Mass shootings in the U.S. happen with shocking frequency. Police brutality has also become more and more prevalent in the American news. But what doesn’t always make the international headlines are the dozens of smaller-scale instances of both kinds of violence happening every single day across the United States.

A frequent and reasonable question Americans living abroad often get asked is, why? And just as reasonable: Why can’t something be done?
The answers are as tangled up with American culture as are the roots of the problems themselves.

In many ways the perplexities only start to unravel when the strands of individual experience are tugged free and examined. Personal stories, after all, are the threads that form the patterns of the whole cultural cloth.

Robynn Colwell’s story, “Wayne Dawson’s Bullet,” revolves around an incident in her father’s life as a cop in rural Colorado, a story that, like childhood itself, is reshaped by time.  

E.M. Lewis’s, “The Gun Show,” performed by Jace Jasper, is a series of true stories from the author’s life that recount a personal and complex relationship with guns.

These are only two American stories among millions, but each is drawn from real life. And, crucially, each is driven by the fundamental truth that, with time, perspectives can change.