Hypocrisy or an "aha" moment?

via NPR

Camiella Williams is an anti-violence advocate, who works hard to teach people other ways of dealing with problems, but she's lost more than two dozen friends and family members to Chicago's gun violence in recent years.

TRANSCRIPT

WILLIAMS: In front of my house.

MITCHELL: Right here in the driveway.

WILLIAMS: In the driveway. I could see my son riding back and forth.

MITCHELL: On his bike. Suddenly, she says, he came back. His hand was bleeding.

WILLIAMS: Like, what? Did you fall? He say, no, the neighbor shot me. I say, shot you? He was like, yeah, with a BB gun. And he knew who did it.

MITCHELL: An older kid, 18. Williams went right to his mother.

WILLIAMS: She tried to say, what you going to do, beat my ass? And I looked at her, and she said, you're blowing my high right now.

MITCHELL: Williams tells me she seriously considered doing something she counsels others against.

WILLIAMS: Maybe I should grab my protection, my gun.

MITCHELL: Then she says she thought about the example that would set for her son.

WILLIAMS: All I can do - walk away.

MITCHELL: Walk away. But she still has that gun.

What do you say to people who might see inconsistency with your advocacy and carrying a weapon?

WILLIAMS: The people that will probably say that live in safe communities, never experienced the losses that I've experienced. To me, it's like, I'm not going to die. I'm mentally messed up over this.

MITCHELL: Williams is 29 now. She's raising her son in a relatively safe suburb. She's closing in on her master's degree. She's still a trustee at that community college. If she's OK with carrying a gun, think about the people back in her old neighborhood who have to worry about violence up close every day. 

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