“He auctioned off the pistol that killed Trayvon Martin. She watched her child die in a mass shooting. Can they change each other’s minds about guns?” That’s the big question in the lead of a stellar read in NY Magazine. Whether minds were changed or not in this instance, you’ll have to find out. Missed, perhaps, is the fact that empathy is not about changing minds, it is about understanding. But the more interesting issue is the process, the idea, of turning to empathy in such a big way to tackle problems such as this. It’s a fantastic effort, and our main hope.

This article, and this effort, truly is a picture of The Better Angels of Our Nature: