It’s near the start of a speech barely five minutes long. In 8th grade it seemed every night our “regular programming” was interrupted by a “Special Report” or “Bulletin.” Tonight I made sure the line was correct & tweeted, then watched all of Robert Kennedy’s speech in Indy. 1/5

In a park around 22nd & Central, he told a crowd that Martin Luther King had been shot & killed. The tweet to which I’d replied (“The mathematician?”) struck me. People who say “guns made this country free” are wrong for several reasons, but what hit home tonight was 2/5

math. Guns mainly have been used to oppress. In the years shortly after the Constitution was ratified, militias were used to put down uprisings of slaves. After WWII, in the Civil Rights, women’s rights and anti-war movements, Americans demanded their rights. Guns were 3/5

used, but still to oppress. I refuse to own or possess a gun. People more often are harmed than protected by guns in the home. I’m also a pacifist. Guns do not make us free. The full line from RFK’s speech, delivered from a flat-bed truck : “I have some very sad news 4/5

for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.” We can be pacifists and not be door mats. 5/5