Escaping the Gun Debate Trap: David Yamane on TEDx
“With the help of an organization called Essential Partners, we started with each other, our hopes, our dreams, our values, our experiences. And in that process, we stopped seeing each other as political adversaries and started seeing each other as fellow human beings.”
“These were not moderate people looking for a comfortable middle ground,” Yamane tells the TEDx audience. “These were people who, under normal circumstances, wouldn't even talk to each other. So we didn't start with policy. With the help of an organization called Essential Partners, we started with each other, our hopes, our dreams, our values, our experiences. And in that process, we stopped seeing each other as political adversaries and started seeing each other as fellow human beings. We moved toward each other and on the common ground that we forged, we created eight specific and very unique public policy proposals that respect gun rights and promote gun safety.”
David Yamane, a professor of sociology at Wake Forest University and the author of Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture (2024), uses his position to temper the heated debate between gun rights and gun control advocates. In this video, Yamane talks about his experience as a participant in Bridging the Divide on Firearms Policy, an innovative dialogue-led project led by Tufts public health professor Mike Siegel and facilitated by Essential Partners.