This thread is a follow-up on a thread I posted last week regarding an upcoming meeting in our U.U. church to discuss the furor than ensued after our minister gave a sermon on buying a gun, learning to use it, and joining the NRA.

Our minister clarified some questions that she had already heard from concerned people: no, she did not bring the gun to church; and no, she did not keep it loaded in her home -- the gun was kept in a safe separate from the ammunition. She said that we've all seen the gridlock in Washington between two disparate groups that can't seem to communicate and that we could hardly expect them to resolve their differences if we couldn't sit down and do the same ourselves. She pointed out that her (previous) personal fear and ignorance of guns was an issue that had made it difficult to communicate with pro-gun folk, and reiterated that target shooting was awesome.

Another gentleman prefaced the discussion with a reminder that we should each have an "assumption of good will." IOW, folks with a different POV DO mean well; it's just that our life experiences have brought us to different sides of an issue.

Some folks who had been upset with our minister had called her already and were at the meeting. Two families had quit the congregation over it and had never called the minister to discuss it -- I had heard they didn't want to discuss it because our minister would "win" any argument they had with her. I think the thought that they believed there had to be a "winner" in any discussion bothered her as much as anything else.

One lady who had professed herself very much anti-gun said that she had talked to the minister; one of the reasons she was upset was because she had thought the meeting would be ways to talk about peacemaking. I thought learning to talk with each other calmly was a pretty good start on that but I didn't say so.

One gentleman pointed out that as a member of the NRA and the ACLU, he had felt the "Annie Oakley" sermon made him feel like he could truly belong to this church (he's another newbie like myself).

He was followed by a gentleman who said that as a conservative he DIDN'T feel like he always fit in because most folks assumed if you were at the UU church you were liberal. (I'm guessing there might be a sermon on that sometime in the future.)

There were several questions on just who and what the NRA was, which one or two "NRA types" (sorry, couldn't resist) explained as best they could.

My point was that I had joined the UU Church because they welcomed people of all faiths and none, people of all races, and people of all sexual identities, and that I found it a bit bemusing that a congregation that didn't blink twice over atheists or wiccans or muslims or gays would freak out when the minister bought a gun.

We pretty much just ran out of time, but it was rather pleasant having a discussion with 20-30 people who treated each other with absolute courtesy and respect.