A Deliberative Forum on Guns in America

Join us for an opportunity to learn about and discuss one of the most challenging topics in American politics

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Can we talk about one of the most contentious and challenging topics in American politics? One that touches on some of our most basic concerns and aspirations about life in a free society? The Deliberative Citizenship Initiative, Center for Political Engagement, and Political Science Department believe we can and we must at least try to do so, with as much compassion, curiosity, and courage as possible, and in the hope that we will come to a greater understanding and create the foundation for sustained progress on this issue.

We therefore cordially invite you to join us for a Deliberative Forum on Guns in America: How Should We Balance Concerns about Gun Rights and Gun Risks? It is being held on Tuesday, April 2 from 7 pm to 9 pm in the Lilly Gallery and online. Sign up to attend the forum through this link — we have extended the deadline from March 28 to March 31. Virtual and in-person registration options are available. We hope you can join us!

• The Forum will begin with a panel of advocates and experts with different views on this topic who will explore their areas of agreement and disagreement about the costs and benefits of different approaches to gun rights, gun regulations, and gun violence. 
• Panelists include Shannon Klug (Former Air Force Colonel with Moms Demand Action, Be SMART, and Everytown Veterans Advisory Council), Philip Smith (President of the National African Americans Gun Association), Ray Nothstine (Future of Freedom Fellow and Senior Editor at a non-profit focusing on state level policy and former Second Amendment Research Fellow at the John Locke Foundation), and Dominic Erdozain (Research Fellow at Emory University and author of One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts our History and Threatens our Democracy). Learn more about them in their bios below.
• The panel will be moderated by Dan Aldridge, Professor of History, Chair of Africana Studies, and a former DCI Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Faculty Fellow. 
• Following the panel discussion, both online and in-person forum attendees will have the opportunity to deliberate about the topic among themselves, guided by the DCI’s trained facilitators.

Panelist Bios

Shannon Klug works with Moms Demand Action, a part of Everytown for Gun Safety, and is the Charlotte Co-Lead for Be SMART, an organization that advocates for secure gun storage to save children’s lives. She is also a gun owner and retired Air Force Colonel, and she is a member of the Everytown Veterans Advisory Council. Klug has written numerous op-eds in the Charlotte Observer, Stars and Stripes, and elsewhere about the importance of reducing gun violence and improving gun safety.

Philip Smith, a graduate of the University of California at Davis, is the president and founder of the National African American Gun Association (NAAGA). The National African American Gun Association is an organization that promotes gun ownership rights among African Americans in the United States. Founded in 2015, it has over 34,000 members (60% of whom are African American women), more than 75 chapters in the United States, and has grown significantly in reaction to black deaths. 

Ray Nothstine is a Future of Freedom Fellow and senior editor and writer for a non-profit focusing on state-level policy. He previously worked as opinion editor at Carolina Journal and as a Second Amendment research fellow at the John Locke Foundation. Nothstine served for over seven years as managing editor of Religion & Liberty, a publication of the Acton Institute. He has written numerous articles advocating for gun rights and fewer gun regulations in The Carolina Journal, Salisbury Post, The Anson Record, and elsewhere. 

Dominic Erdozain is a writer and historian with a passion for bringing the past into dialogue with the present. A graduate of Oxford and Cambridge, he is currently a Research Fellow at Emory University. In his book, One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts our History and Threatens our Democracy, published by Random House in 2024, Erdozain places America’s gun problem in a broader philosophical and historical context and argues that we have wrongly ceded the big-picture argument on guns.

Moderator Bio

Dr. Dan Aldridge will serve as the moderator of the panel. Dr. Aldridge is Professor of History and Chair of Africana Studies at Davidson College. He has also participated as a Faculty Fellow in the DCI’s Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative. Dr. Aldridge has served as a public defender in Los Angeles and written extensively about the history of the African American civil rights movement. He received his PhD from Emory University, his JD from Northwestern University, and his BA from Michigan State University.