Conflict Resolution Notes

Been reading about an extremists over in Alabama holding a child hostage in an underground bunker. Some say he's one of those "survivalist" types.
http://qote.me/D2AM2L
When I heard this was happening in Alabama my first thought was it may be a cultural reflection of the place. After all, that's the historic home of the Confederacy and segregation.
What most people don't know is that during what Southerners call the War of Northern Aggression there were pockets of pro-Union folks, Lincoln-loving types (who probably loved Andrew Jackson more than Lincoln) who didn't go along with the majority of their fellow-Alabamians.
Those were savage times. And savage times call for savage measures.
http://qote.me/RQF7M4
Even Vice President Biden told a guy worried about defending himself in the aftermath of a natural disaster or civil unrest from other causes.

http://qote.me/Ag6SbK

We like to imagine that the guy in the bunker is an outlier, one bad apple, an exception to the rules. But reality is that the same type of savage behavior continues in our time.
http://qote.me/FPqFwC
We don't want to face these facts, but they won't go away.

Those of us who advocate non-violent conflict resolution as the only civilized response to violence do not need to look far to find reasons to avoid the alternatives. Arguments justifying the widespread sale and use of firearms only pour gas into an already raging fire. And saying that "the only remedy for a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun" is the epitome of despair, cowardice and savagery -- a retrograde impulse to the same atavistic behaviors that animate others, with or without guns, to commit atrocities.