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Town Hall Seattle: Civics Series

Town Hall’s Civics series highlights everything from local policies to world politics. These events offer perspectives on a range of topics as diverse as Seattle itself—a bustling forum for activism, discovery, and thought-provoking discussion.

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Oct 1, 2020

Many in America do not feel safe in spaces that used to be seen as refuges: our churches and schools, our movie theaters and dance clubs, our workplaces and neighborhoods. But this feeling begs the question: Is America destined to always be a violent nation?

Pulling from his carefully researched and deeply emotional book The Violence Inside Us: A Brief History of an Ongoing American Tragedy, Senator Chris Murphy joined us via livestream to attempt to answer this question. Telling the story of his profound personal transformation in the wake of the mass murder at Newtown, he advocated that in order to confront the problem, we must first understand it. Dissecting our country’s violence-filled history and the role of our unique fascination with firearms, he came to the conclusion that while America’s relationship to violence is singular, we are not inescapably violent. Join Murphy as he takes on the familiar arguments, addresses the usual talking points, and charts the way to a fresh, less polarized conversation about violence and the weapons that enable it—a conversation he urges we need in order to transform the national dialogue and save lives.

Chris Murphy is the junior Senator from Connecticut, elected in 2012 as the youngest member of the US Senate. Since the Newtown school shooting in December 2012, he has also become the best-known leader in Congress in confronting the plague of gun violence in America. He has also been a strong voice fighting for job creation, affordable health care, education, and a forward-looking foreign policy.

Eric Liu is an author and the co-founder and CEO of Citizen University. He has served as a board member of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Washington State Board of Education, and the Seattle Public Library and is a co-founder of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. A regular contributor to the Atlantic, Eric can be found on Twitter @ericpliu

Buy the Book: https://www.elliottbaybook.com/book/9781984854575 

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