More than 100 incarcerated men and their friends and families attended an Arms Down gathering in San Quentin's chapel to confront why they carried and used guns. Participants described mistaking fear for respect, living with unaddressed trauma, and adopting narrow ideas of manhood that made firearms feel like necessary tools. Some first encountered guns in violent neighborhoods; others saw them in media. All had at some point used a gun to severely injure or kill. Arms Down operates as a mutual-help group to help offenders understand motives, promote healing, and reduce future violence post-release. The program grew from about 60 participants in its first cohort to double that in the second.
Now sheltered from the foggy, misty Marin county morning, participants and leaders of this first-of-its-kind program stepped onto the stage and started to talk, about mistaking being feared for being respected, about living with unaddressed trauma, about leaning into misconceptions of manhood and how that led them to rely on firearms as a source of safety and power. But for all of them, guns became a necessary part of life, like a wallet or a set of keys.
This is an opportunity you have to give back to your community. We're the untapped resource, said Jemain Hunter, the program's founder. People are scared because they don't understand what we're doing as gun offenders as far as rehabilitation goes to come out and not commit these sorts of crimes again. I'm just trying to make sure people don't end up like me, he continued.
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