened the door and died. It was the front door to his house the dakota been any door. The shooter was 13 and was aiming at someone else. But a bullet doesnt care about aim. It doesnt distinguish between the innocent. How is a bullet to know this child would open a door at the wrong moment because his friend was outside and reading for help. Did i say had one student who opened the door and died . Thats wrong, they were money. The classroom of grief have far more seats than the classroom for math. The kid opens the door, the current no more of the gun because guns can kill people. They dont choose or have a conscious i want a man doesnt have a conscious we call him a psychopath. This is how we know what type of a site format can be and how the hell thrones inside each of them. Today another shooting with the kids everywhere, school, movie theater, parking my, the world is full of doors and you will my cannot save, you may open a door and open a metal or eulogy. If its a letter you will be mourned, then buried in rhetoric. Therell be monuments of legislation of flowers made from red tape. What should we do will ask again . The earth will close like a door above you. What should jude do . The click you heres just our voices. The deadbolt of discourse leading into place. [applause]. If my wife and three kids five years ago this week in boston massachusetts. Not more than a block from here and i heard singing of love and peace and i left thinking isnt america great. Who would have believed a few hours later i would be witnessed to that worst tragedy in the 21st century. Who would believe that i would be witnessed to that gunned down in their classroom. As we strive to reconcile i thought the answers would be whoever screams the loudest that is not the answer. Brian clemens and his colleagues know what the answer is. Identifying with people on an emotional level that is through the arts and sciences. When you reach a someones emotions, they cant yell at you or scream at you or call you a bad guy. This poem was the bullet and its hunger. He finishes by saying something craves the warmth of the body like you all he wants to do is die in someones arms. Its been the same in our retort should be that this is a Public Health issue. Gun violence, just like other things, tobacco and cars, the bullet will no longer be in charge. Prior to the tragedy, most medical professionals like me stood by and let them ravage american citizens. When the bulle bullet and chargt only has one goal, which is destroy the human body. Its a spirit of mankind and after the tragedy, we lead by common sense and our medical professions are now in charge. Gun violenc violence as is a puh issue and we will tolerate no longer shedding. Like the changes we need addressing cigarettes and drunk drivers that took so many lives in the last generation it has the burden making those changes necessary to. Never give up fighting. We are on the right side of history. The bullet is no longer in charge. I will say as an example how impact for the arts and literature is. We reference David Wheeler in the first passage. We actually were able to connect those who have opposing viewpoints even those from the gun manufacturing plant and who Even Associated with the array came up to us afterwards and said that was impactful. When i testified they were only yelling and screaming and vilifying threatening my life, that this is the answer of the arts and literature to unlocking what is best for america Going Forward so thank you for coming out and everyone who came tonight. [applause] bill is exactly right. This project is nothing if it doesnt make emotional connections and i think it is going to be very good at doing that, but those are only the first step, the second is taking action based on those emotional connections and i would like to invite you to come back up she didnt come here just to read. I would like her to come up and talk about the activity and opportunities for you to take action after tonight. If you have a question that you would like to ask please come down to one of the microphones at the bottom of the stairs and we will try to get a couple of those. I used a knock on strangers doors and tell them what im doing and ask for checks and i believe that is the hardest job there is a. They are out there tonight. We worked to educate people about how to keep. You have the right to own a gun if you want to you just have to have a background check to own one and we need to make sure you are not a domestic abuser we are talking and sharing stories like we are tonight without those that are willing to come out and share their stories and what happens to them personally and how they are impacted that is how we get to this movement and make change and the more fighting in state legislatures across the country we are winning. Five years ago there was no offense. They were passing every bill they wanted in the state legislature all across the country in the United States congress and that is not the case anymore. We are stopping them in their tracks. The red shirts you see here are infamous now in the state capital and across the country. This brings us down to the lowest standard in the country for everyone to have a pin loaded weapon in public. In public. The vote that took place last week where moms and survivors and other advocates filled the holes of the United States capitol there were 50 people in the hearing room that had a standing ovation led by senator feinstein and we would then out on the Capitol Steps with senators and members of congress and everyone you can imagine under the sun and congress voted in the build and test the United States house of representatives but the margin was 33 and that is the difference we are making in these past five years so it is in. Is competitive that we share the stories and connect with people and move them into action and whether it is just talking to their friends and their neighbor or whether it is donning a red shirt or an orange shirt and heading to the state capital or fighting to run for office because those votes that we are down to are not going to change their mind and if they are nothing to change their mind than we are going to take their seats away. It was alluded to in a couple of the problems but it doesnt get as much attention as the United States world leading arms exporter firing your way. Over half came from this country up 4 in the year before. Is it understandable we should be concerned about the american guns but we also need sympathy for the kids that getting killed by guns as well. This is something we cant do anything about politically because it is a policy related question and not getting detention they deserve. It is a great tragedy. But the tragedy and the magnitude is greater spread throughout the world. One of the respondents in the book is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who won the nobel for getting landmines outlawed worldwide and heard response in the book she makes exactly the point you make that we cant continue being the exporter of gun. Any other questions. The gentleman said that i wanted to say that eisenhower said it better. He said watch for the military Industrial Complex or the corporate military complex and i think in order to deal with the problem you have to look at the root cause. We know whats happening in yemen in the air suppl and we ah africa with so much harm to come the billions of dollars worth, so thats all im saying thats the root cause and i heard a lot of anecdotes. I can tell you in 1954 the basic training we had a circle for a sergeant in the middle of the circle. Since the sandy hook tragedy a lot has changed and we are now on the offense. No longer are we sitting back on our heels just talking about it. Talk to us and get the job done. So, all the groups of the things they are doing these days it takes a cultural change for a generation, but i absolutely see a change and so have the rest so thats the difference. We have to be proactive and take some chances. Youre right we cant just sit about and talk about it waiting for things to happen. I just wanted to respond about the arms worldwide one of the things the director told me. The Amnesty International he decides that gun violence in america is a part of their platform now. Its really frightening to me. My friend is from guatemala and i was in guatemala during the genocide, and it is something that she and i have written about together, but i [roll call] it would be remiss of us not to address the international arms. [applause] this is really hard for me. My life also changed five years tomorrow. I had a 14yearold who was on the swim team in the pool when a friend of mine said did you hear what happened, and i havent seen the news or anything. That night in my emails i found out from a distant cousin on my fathers side of the i just cant live with myself anymore if i dont do something. [inaudible] [applause] i would say you just did something. You did something huge, so thank you. [inaudible] they are not going to let you. [applause] i think Public Health is not just a good way of going about it that you mentioned cigarettes and we can think of a number of issues that we havent reframedd in that way and get what we do, it gives a way of really going at it. So my question is how do you see the Public Health working as a mechanism or the structure of that kind of campaign. Its a publichealth issue, thats the way to attack it. I think one of the best opportunities i had to speak about that was senator markey. The example i gave is what happened with the aids epidemic considered a storage. It banded together and demanded a few things, demanded to be recognized and treated with respect, demanded research. When research happened, there was actual data on what the scope of the problem is and then flowed dollars to address the issue whether it was a need for different programs or medications or policy changes and the like. So, thats the same thing that has happened with other things, whether it is tobacco use, safe sex practices, Motor Vehicles and the like. You need to define it as such. You need a group of people and then, right now the only dollars we have federal funded dollars for gun violence, zero if it includes some of the highest rates of death in the country so that is some of the answers. My colleague and friend over here, let me tell you what i did like the way the audienc audient frustrated also if you know what i did, we had an open forum of legislators that you got three minutes and i spoke with a lot of passion just like you and somebody picked me up and said wow and i spoke to another. The quickest way to afford to change if theres any bills pending before the state legislature coming you can go and it doesnt matter your background. You need three minutes and passion. That is the quickest way to get involved. The more change is going to come on the local level as a shortterm. Any closing comments from anyone on the panel . Thank you all for coming tonight. [applause] the last few years its achieved the kind of thing the air force thought they had at the beginning of world war ii. It is still the case and you dont know who to aim at. But that is the current situation. It took them a while to realize against antiaircraft fire and so forth, heavy wind coming. So they took great courage and many of the crews were killed. They were not getting what they were aiming at. There was not much you could get except for sections you couldnt hit a corner of a factory when they were flying in arizona and there were no wins, no antiaircraft and so forth. It didnt have that kind of accuracy at all. You have to do during the day when there was light. We did it for the same reasons or in the clouds using radar is what the british were doing it using incendiaries basically with the british started in 42 which was aiming at the builtup areas mostly workers housing not because they were workers i but because the houses were closer together and fire would spread the batter. It would hit something down there. So, in the first became more and more to do that and in japan what we discoverebutwe discovert stream it made it impossible to get anything very accurately they decided to adopt the firestorm he has demonstrated such as the widespread fire. So if you call on the air would rise and changing the wind patterns basically like to lose in losing afireplace or furnacee temperatures would rise to extremely high temperatures got 1200 degrees tonight. People asphyxiated peoples bodies shrink in the shelters. How many know what im talking about . , how many do not, actually. They caused a firestorm and it could be melting and burnings af the people that came out of the shelters would be caught and burned and its the enormous land that would cause hurricane. Im sorry to leave the details but i put it in a book because i felt it has to be understood by people. Many people reported bbc snatched out of the arms of their mothers. Tokyo was crisscrossed so people who got out at the shelters ran with their families into the canals to escape from the fire and tens of thousands boiled to death in the canal. They were bouncing the aircraft into enormous updrafts would send them over but there were thousands still above the city. They had to put on their oxygen mask so, in charge of that it was the greatest manmade killing the deat death of the hf the world. You can watch this and other programs on both. Org
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