November CMCI Mic Drop on Gun Violence and Human Loss
CMCI MIC DROP: Gun Violence and Human Loss
On November 1, 2017
By Jenna Fields (APRD, '19)
What did you think or feel when you heard about the Mass Shooting in Las Vegas?
Did you hear about the gun fires on the hill this past weekend? Does that impact your life or change how you go about your everyday life?
Do you think that there is anything that we can do about these shootings? What about creating a safer community?
On November 1, 2017 CU Boulder students met to discuss the topic, 'Las Vegas: Gun Rights and Human Loss’ as part of a monthly unrestricted discussion focusing on current events presented by BoulderTalks students and the College of Media, Communication and Information. Over 60 people participated in conversations focused on unfolding the questions listed above, but the outcomes of each dialogue varied between the multiple discussions that unfolded throughout the night.
As participants discussed the recent tragedy in Las Vegas, many were unsurprised when hearing about the shooting, and some addressed the fact that these occurrences may have become normalized in today’s society. Others had a more optimistic viewpoint, expressing that these events make us more sensitive to our current gun policies and more sensitive to our surroundings in every situation. Some groups concurred that these issues funnel down to valuing human life, and began to toggle with the definition of safety itself and the individual values one holds that accompany feeling safe.
Bringing the issue home to Boulder, the discussion began to shift focus towards recent shootings and gun fire in our own community. Most students agreed that these instances cannot allow us to live in fear, and additionally would not change the way they go about their daily life due to these occurrences. A handful of participants were raised with guns as a symbol of tradition, and vouched for altering the symbol of the gun to better reflect the embedded history and attraction of the gun. There was discussion of how intellectual maturity should play a bigger role in deciphering who is responsible enough to own a gun in the first place. Others addressed the gaps in our protocol surrounding safety information, both on CU’s campus and within the general community, and called to fix the miscommunications between the public and the campus administration or law enforcement during a crisis. Most dialogs addressed the fact that an individual can act haphazardly with their guns, and many explored factors like mental health and lack of education that play a part in these tragedies.
Almost everyone valued creating a safer community here in Boulder surrounding gun safety. Some participants ask for a ‘cultural agreement’ on campus between administration and students that will make us feel safe in an emergency. Some examples of what this may look like are practice drills that can be taught through freshman orientation, or a required section of the syllabus outlining the best resources to reach in case of emergency and steps on how to go about different situations of danger. Many agreed that we need to first accept that these are actual issues on our campus, and would benefit from a more efficient mode of communication between both law enforcement on campus and in Boulder, and the student and community population. We were able to understand the fine line between too little and too much public information, and concluded that conversations around how to act during these situations are obtainable to reach within these boundaries. A student example of what this could look like is to educate students on what gunfire sounds like, in hopes that this could prevent misinformation from spreading during time of panic. This includes educating people on our current policies, and reminding the public that gun control is far more complex than ‘taking away peoples’ guns.’
College campuses are a mixing pot of cultural backgrounds, and we can begin to understand the complexities of these histories when looking at gun rights and the personal values associated with a gun. No matter what side of the debate our participants fell on, they vouched for education – on topics like mental health, hunting and the traditional values of a gun, self-protection, and on how to obtain the correct information during a crisis – all of which could greatly alter a person’s perception of guns in a positive light.
BoulderTalks and CMCI truly appreciate everyone who attended this month’s MicDrop event and hope to see old and new faces at our next current event discussion on December 6th.