“I am appalled at what has gone on tonight. I thought this was supposed to be an intelligent discussion,” Joanne Navin, Bowling Green citizen, said about the Oct. 27 gun violence panel. “I’m seeing people being upset because some of us have college degrees and some of us don’t. Some of us have guns, and some of us don’t.”
Verbal shots were fired by panel members and community members at a panel on gun violence, despite organizers stressing that the event was not meant to be a debate, but rather an open and productive discussion.
Held at the Wood County Public Library, “Exploring Ways to End Gun Violence” brought a full audience of gun owners, involved citizens, gun rights advocates and University students. As there was standing room only, some audience members stood in the back of the atrium next to an armed guard.
The goals of the panel were threefold:
1) Discuss key gun issues so all can become more well-informed.
2) Act to make the US less violent and more safe.
3) Bring the two sides in the gun debate closer together.
Despite good intentions, separating the community with words like “two sides in the gun debate” alienated some attendants.
Dean Rieck, executive director of Buckeye Firearms Association, posted to the BFA website on Oct. 17. Rieck further separated the two sides of the community, calling on members of BFA to attend the event to show support of second amendment rights.
Rieck calls Michael Temple, panel member and NRA certified instructor, “the lone voice of reason representing gun owners.”
“Because this so-called ‘discussion’ will take place close to Bowling Green State University, we can expect lots of liberal students to show up,” Rieck wrote. “We need to make sure we have some level-headed gun owners there to support Michael and bring some balance to this typically one-sided event.”
Because both sides approached the event with a defensive attitude, seeing it as a dichotomized debate instead of an open-minded dialogue, the possibility of having productive and respectful dialogue was slim.
Navin expressed a concern with the lack of mutual respect and listening happening at the panel. She stood up to address everybody at the end of the night.
“I just felt that I came with the understanding that it was to be a discussion with people with open minds. I don’t think there were many open minds at this discussion,” Navin said. “I would have liked to see more willingness to listen to what people were saying. People wanted to get their point across and they weren’t listening to the other points.”
Additionally, the unbalanced panel did not aid in productive discussion.
Tom Klein, an organizer of the event, announced a disclaimer at the beginning of the panel, addressing Rieck’s earlier concern for the predominantly liberal make-up of the panel.
Klein said another NRA member was planned to be on the panel.
“I asked him if he could come to the panel, but he had to get the NRA’s permission,” Klein said in a phone call. “They said no. The NRA said he would do better work by knocking on doors.”
Despite the liberal-weighted panel, most of the statements and opinions voiced by the community members were pro-gun, as pointed out by Joe Eaton, the treasurer for Buckeye Firearms Association, one of many gun advocate groups present.
Eaton said it is challenging to get anything accomplished when discussing such a charged issue.
“These types of discussions are very charged on each side. It is tough to come to a middle ground. What I’ve found over doing dozens and dozens of these [panels] over the years is that both sides want the same thing,” Eaton said. “We want a safe and productive Ohio where we can raise our families and live in peace and prosperity.”
The failure to find a productive middle ground at this panel discussion upset some audience members, including Navin.
Eaton said in order to have an intelligent and open-minded discussion, people need to put the angry rhetoric aside.
“We need to focus more on our similarities than our differences, and that’s hard to do when emotions get involved,” Eaton said.
One similarity and point of agreement among participants of the panel and community members was the importance and value of gun education and training.
Michael Temple, panel member and NRA certified instructor, said there’s no easy answer to address how education should be regulated. He said the training falls on the individual.
“If you are going to be an individual gun owner, if you are going to carry concealed, if you are going to use it to protect yourself, you owe it to yourself, your family and the public to get as much training as you can,” Temple said.
Amy Thompson, another panel member and professor of public health at University of Toledo, agreed that training is a good thing for gun owners. However, she was skeptical about the number of individuals who actively seek out and participate in appropriate training.
Thompson said if changes are made, modifications must happen on multiple levels.
“I think certainly about addressing it at the individual level, educating people about things like conflict resolution, how to resolve issues in the community, how to break down racial tensions and barriers,” Thompson said. “This has to be on multiple channels on multiple levels. There’s no one easy solution to this [gun violence]. If we did, we would have fixed it by now.”
