BROOKLYN, November 7—“When our public school friends walked out to demonstrate against school gun violence the organizers of the rally we went to did not want to let us speak. We took the mike and spoke anyway.”  This was said by one of the two public high school students who took part in a nation-wide school walkout last spring. They came to take part in a panel at a church forum about gun violence, particularly in schools and affecting youth. Quite by coincidence the date of the forum was the Saturday of the synagogue murders in Pittsburgh. The forum began with a moment of silence for this horror caused by racism and anti-Semitism as well as the shooting of two Black residents of Kentucky earlier in the week.
Fighting back against gun violence with multiracial unity
One young adult from the church was on the panel and spoke about the need to organize and educate together to solve the problems of gun control. Other panelists were a speaker from Sandy Hook Promise – a reform group that is working to end gun violence in schools, and an African American woman who was a prosecutor working on crimes against youth. She is now special counsel to a prominent political office holder in our city. The Sandy Hook Promise woman promoted normal reform solutions such as voting, while the former prosecutor believed grass roots organizing was a viable solution as well.
There was a teacher who took their lead from the students in supporting their walkout and encouraging multiracial unity and fightback as the way to effect the most change today. A question from the audience regarding the systemic nature of gun violence brought the opportunity for revolutionary politics to be injected. There was struggle on the panel after the students pushed back on voting as the only viable solution and encouraged multiracial unity and fight back as other ways to make their voices heard.
While the forum only had sixteen participants, there was some good discussion on different aspects of the issue. The opening statement recounted a story related to the church by minister of Brown Memorial Baptist. His father’s generation were contacted by the National Rifle Association so that southern Blacks could arm themselves against the Klan and other racist groups in the late 1940s and 1950s. As time went on hedge funds started supporting the NRA turned them to maximize profits and advocate for repealing gun control laws and stoking fears to sell guns.
    When asked about the systemic nature of gun violence, one of the speakers stated that capitalism’s drive for profit is the basis for the sale of all guns. A student connected the racist fears magnified by U.S. capitalism to keeping people divided and working class victories weak. A person from the audience spoke passionately about the how the flintlock rifles and pistols that were available when the second amendment was created cannot compare to the high-powered weapons of war sold today.
Revolutionary violence vs capitalist terror
We collected contact information and promoted upcoming programs, as well as information on the Sandy Hook Promise group. Our original vision was to create a plan of action during the last part of this forum. The moderator asked for suggestions, but instead people in the audience spoke, and spoke well. One man described ongoing struggles against police killings of mentally ill people, and another about a multi faith coalition being formed to motivate congregations into mobilizing on issues of social justice. A plan of action to protest the NRA and organize a rally with other groups who attended the forum was discussed. Our social justice group at the church will pursue that.
The Progressive Labor Party is part of these actions. With our friends in this struggle, we work to a) connect the root of gun violence to alienation and the profit-drive under capitalism, and b) fight for the outlook that we can use working-class revolutionary violence as a means for an international communist revolution.