The Rev. Charles “Chaz” Howard wants to encourage conversations around stopping gun violence. One way he’s doing so is with a new initiative—independent from his role as University Chaplain—dubbed Gun Free World.

His main goal? To use art to promote change of people’s hearts and minds—mostly those who believe they need guns for protection.

“The catalyst around it really is the notion of how it’s more dangerous to own firearms for protection,” Howard explains. “It’s counterintuitive. There’s something very noble about wanting to protect someone you love, and I get that, yet most of the research shows that when you have a gun … it actually makes your house more dangerous rather than safe.”

The initiative is modeled after a project Howard was connected to in the past called Souls of Poor Folk. Instead of creating music and artwork related to poverty and homelessness, Gun Free World will generate it around stopping firearm possession and use, and encouraging alternatives for protection.

It’s one thing to insert statistics of gun violence into a normal conversation, but Howard believes they are much more effective in art forms.

“I think it inspires people to want to do something,” he says.

Gun Free World is calling for national poets, visual artists, and musicians to get involved. An anthology, “Verses in Peace,” will be created, as well as a juried art exhibition titled “Moving to a Gun Free World,” both expected to take form in the spring. Baltimore-based artist Abdi Farah, a Penn alumnus, will help choose the galleried artwork.

A related soundtrack, which will be released for free, is also in the works. It will be produced by Penn alumnus Rob Murat, a musician and actor.

The music is meant to inspire listeners to imagine a world without guns, Howard says.

“How can an evil that lead to so many sobs and screaming repeatedly be featured in so many songs?” raps hip-hop artist Homeboy Sandman, one of Howard’s collaborators on this project.

“Homeboy Sandman’s song is cool, it makes you move,” Howard says. “But it’s also an important message—saying he doesn’t want the sound of gunshots in his songs—that, I think, is kind of fresh.”

The way guns play a role in such tragic, yet reoccurring events throughout the country worries Howard. And he says people don’t seem to take notice anymore unless it involves double or triple digit casualties.

“This can’t be the new normal,” he says. “If we keep going like this, we won’t even feel things like Sandy Hook and Charleston, which is just a grim level of lack of compassion and caring. There was a time when a shooting in your city shook us all up. Here, looking at the 11 o’clock news, they lead with three shootings and we’re just waiting for the weather report and for sports to come on and not caring. What’s happened to us?”