Debating an anti-gun zealot

[Locnar]

A recent post has led me to consider my tactics in debating those who think guns are the most evil thing on the planet (aside from [random Republican's name here], of course).

See it, use it, laugh at it, consider it, but for the love of God, don't take it seriously.

Anti-gun nuts tend to be people driven by emotions and will argue their points from such a position. Seeing as how the facts are on our side, their only leg to stand on is "but they are scary!" As I've come to find out, fighting their emotions with cold, hard facts gets me just about nowhere. So, I decided to try arguing against their emotion with emotion of my own. Here are the results.

"Guns kill people."

Easy. "Absolutely. You know what else kills people? Swimming pools. More people drown in swimming pools than die from guns, so surely, if we're going to ban guns, we should definitely ban swimming pools! Every life is priceless, after all!"

When the person argues that people enjoy swimming pools and that these drowning deaths are freak accidents (who wants to ban swimming pools?), hear nothing of it. Tell them that they are a cold hearted, sick person who places THEIR fun over another person's LIFE.

The Second Amendment is outdated, its been abused, and should be repealed.

I've heard this one a few times, don't know if you guys have. "Absolutely. So is the First Amendment. In fact, it is my opinion that news sources have abused their First Amendment right and do not deserve to have that privelidge anymore." Watch them go apoplectic, and stick to your position.

"[blah blah blah] no sporting purpose"

"The Second Amendment isn't about killing Bambi, as delicious as he is. Its about allowing a woman to shoot her mugger. You are ok with a woman who defends herself, right? Or are you sexist?"

There's a lot more, but I'm tired, and going to sleep.

 

[IllHunter]

The other strategy...

to convince an emotion based argument is to ask what else the person hates? If they have a list, there is no winning, this is alost cause, walk away.
If they object to the word hate, you walk down the dislike,fear path and help the ignorant learn. I can't waste time trying to convince the brain dead.:banghead:

 

[al123]

One of the most anti-gun people I know associate gun owners with bigoted, religious zealots. He wishes they all could disappear from the earth. Trying to reason with such a person may possibly get a violent reaction; he has a bad temper and he doesn't like looking stupid (not too hard to do).

I've never own a firearm before including most of my friends and family. Now a bunch of people I know shoots and enjoys it. I leave the real (anti-gun) zealots alone and move on. Life's too short.

 

[rattletrap1970]

I had a friend years ago who claimed he, "Didn't believe in guns." My reply was, "What? You Don't believe they exist?" He said, "No, I just think there are too many of them and they only have one purpose." I said, "Let's take a ride up to the range." Reply, "No, No, I'm not interested." Me, "No, you are afraid you might enjoy it and then you will be a hypocrite." After some hemmin and hawin, we go up to the local range. Met some regulars, one guy let my friend borrow some clears cause I didn't have spares. Shot for about 2 hours. This was 25 years ago. At last count he has more guns than me. The bastard.

 

[Joistman]

I had a friend years ago who claimed he, "Didn't believe in guns." My reply was, "What? You Don't believe they exist?" He said, "No, I just think there are too many of them and they only have one purpose." I said, "Let's take a ride up to the range." Reply, "No, No, I'm not interested." Me, "No, you are afraid you might enjoy it and then you will be a hypocrite." After some hemmin and hawin, we go up to the local range. Met some regulars, one guy let my friend borrow some clears cause I didn't have spares. Shot for about 2 hours. This was 25 years ago. At last count he has more guns than me. The bastard.

Now that's how you convert an anti

 

[SOUTHPAW]

I had a friend years ago who claimed he, "Didn't believe in guns." My reply was, "What? You Don't believe they exist?" He said, "No, I just think there are too many of them and they only have one purpose." I said, "Let's take a ride up to the range." Reply, "No, No, I'm not interested." Me, "No, you are afraid you might enjoy it and then you will be a hypocrite." After some hemmin and hawin, we go up to the local range. Met some regulars, one guy let my friend borrow some clears cause I didn't have spares. Shot for about 2 hours. This was 25 years ago. At last count he has more guns than me. The bastard.

Hahahaha that's awesome.

Unfortunately the only way to open the eyes of many anti's is to have tragedy strike them first hand. It just pisses me off that people could be so ignorant... And that it takes them getting robbed, raped, or worse to open their narrow, uneducated minds.

 

[THE DARK KNIGHT]

Since you seem to be under the misinformed notion that republicans support gun rights, I figure I should remind you that...

Sarah Brady and Paul Helmke are REPUBLICANS
Bush would have signed the AWB renewal if it came to his desk, he said

I'd also love for you to meet plenty of Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, etc. who are most certainly anti-gun

 

[heeler]

From my walk through life most everyone that I have ever met that is anti gun is also anti hunting and even when they bring up hunters they have it in their heads that one should act like a cave man or plains Indian to run down the game or use a bow to even up the odds.
But the one thing I find consistent with these people is that they have either zero or very limited experiences with firearms or hunting.
Working in a large commercial building this seems to be a very common attitude with a lot of degreed young people here.
And guys this is Texas!!
These people fall under the category of "Don't confuse me with the facts,because I have already made up my mind"
Perhaps they are not hopeless but pretty close to it.

 

[DC300a]

One of the most anti-gun people I know associate gun owners with bigoted, religious zealots. He wishes they all could disappear from the earth. Trying to reason with such a person may possibly get a violent reaction; he has a bad temper and he doesn't like looking stupid (not too hard to do).

I read a narrative on this forum at one point that put that type of anti in a catagory. It stated that his type of anti-gun person's lack of self-control has lead them not to trust themselves with firearms. Since they believe that everyone thinks, or should think like them, they do not trust anyone else with a firearm either.

 

[blaisenguns]

"The Second Amendment isn't about killing Bambi, as delicious as he is. Its about allowing a woman to shoot her mugger. You are ok with a woman who defends herself, right? Or are you sexist?"

LOL that is awesome.

to convince an emotion based argument is to ask what else the person hates? If they have a list, there is no winning, this is alost cause, walk away.

Just becouse people hate more than one thing doesnt make them completly hopeless.

 

[Lou McGopher]

I like to ask, "So then you think the police and military should not have guns?"
And they invariably reply, "Well, no... Don't be silly."
To which I then point out, "Oh.... so you're an elitist."

 

[DWFan]

True story:
A woman I know was extremely anti-gun; so much so that she rode her son constantly over his owning a couple of handguns, a rifle and a shotgun. This went on for several years. One night the son gets a frantic phone call from his mother telling him that the woman's ex-boyfriend is trying to break in and he needs to come and bring his gun.
The son calls the police and they arrive at the same time he does (about 10 minutes). The front door is damaged and the window is broken out, but the man is nowhere around. The woman explains that the guy saw her on the phone and took off. The police check the area, take a report then leave. Once the police were gone, the very first words out of her mouth to her son are "Did you bring your gun like I told you?"
"No mom," the son responded, "In fact, I almost didn't come at all. I thought it had to be a prank phone call since my mother doesn't believe in guns." (For the record, he did bring a revolver but left it in the car since the police were there.)
The woman enrolled in firearm's classes the next week.

There is no better teacher than experience.

Unfortunately (or dangerously) there is a large portion of anti-gunners who own firearms. These folks aren't true anti-gunners because they have a personal use for firearms. They are anti-civil righters who believe you aren't entitled to the same rights they demand.

 

[mljdeckard]

The key word here is zealot.

Argue if it amuses you, but don't plan on changing minds.

 

[blaisenguns]

The key word here is zealot.

Argue if it amuses you, but don't plan on changing minds.

Agreed.

 

[Mr.Davis]

Here's a fantastic article from an expert on how to address anti-gun hatred:

Raging Against Self Defense: A Psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality

By Sarah Thompson, M.D.

 

[IllHunter]

Me being picky...

more than one thing

a list doesn't make. I could've said
a few, or more than one, but a list was to infer many, multiple, ie: more than could be called to mind without notes. Just so we're clear I live to convert the thinking, to do that I must ignore those who live in their "feelings". I'm passionate (feeling) about my beliefs (thinking)!

 

[Gouranga]

I don't really debate a zealot with any intent of changing their minds. However, such a debate can be an excellent opportunity to educate and enlighten the non-zealot person who may be filled with misinformation and/or fear. The problem is the zealot by their nature are VERY vocal and usually get more if their message out than the non-zealot. Especially when that zealot is driven by fear, or in the case of the Mrs. Brady, she is driven by fear, and grief from what happened to her husband.

 

[ironvic]

There was a time when I believed firearms were things that only police and soldiers should have. The common man with a gun would only hurt himself, or worse, me. Then, I got involved in a deadly shooting incident and it changed me and the way I saw myself in the world. I sat numb in a big city emergency room set up as a command post as a SWAT cop showed me how to use his Remington 870 and told me to, "do what I had to do with it" to protect myself if he got hit. We were going upstairs to retrieve two victims of a shooting and the shooter was still in the building.

It hit me like a ton of bricks, this was real and one of us could likely die today. I noticed the SWAT team guys were just like me, young men doing a lousy job of hiding their fear. They had guns and I didn't.

We didn't die that day, but the victims did, and I saw in their half masted eyelids, the life literally ripped out of their bodies, a sort of surrender to a flaccid death. Never again would I be unprotected from the feral among us. As we worked our way back, the fear was gone. I would fight fang and claw to murder the killer if he tried to do to me what he did to the helpless victims.

The same as my dad found in himself on Bougainville in WWII, I knew that there was an animal inside that would fight to the death if need be. I went out and bought my first gun, a Smith & Wesson Model-18 and learned to shoot, then I got a S&W Highway Patrolman with a 6" barrel which led to a .45 Auto, then some .357s and military rifles, even a 12 Gauge shotgun traded in by some police department, identified only as "EPD" on the barrel; it was just like the one that LAPD SWAT team leader showed me how to use. I still have that shotgun, it's one of my favorite firearms.

Some people are raised to love guns and revere the Second Amendment. Others need a push in the right direction. I'm glad that when I had to choose a fork in the road, I chose the right path. That was 40 years ago and I feel as strong as ever that if we ever lose our gun rights, we will have lost everything else as well.

 

[mongoose33]

The key word here is zealot.

Argue if it amuses you, but don't plan on changing minds.

If you have observers, then it can make a lot of difference. You won't change the mind of the zealot, but if you ask the right kind of questions and make the observers of the exchange consider them, you can cause those other minds to think. After all, they don't have to defend their position, they just have to think about what you ask as questions.

 

[Keauxbi]

The argument I've always used when arguing an anti-gunner is constitutional rights, they always seem to be big on those. They usually turn to the outdated and stupid argument on the 2nd amendment. So I'll mention, "What if my party took office and deemed the 1st amendment to be outdated and stupid?" This usually gets them to thinking.

I actually had one gal, who felt threatened that I own 7, go as far as saying "Then we should change it!" I had to remind her that without one guaranteed right we don't have any others and that I'd use my guns to protect her rights with my 7 guns if she wanted. I tried the "police take time to get to you" and "cars kill more people" but she still refused to admit her faulty logic:banghead:

Some people are just willing to be sheep and don't care about their own personal safety.

 

[cbrgator]

Convincing someone who is very anti-gun is a futile exercise. Put the foot on the other shoe. Think about if there was a dedicated anti-gun forum, discussing strategies to get any of us to lay down our guns...

Is there ANYTHING they could say to us that would get us to change our minds?

If it's a fence-sitter... go for it. A staunch advocate, why bother? They will never be able to change our minds. We will never be able to change theirs.

 

[Bovice]

I don't argue with them. I don't mention guns at all to most people. I'm a senior in college, and once I had someone ask me regarding my NRA hat I wore one day "NRA... is that like... a fraternity or something?"

I laughed about that all day.

Seems like all the anti-gun people I meet have beef about guns because they know someone who was shot or know someone who knows someone who has been shot, etc. etc. They tell me the story about how the person was shot-usually playing around with the gun and not taking it seriously. "They had SO much to live for! They were wise beyond their years!"

Apparently not, moron. He shot himself through the face, in an attempt to prove the gun was "not loaded".

All I'll say is somebody filtered their own piss out of the gene pool.

 

[dogngun]

I am a lifelong Democrat and a life long shooter, and gun enthusiast.

Actually, I am fairly far left-I think Obama is a moderate Republican.
I want you to understand that about half of the people you see buying guns, shooting and carrying guns are Democrats and the idea that we are against firearms ownership and 2A is a lie put out to make money for various organizations. You might also want to know that the handgun control organizations were started and are run by republicans, who blame Democrats for advocating gun control.

FWIW, I learned to shoot at age 10 in the Cub Scouts, and will be 63 this summer.
I trained on the M14 and M 16 in the Army, mainly carried a M12 trench gun for actual use.
I carry every day, have for over 15 years, and shoot pretty regularly.

I have found that arguing with an anti is like arguing with a drunk...nothing is acomplished and everybody gets pissed off. Most of them are just ignorant, and have no idea about guns other than what they see on Law and Order.
mark