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It's time we had a conversation about gun violence.

Laura's soon-to-be ex-husband stood over her body for nearly half an hour before dialing 911.

The husband, a former Marine and police officer, had fired a shotgun into Laura's stomach from point-blank range. On the ground and beginning to bleed out, Laura begged him to call for help. When it finally came, she was given a 1% chance of survival. Luckily, she pulled through.

Laura, featured in Kathy Shorr's book "SHOT: 101 Survivors of Gun Violence in America," was shot by her soon-to-be ex-husband in Houston in 2009. All photos courtesy of Kathy Shorr.

Her story, and the stories of 100 other people across the U.S., are featured in a new book chronicling survivors of gun violence.

The book, appropriately titled "SHOT: 101 Survivors of Gun Violence in America," is the work of New York-based photographer Kathy Shorr, who was inspired by her own brush with gun violence. Years ago, Shorr was at home when two armed men broke in to rob her, holding her and her daughter at gunpoint. It's an experience that, understandably, stuck with her.

"It's very hard to describe [how it feels] when somebody has your life in their hands and you're not sure what they're gonna do," she says.

Courtney was shot in the face by her boyfriend, Therese was shot in the head by her husband, and Karissa was shot three times in the back by her boyfriend.

The U.S. has a problem with gun violence — that much is sure. Solutions, on the other hand, are a far more complicated issue.

Shorr thinks there are few people more qualified to speak up on the topic of gun violence than those we so often forget: the survivors.

"We don't really hear about them. The people that are in tragedies, they kind of have to just go on with their lives, and they don't really get too much attention or sympathy from people," she says, adding that survivors are expected to feel lucky and the lasting effects are overlooked.

Kieba was shot by her fiancé in the parking lot of the apartment they shared in Miami Lakes, Florida, in 1999.

Gun violence and domestic violence are inextricably linked, and many of the people Shorr photographed for her book are proof of that.

While her project features survivors of gun violence from a wide range of backgrounds in a wide range of circumstances, there's one area where representation is especially appreciated: cases involving domestic violence. It's tragic just how routine so many of the situations can be, and how Shorr expertly captures the realities of this aftermath.

Janine, a corrections officer in New York, had told her husband, a captain with the Corrections Department, that she wanted a divorce. In response, he shot her.

In 1999, Marlys, a woman from Canoga Park, California, was shot through the heart by her husband of 41 years.

More than half of U.S. women who die by gun violence are killed by their partners or ex-partners.

It's a fact that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves, and it is one of the main reasons people urging women in abusive relationships to "just leave" may not fully understand the risks that come with it.

On April 10, 2017, Karen Smith was murdered by her husband in San Bernardino, California. Her death caught the attention of national media for a number of reasons: It happened at a school, there were other victims, and San Bernardino has become synonymous with the 2015 terrorist attack. But sadly, there are hundreds more equally heartbreaking stories just like Smith's that we don't hear about.

According to an Associated Press analysis, an average of 760 Americans are shot and killed by current or former partners each year.

In 2008, 15-year-old Janelle was shot in the groin by her 17-year-old boyfriend. As a result, she is unable to have children.

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, thinks steps need to be taken to prevent domestic abusers from obtaining guns.

She's part of a growing movement of volunteers made up of mothers, gun owners, and, yes, survivors of gun violence who are pushing for sensible gun safety measures.

"When it comes to gun violence against women, the United States is the most dangerous country in the developed world," says Watts. "In fact, the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed and most mass shootings in the U.S. are related to domestic or family violence."

Kathleen was shot in the head by her husband, Alisha was ambushed by her ex-husband in the lobby of her work, and Donzahelia was shot by a jealous boyfriend.

As for Shorr, she hopes that everyone, regardless of age, race, background, or location, can relate to her work in one way or another. After that, it's time to take action.

"A lot of people are shot in their home or their car — the gym, church, shopping centers, movie theaters," she says. "I thought if I photographed people where they were shot, that if there was a person looking at the project and couldn't identify with any of the 101 survivors, that perhaps they'd be able to to identify with [a location]."

Hopefully, her work will inspire people to learn more about gun violence (and its connection to domestic violence) and take action on bringing it to an end. A good place to start is by checking out Shorr's book (published by powerHouse and available on Amazon) or by looking at the resources put out by organizations like Everytown for Gun Safety, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

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On Monday, April 10, Cedric Anderson walked into North Park Elementary School, where he killed his wife, Karen Smith, as well as a student and, ultimately, himself.

A police officer responds to the shooting at North Park Elementary School. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, Smith, a teacher at the school, was in the process of attempting to divorce Anderson when he murdered her.

Outwardly, Anderson was a doting husband — prone to over-the-top declarations of love. His history of domestic violence allegations suggests a darker story.

While it's unclear what exactly transpired between Anderson and Smith before the shooting, her family reports that she was terrified of her husband, refused to talk about their relationship, and even went into hiding at one point.

Anderson (L) and Smith (R). Photos via San Bernardino Police Department via AP.

When relationships turn abusive — or potentially so — friends and family of the victim are often prone to wonder: "Why doesn't he or she simply leave?"

In Smith's case, she did leave. And she was murdered.

"Leaving is not always the immediate safest choice for somebody," says Bryan Pacheco, public relations director for Safe Horizon, an organization that assists victims of relationship and familial abuse.

Frequently, leaving an abusive partner can increase the danger to the victim. One study, which surveyed data from three cities in three English-speaking countries, concluded that women were three times more likely to be murdered by estranged or former husbands than by their current spouses.

"In an attempt to get the victim to stay, abusers will escalate their tactics," Pacheco says. "They’ll escalate the abuse. They’ll escalate the coercion. They’ll escalate the abusive behavior in an attempt to get that person to stay."

To help provide victims with a way out, organizations like Safe Horizon try to mitigate the risks abusive relationships can pose, even when they're nominally over.

Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images.

Part of what made Anderson such a danger to Smith was his familiarity with her routine: He knew where she worked — and he most likely knew that, as her spouse, he could access her workplace without raising suspicion.

When Safe Horizon makes contact with a victim who wants to break up with an abusive partner, it helps them come up with a safety plan, which entails determining the least risky time to leave — often when the abuser is at work, on vacation, or on a lunch break.

Shelter locations, where victims might temporarily relocate, aren't made public to prevent stalking or worse. A victim who leaves might be placed in a shelter in a different neighborhood or neighboring town to minimize the risk of running into their abuser.

"This is where you sort of understand how difficult it is to leave, because often someone might have to uproot their life for their safety," Pacheco explains.

For friends and family members, it can be heartbreaking not to urge loved ones to leave their abusive partners.

Pointed questioning can cause victims to shut down, as Smith reportedly did with members of her family. Victims might be hesitant to end their relationships for fear of further violence, and individual situations are nuanced and complex.

A bus waits outside of North Park Elementary School. Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images.

The best thing loved ones can do, Pacheco says, is offer unconditional support — and connect them to organizations that have the resources and expertise to assist.

"Use language that they’re using," he explains. "Maybe you notice a physical mark. You can say something like, 'I notice that you have this scar on your arm. What happened?' and sort of determine how comfortable they are speaking to that."

More importantly, friends and family can simply be present when victims are ready to seek aid.

And the most helpful thing?

"It’s really just to believe somebody," Pacheco says.

Fearing disbelief can dissuade victims from leaning on their loved ones for support. It makes it difficult for victims to go to the police to report early warning signs. And, most critically, it can dissuade them from seeking a safe way out.

Simply believing victims could go a long way to making tragedies like Smith's far less common.

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The FBI recently pressured Apple into creating a special iPhone security override for them — and Apple very politely told them to screw off.

The TL;DR version is that the FBI is having trouble breaking into the iPhone formerly belonging to Syed Farook, one of the shooters involved in the tragic massacre in San Bernardino, California. Apple agreed to help ... but the FBI took this a step further and obtained a court order for Apple to provide a way to bypass several security features on the phone without erasing its data. Apple claims this would involve creating a new version of iOS (which some have dubbed "FBiOS") with a back door that has serious privacy and security implications.

It's not that Apple can't do what the FBI is asking of them; it's that they shouldn't. The company did cooperate by providing the data that was already in their possession. But they were less comfortable with the potential slippery slope of the FBI's override request and the precedent that kind of government overreach would establish for the future.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told the feds as much.

"You want master access to every Apple device? Nah-uh. Not on my watch, pal." Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Stringer/Getty Images.

Regardless of how you feel about the FBI's request, you have to wonder: Why is this only coming up now?

Actually, it's not.

While the iPhone itself has been around since 2007, this specific issue has to do with the new encryption policies Apple introduced with iOS 8 in 2014. "Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access [your personal] data," the company said at the time. "So it's not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8."

It's almost like they saw this coming.

And the FBI wasn't happy about it back then, either. As FBI Director James Comey said after Apple's encryption started catching on, "This disconnect has created a significant public safety problem. ... Uploading to the cloud doesn't include all of the stored data on a bad guy's phone, which has the potential to create a black hole for law enforcement."

It's almost like they saw this coming, too. And they've been asking for access ever since.

Photo by Carrrrrlos/Flickr.

Since then, the FBI has tried repeatedly to inch Apple toward their big ask.

This all came to a head in fall of 2015, when the Justice Department asked for Apple's help to crack the iPhone (running iOS 7) of a drug dealer named Jun Feng.

"Apple has repeatedly assisted law enforcement officers in federal criminal cases by extracting data from passcode-locked iPhones pursuant to court orders," the government argued. "Apple has acknowledged that it has the technical capability to do so again in this case."

It's a classic method of manipulation. "Just one more tiny favor, that's all! Just this once!"

This time, it was a drug dealer; but next time, it could just be a kid who illegally downloaded the new Kanye record.

So Apple drew a line in the sand.

Photo by Robyn Beck/Getty Images.

Then the San Bernardino shooting happened.

On one hand, it was the highest death toll since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre three years prior, and an absolute tragedy.

But mass shootings aren't hard to come by in this country, even if there is some debate about what exactly qualifies as a "mass shooting."

There was Dylann Roof, for example, the radical white supremacist who killed nine people at a historic black church in South Carolina. There was Robert Lewis Dear, an anti-abortion radical who killed three people, including a university police officer, and injured nine more at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado.

Elliot Rodger was spurred on by radical misogyny and killed six people and wounded seven others in Isla Vista, California.

And who can forget Wade Michael Page, another radical white supremacist who killed six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin? Or Jared Loughner, whose radical right-wing anti-government ideology led him to kill six people and injure 11 more, including a Congresswoman, at a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona?

The difference between these and the San Bernardino shootings? Syed Farook represents a unique opportunity for the FBI that the other shooters didn't.

Photo by Robyn Beck/Getty Images.

In case you didn't notice the pattern: the majority of mass shooters in the United States are white extremists.

And the people who were allegedly responsible for the San Bernardino massacre? They were Muslims.

So why did the FBI decide that it was finally the right time to ask for that super-special secret master key that they've been after for years?

Because they could.

Because Islamophobia is on the rise, which makes it easier for them to get the unrestricted access they've been after so they can use it in the future whenever they want, regardless of the "who" or the "why."

Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/Stringer/Getty Images.

So while Apple should be applauded for standing up to the FBI and defending our right to privacy, there's another deeply concerning issue lurking in the foreground.

As the face of the anti-surveillance movement said himself:

We know the U.S. government already spends a lot of time and resources spying on Muslims, even without an Apple master key. They do the same to "black extremists" and other left-wing "radical" movements such as Occupy as well.

And for the $500 million spent for every victim of terrorism, 90% of those caught up in this snooping are normal people like you and me.

The government's desire to compromise the privacy of its people under the auspices of "safety" is incredibly dangerous.

Let's refuse to perpetuate the racial fears that make this kind of subtle attack on our privacy possible.

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the shooting at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris.

In 2015 two men walked into the offices of the French satirical magazine and opened fire, killing 12 people. The tragedy sparked an international period of mourning and an inundation of the slogan "Je suis Charlie" meaning "I am Charlie."

"Je suis Charlie" spray painted onto a Paris street. Photo by Joel Sagat/AFP/Getty Images.

The magazine was attacked for publishing several controversial depictions of the prophet Mohammad over the years, including one on the cover in 2011.

While it's been a year since the tragedy at Charlie Hebdo, it's only been two months since the terrorist attack that killed 130 people in the same city.

Here in America, it's been a little over three years since 27 people were killed at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, but it's only been six weeks since the Colorado Springs shooting that killed three, and less than 40 days since the shooting that killed 14 in San Bernardino, California.

The point I'm approaching here really isn't a new one. I'm not the first to point out that it often feels like we're living in a mad world where every week our phones light up with a news notification about gun violence or terrorism. They're becoming ubiquitous.

Don't worry, this isn't going to be just another, "Hey, we should do something about this" article. We should ... but there are enough of those.

Instead, let's look at how we think about these events.

Terrorism, gun violence, and the consequences of free speech aren't simple problems. We shouldn't talk about them as if they have simple solutions.

While politicians and media make it seem as though standing on one side of an issue means disparaging anyone who disagrees with you, most people fall somewhere more in the middle. And many people feel that they can't say how they feel without being attacked or having assumptions made about their character.

It happens on both sides of every issue.

President Obama addressed many of the complexities of gun violence at a town hall on Jan. 7, 2015. Photo by Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images

As we move forward, let's face the fact that simple, one-sided, un-evolved opinions don't really solve problems. We all have to apply a little more brain power to our world views and start recognizing some dualities and nuance.

It may not be easy, but here are three simple places to start:

1. You can hate terrorism without being Islamophobic.

Terrorism is undoubtedly terrifying. That's why it's called terror-ism.

And it's OK to be afraid of it. It's OK for you to want your country to do everything in its power prevent tragedies like 9/11 or San Bernardino from ever happening again. Lately though, being anti-terrorism has started to get confusing, as more and more people insist on equating terrorism with Muslims.

In America at least, a lot of people are scoring major points for simply equating the religion of Islam with terrorism. Not just presidential candidates with weird hair either.

Liberal champion Bill Maher has recently come under fire for his comments about Muslims. Saying things like,"For the last 30 years, it's been one culture that has been been blowing s--t up over and over again."

Comedian Bill Maher speaking in 2011. Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.

The fact is Islamophobia and terrorism aren't things we can properly address with talk show one-liners.

There are over 1 billion Muslims in the world. To suggest they all have a hand in terrorism is morally and mathematically ridiculous and to recommend that starving, desperate refugees be banned from the United States because of their religion is not only silly but dangerous.

Especially since (and I can't believe I have to say this) terrorism isn't inherently Muslim. If it was, you would think Indonesia — the most Muslim country in the world — would be a breeding ground for extremism. It isn't. Not to mention, studies have shown that white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists are responsible for a lot more terror in America than Islamic extremism.

Furthermore, treating Muslims as individuals who aren't terrorists by nature should not be seen as a sign of weakness or an inability to lead. It should be seen as the viewpoint of an adult who recognizes that people are individuals.

Everyone hates terrorism. It doesn't mean you have to hate 1.6 billion people.

2. You can be pro guns AND pro gun-control.

Chances are, if you're a gun owner, you already do support gun control. 85% of gun owners support universal background checks, which makes sense because responsible gun owners wouldn't be affected by them at all.

Once again, we have a problem that is complex and multifaceted but is only being publicly addressed through simplified rhetoric.

You're either "pro-guns," meaning you want guns in everyone's hands all the time every day, or you're "anti-guns," meaning you want to round up everyone's guns and throw them into a big fire along with the Constitution.

At least that's how the debate is broken down in the media. The issue of gun violence is, if you can believe it, (say it with me) not that simple.

Supporting tighter restrictions on guns doesn't mean you despise the Second Amendment, and being a gun owner doesn't mean you despise gun control. It also doesn't mean you're a redneck doomsday prepper or that you're not a responsible person.

New York Senator Charles Schumer with a delegation of gun owners who support common sense gun laws. Photo by Larry French/Getty Images for MoveOn.org

In France, where the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the attack at the Bataclan theater happened just last year, it's estimated that civilians hold 19 million guns — putting the country in fifth place globally for gun ownership. France also has restrictive gun control laws and about one-eighteenth of the gun homicides that we have in America. (Roughly 1,856 in 2012 versus America's 33,563 in the same year.)

People can own guns responsibly and accept restrictions on their ability to do so. France knows that. Essentially, the entire modern world knows that. Deep down, you probably know it too.

3. You can support free speech and also find things offensive.

The Charlie Hebdo attack was, at its core, an attack on free speech.

Whether or not the 2011 cover photo was offensive, funny, provocative, Islamophobic, satirical, or all of the above is certainly a debate worth having. In fact, it's probably the debate that the Charlie Hebdo staff was trying to have when they published it.

Instead, they were killed for it, and we never got that debate. An open door was slammed shut.

The Charlie Hebdo cover marking the first anniversary of the attack. Photo by Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images.

In America, where free speech is written into our constitution, the attack raised a lot of questions about what it means and spurned many discussions regarding what you "can" and "can't" say, do, joke about, write about, or draw a picture of. It also raised a lot of questions about what you "should" and "shouldn't" be offended by and what you "should" or "shouldn't" do if something you've done has offended someone.

The problem is, those are hard lines. As soon as you draw them, the ability to have an open discussion about the issue (aka the most important part of solving a problem) gets lost.

It's a big world out there. People are going to say things you disagree with. That's OK. You may find yourself offended by the words of another person. That's OK too.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from disagreement or consequence. That being said, we all want to live in a world where death is never one of those consequences.

In theory, freedom of speech should look like this: A person says something. Someone else says, "That offends me for the following reasons." They can then get together and discuss it. See how that works? Also, did you notice the part where no one killed anybody?

But we don't live in that America, do we? We live in the one where your ideas are right, the others are wrong, and you better set up your fortress quick because the other side is coming to tear down everything you believe in.

In politics, especially, rhetoric has become more and more extreme to the point where itactually can cost people their lives.

Take the attack at the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, where three people were killed by a lone gunman who reportedly told police, "no more baby parts," after he was arrested.

Many have drawn a connection from the violence perpetrated against Planned Parenthood (and other women's health facilities) to the inflammatory rhetoric used by the anti-abortion movement, which has been adopted by many presidential candidates and politicians who want to defund Planned Parenthood and restrict abortion access.

Planned Parenthood, as well as other abortion providers, have seen a sharp increase in violence over the past year. Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images.

Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains said in her statement following the attack: "We’ve seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months. That environment breeds acts of violence."

See, it's not the ideas themselves that get people killed. It's the extremity with which they're presented and the inability or refusal to listen to or respect any other ideas.

When discourse goes away, beliefs get extreme, and when beliefs get extreme, they can become dangerous.

You can fundamentally disagree with someone without wanting to censor them. They can tell you not to be offended by it, but you can use your free speech to tell them why it's offensive. At the same time, you can also be offended by a cartoon without needing to kill the person who drew it.

These points shouldn't sound complicated. They're not.

You probably fall into one of these grey areas yourself.That's good. It's good when things aren't binary.

Progress happens when we recognize the fact that problems of this scale aren't simple and static, but they need to be changed through understanding and compromise.

From now on, instead of buying into the constant barrage of "this" versus "that" rhetoric, we should embrace the nuance. It's where the progress is hiding.

In the year since Charlie Hebdo, we've only gotten more divided.

Let's stop thinking of everything in terms of "sides." Pro-guns versus anti-guns, pro-refugees versus anti-Islam, Republican versus Democrat. Those boxes we put ourselves in aren't real. They're comfortable and they're easier, but they aren't always helpful.

Fewer people should die tragically. That's the only side worth taking, and it's the one we're all on.

That's a good place to start.

These NBA players get real about guns — and they don't hold back.

Reigning NBA MVP Steph Curry has an adorable 3-year-old daughter named Riley.

Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images.

He takes her everywhere he goes.

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images.

She's even been known to take over a press conference or two.

GIF via Ziba Lubaj/YouTube.

Like any father, the thought of losing his daughter to a sudden, tragic act of violence is too terrible for Curry to contemplate.

With Riley in mind, Curry — and several of his NBA colleagues — made a video calling for an end to the unacceptable plague of gun deaths in America.

GIFs by Everytown for Gun Safety/YouTube.

The fear of losing a child to gun violence cuts across the generations.

Later in the video, the Clippers' Chris Paul talks about growing up with the fear of becoming a statistic.

The Knicks' Carmelo Anthony is even blunter.

While tragedies like San Bernardino and Sandy Hook grab the headlines — for good reason — this problem goes far beyond high-profile mass shootings.

In 2011, gun violence claimed the lives of over 30,000 Americans. A Bloomberg analysis estimates that more people will be killed by guns in 2015 than in car crashes.

Ending gun violence is often a controversial subject — but it doesn't have to be.

A makeshift memorial for the victims of the San Bernardino, California, mass shooting. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images.

Any discussion of placing new restrictions or conditions on gun ownership tends to devolve into a shouting match between well-meaning people on both sides. It tends to get very emotional, as issues of life and death often do.

The good news is, we all want the same thing: fewer people killed in shootings.

The better news is, we mostly agree on the first steps toward getting there. An overwhelming majority of Americans support background checks for gun purchases — including a majority of NRA members. A similarly vast majority is in favor of closing the gun-show loophole, which allows firearm sales by private dealers without background checks.

These are common-sense reforms we can all get behind.

Because regardless of where you stand on the issue, the Bulls' Joakim Noah hits the nail on the head.

Watch the NBA stars — as well as ordinary Americans whose lives have been upended by gun violence — get real about what it's going to take below.

Malala Yousafzai links anti-Muslim rhetoric with a rise in terrorism.

Being both Muslim and a survivor of terrorism, Malala Yousafzai knows a thing or two about both subjects.

The Pakistani children's rights activist, who became famous after being shot in the head by the Taliban back in 2012, recently spoke out against a rise in global anti-Muslim sentiment after the attacks in Paris last month.

She didn't mince words.

Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images.

Yousafzai wants to be clear: Linking all Muslims to terrorism doesn't boost national security — it makes us all less safe.

When asked about the recent inflammatory (and false) things said about Islam, as well as a proposed ban on all Muslim immigration here in the U.S., Yousafzai explained why such rhetoric does so much damage.

"The more you speak about Islam and against all Muslims, the more terrorists we create," she told Channel 4 News in the U.K. "So it's important that whatever politicians say, whatever the media say, they should be really, really careful about it."

"If your intention is to stop terrorism, do not try to blame the whole population of Muslims for it, because [that] cannot stop terrorism. It will radicalize more terrorists."

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Many others agree that Islamophobia isn't just immoral, it's bad foreign policy.

In addressing the nation after the terror attacks in San Bernardino, California, earlier this month, President Obama stressed that blaming all Muslims for terrorism actually helps ISIS by upping its recruitment.

Photo by Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images.

It's a perspective that's shared with other (but not all) presidential candidates, as well as experts on the matter, who believe grouping all Muslims in with the (very) small faction of extremists — and closing the door on Syrian refugees for that reason — plays into the terrorists' narrative.

"When ISIS executes its attacks, it has a script," Owen Jones wrote for The Guardian. "It knows that Muslims will be blamed en masse in the aftermath. One of its key aims, after all, is to separate western societies and their Muslim communities: If Muslims are left feeling rejected, besieged and hated, ISIS believes, then the recruitment potential will only multiply."

If anyone knows that inclusion is the best way to heal (and promote good policy-making), it's Yousafzai.

The human rights leader — who now lives in England — has firsthand experience.

Photo by Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images.

"What I went through in my life was a horrible incident," she told Channel 4 News. "But here [in the U.K.], the love of people really strengthened me. And it continues to strengthen me. That's why I am able to continue my campaign for education."

"I'm really thankful to people here in the UK for all their support, their love and for making me feel that this is home, and that [I] have the right to live and that [I] deserve love and kindness."

Watch Yousafzai's interview with Channel 4 News:

You've probably noticed that anti-Muslim sentiments have become more common and more blatant recently.

Following the terrorist attacks in Paris by ISIS (or, if you like, Daesh) extremists and the mass shooting in San Bernardino by two people who claimed to be Muslim, a lot of Americans are allowing their thinking to be replaced by fear. Some people are even reacting violently.

Others are working hard to find justification for their beliefs — even if they're not acting out.

One of the things I've noticed is that in support of anti-Muslim comments, many people keep offering up quotes from the Quran.

Image by Metropolico.org/flickr.

They do that as justification for their belief that Islam is founded on violence and that the religion teaches its followers to act violently — and as such, we should be worried that any Muslim could be a violent terrorist. I've also seen several people refer to the marriage of very young girls as being in the Quran — as justification that Islam is just incompatible with Western ways of life.

I mean ... sigh.

I think most rational people know better. But for those who don't, some folks carried out a little experiment to make a point.

They took a Bible and wrapped it in a different cover, making it appear to be a Quran.

All following GIFs and images by Dit Is Normaal, a group based in the Netherlands. The video is in Dutch and subtitled in English.

Then they found some passages that aren't exactly compatible with the way most Westerners live these days.

Passages like:

"A woman should live in quietness and full submission."

"If you reject my commands and abhor my laws, you will eat the flesh of your own sons. And your own daughters."

"I don't allow for a woman to teach. You will have to cut off her hand. Do not forgive her."

"If two men sleep with each other, they will both have to be killed."

When the interviewers asked passersby what they thought of those passages, they were honest.

Believing they were being read passages from the Quran, people reacted with surprise, disgust, and negativity.

The interviewers also asked how the Quran compared to the Bible.

That's when the interviewers let the folks in on what we knew all along: These aren't teachings of the Quran.

They're Bible verses.

Everyone was visibly surprised.

The lesson, of course, is that we need to step back and look at what we're doing here.

This guy gets it:

The best part of this video is that the folks were willing to acknowledge their biases.

Nobody got defensive or angry. They realized what happened.

Information comes at us from many directions and is often framed in a way that influences our thinking. This woman sums things right up:

And so does this man. We need to step back and think it through.

Religions adapt and change with the times.

The Quran, like the Bible, is very old. Muslims don't follow every last word verbatim, just as Christians don't follow every last word in the Bible verbatim. That's ridiculous.

We need to stop applying a double standard.

If we're going to assume that radicals who commit terrorism in the name of Islam are representative of Muslims, we must do the same with radicals who commit terrorism and proclaim to be Christians.

I think we all know better — the Planned Parenthood shooter doesn't represent the great majority of Christians, nor do the San Bernardino shooters represent the great majority of Muslims.

Let's keeps our fears in check and remember that Muslims are peaceful people. They want to raise their families and enjoy their lives and have the same opportunities as anyone else. It's pretty simple.

You can watch the full video here. It's worth it to see how the biases that people probably don't even realize they have influence their thoughts: