NEW YORK (AP) — Adam Luke remembers entering the first meeting of what would become the Citizen Solutions pilot project thinking, “Oh god, this is going to suck.”

A self-described “educated redneck,” Luke was one of 11 Tennesseans with widely divergent views on gun rights selected by the project to discuss potential recommendations to reduce gun violence. He has fond memories of his dad checking him out of school when he was in first grade to go deer hunting and has long considered himself a gun rights supporter, saying, “Firearms have always had a positive influence in my life.”

Luke, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says he wanted to represent that point of view as well as address the needs of those looking to curb gun violence.

“The reason why I came to the table was that I’m so tired of the idea that we can’t do anything, that there’s no way forward… that the citizens of America are incapable of being able to communicate with one another,” Luke said. “That’s what I wanted to be hostile against.”