Do most antis have reasons for being anti?

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Charleo0192

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Recently while moving I asked my sister if she could take one my guns up to my room. She had a confused look on her face. She then asked why I had a gun. I asked her why not. Her next statement was "why do you". That let me know she had no genuine idea why she felt I should not own a gun.

This got me thinking. Do you find most people who are anti-gun to just be unknowledgeable about the topic?

I'm sure this topic has come up but te conversation I had with her surprised me the most as she couldn't think of any reason why I should not be allowed to own a firearm.
 
I find most people have plenty of reasons for believing what they do and for doing what they do.
Otherwise they wouldn't right?

Personally, I think the notion that anyone who is opposed to guns is by default uninformed or "doesn't know the truth" is a very, very slippery slope. People may have very good reasons for being against private gun ownership. You or me just don't share them.
 
now im not a psychologist....but i did stay at a holiday inn express last night.

there are two primary reasons......the fear approach and the learned approach


the fear approach is exactly what it sounds like........they are afraid of guns, just they same way people are afraid of bugs, the dark, heights, ect.

like many fears, they are irrational responses to a previous event usually something that happened in their youth.....

example, a child falls out of a tree and ends up in the hospital, they grow up with a fear of heights.

a similar thing could happen with a firearm.




then there is the learned approach( which is more than likely the most common)

this is much like racism......they are told all their lives that XXXX are bad, to stay away from XXXX, or that XXXX will hurt you if you go near them.

if they are taught nothing else about XXXX, what reason would they have to question it.

the same applies to firearms.

and that is why logic doesnt work on antis.........i mean, has logic ever worked on any racist?



very few truly anti-gun people have a rational argument as to why they dont like guns.
 
some anti's are irrational. My wife would qualify for that. She isn't exactly an anti that would be for outright banning guns, but she doesn't like them. She understands that firearms are a part of my life, and tolerates it, but i truly believe that if some dude kicked in the door intent on doing her harm she would go for a knife or baseball bat rather than pick up one of my guns to defend herself.

I say her feelings are irrational because she comes from a big gun family, from a town in the middle of nowhere where hunting and guns are basically part of the culture. Everyone in her family except her owns and enjoys guns. She was never forced to learn to shoot, and she never had a bad experience with firearms as a child. she just doesn't like them. she seems to think that the only reason you would ever want to own a handgun is to kill someone. Granted, she understands that even though i own a handgun, I am not going to be going out and killing people, yet she still holds on to that irrationality.

:shrugs: sometimes it is just how people are wired.
 
and she never had a bad experience with firearms as a child.

that:
1) you know of....
2) she will admit....
3) she even remembers....

an 'incident' doesnt need to be something dramatic or life threatening.... often times it can be something as simple as dropping a rifle on your foot....or pinching your finger in the action.....its something simple like that that can teach the brain that XXXX is bad and not to go near it.
 
Some people just blindly follow something they are told without anything backing it up. Think about it, are the true antis have anything that makes sense backing up their arguments?
 
charlie0192 said:
Do you find most people who are anti-gun to just be unknowledgeable about the topic?

about a month ago at lunch break between Centerfire and .45 matches during a Bullseye match, I talked with a New Yorker who had moved from NY about 5-10 years ago.

We had a similar discussion. When I asked him what was "wrong" with NYC people he said it was "ignorance". Delving deeper, he said it was actually "mis-information".

They knew a lot from all that they had read and heard, he said, and had their opinions formed from what they knew. It was in his opinion that what they "knew" was very frequently factually incorrect, however.
 
As the news media learned a long time ago from the public educators - "Tell a lie long enough and often enough and it becomes the truth" (or words similar to that)

Guns have been "bad" in those two groups eyes since the 60's with the assassinations of several well-liked political folks, and even earlier in some locales because of political power (hard to control those freedom-loving upstarts when they are armed and can overthrow the tyrant)

Funny how, not long ago, kids used to take their guns to school so they could hunt on the way home - now if little johnny draws a hunting picture or similar, he needs "counseling and several days in time out from school"
 
I find most people have plenty of reasons for believing what they do and for doing what they do. Otherwise they wouldn't right?

You would be surprised. Ignorance is the foundation for the anti-gun movement. And remember I'm talking about ignorance, not stupidity. I was also strongly anti-gun before I started learning about firearms. The more you know, the more difficult it becomes to fall for the "cop killer", "gun show loophole", "assault weapon" nonsense. Virtually all of the anti-gun policy positions are based on ignorance of basic firearm mechanics and ballistics. Up to and including the NFA itself. OAL limits, barrel limits and all the features of that law we know and hate are the product of pure fear mongering and ignorance.

This is why anti-gun proponents so rarely speak in any accurate detail about firearms. They invent scary terms of their own instead.
 
Personally, I think the notion that anyone who is opposed to guns is by default uninformed or "doesn't know the truth" is a very, very slippery slope. People may have very good reasons for being against private gun ownership. You or me just don't share them.

I clicked on this thread to post basically an identical comment to this. Reasons and beliefs, however illogical to us, are very valid to those who passionately hold them. That does not however mean that some people's belief should limit others' rights, though this happens all over and is not limited to firearms.


Here is one I hear quite commonly.......people are scared of the noise....

Are these people just wary of guns in general, or are they against the private ownership of firearms simply because of the sound? I was thinking of an "Anti" as a Prohibitionist, or a "Gun Teetotaler " of sorts. Not that my definition is correct; I just wanting to clarify. I could hardly imagine anyone wanting to limit someone's right due to the sound, but I guess anything's possible.
 
I suspect their thoughts are captured in the Beatles song 'Imagine': "Imagine all the people Living life in peace...".

Whenever a human does something abhorrent, they are called animals or inhuman, not a part of the imaginary world they believe in.

They use what they imagine to set policy for the world we actually live in. Self defense in unnecessary in this Beatles world, as are any tools for such.
 
That was actually a John Lennon song post-breakup. But there is something to that. It also explains why young people are more likely to be anti-gun. Once you learn more about the world you tend to change your views.
 
My wife carries an irrational fear of guns. There were none in her household when she was growing up. All she ever heard was that guns were "bad," as if an inanimate object could act in an objectionable fashion on its own.

She tolerates my interest in firearms. She even can now accept some of my pro-gun views as reasonable. Still, she is afraid of guns. She says that "she just doesn't like them."

I made a big mistake when she willingly went shooting with me. We went to an indoor range on a Saturday that was very busy. We used a Ruger 22/45 22 cal. One lane down was a man firing a 44 mag. All conspired to frighten her away. You could see her tense up with each WHUMP of the 44 mag. Ultimately, she ran out of the range and waited in the car for me.

If I had to do it again, I would take her to an outdoor range on a day that wasn't busy. She remains terribly frightened by guns, but does no longer debate gun issues because she recognizes that her arguments and statements are fear, not logic based. I accept that, and she accepts my concealed carry and enjoyment of shooting sports.

Ron
 
I have some hard-core liberals in my family (mother's side), and they seem to think that guns are useless for law-abiding subjects... I mean... citizens. This is especially unbeleivable to me since my father is a deputy (originally lasd) and his side of the family is as gun-loving as it gets. The liberals seem to be willfully ignorant of the realities of life IMHO, at least the ones in my family.
 
Personally I think a lot of antis probably don't really think guns are cool (like a lot of us do) and see them as tools for 1) defense 2) murder and crime. These people would like to live in a world without those two things (so would I). I would like to not feel like I need/should have a gun. I would love for the world to not need them.

My wife doesn't think guns are cool and doesn't really care about them. She doesn't mind my guns but doesn't want me to go crazy (I'll slowly build up so she doesn't notice).
 
I have discovered that, in many cases, those opposed to gun ownership really haven't given the matter extensive thought; but instead, subscribe to the agenda of certain parties or schools of thought. For example, I believe you will find a commonality with school teachers, Democrats, and those whose level of education exceeds their capacity for understanding. Remember, "educated"---in the formal sense of the word---is no guarantee of intelligence or common sense, it simply means they have taken a prescribed curricula of courses and passed, perhaps marginally. I am not an educated man, but from what I have observed, colleges and universities are not exactly the bastions of free thought they should be, in fact, their approach to thinking is somewhat dogmatic.

Most of my colleagues and neighbors are "anti-gun." They are also somewhat isolated from "real world" experience, having not served in the military, lived or even visited high-crime areas, or worked in anything other than an academic or professional environment. Few hunt or fish, fewer still have even seen a firearm in person. They are repulsed at the thought of my killing a deer, let alone field dressing it.

Yet we live and work together in harmony, respectful and mindful of each other's beliefs and principles. They are not ignorant people by any means, but from what I can gather, their opinions about gun ownership are formed by CNN, The New York Times, and the silver screen---not a very balanced diet of information. But for gun owners to label them as "stupid" individuals is wrong and unproductive.
 
From an early age, kids these day are taught to run away from guns. Schools and parents reinforce this. It's well-meaning and intended to keep children from accidental shootings but it's not a balanced approach but it's easy and requires little creative thought. It's also easy to make schools "gun-free" zones, creating a fairy-tale sanctuary right up until the time reality pokes its nose in.

Guns are a part of life, just like any number of things that can cause great harm or death if misused and people are afraid of dying and things that can cause death. With most of the other things, training in their proper use is the normal course of events. Cars, knives and such are things that must be used to function in daily life. People can cut themselves or be injured in traffic accidents and still go back to cutting their food and driving because it's important. Guns, on the other hand, don't have a "must have" function to most people (present company excluded, of course). Folks can live long and full lives without ever having a physical contact with a real gun.

And don't forget, most people never hear of good news about guns and their usage. Guns are used by criminals and a select few - the police - who are highly trained in their use and are the guardians of public safety dedicated to our protection (Gee, I typed all of that with a straight face. Amazing!). Therefore, those who aren't police and have guns must be criminals, or thinking about being criminals, or intent on something contrary to the public good, even if it's only upsetting the citizens by exposing them to a gun outside of the accepted police officer context.

People like fairy tales, especially ones that tell them if they avoid guns, they will be safe from guns. People don't like reality, like understanding that the police can almost never be there in time to save your bacon. Look at the security system ads on TV: they might as well begin "once upon a time...." Like the one where the woman's ex is smashing through the back door and the monitoring company calls her - and she answers! It's almost painful to watch.

So, consider these to be some of the root causes of anti-gun feelings among those who don't have a rational reason for their distaste. And their reason for evangelizing? People don't like stones thrown at their glass houses so they want everyone to have the same glass house.
 
Here's one reason: irresponsible gun owners can turn others against guns.

I have a relative who I like very much -- she's smart, vicacious, generally adventurous -- who is not a fan of guns. She does martial arts, is under no illusion that people are generally nice. However, as I understand it (she's a relative by marriage rather than blood) she grew up in a house where her dad kept loaded guns dangerously around, rather than just "around." She has young kids, and doesn't like the idea of guns being around on the coffee table, etc.

Every time a gun owner sweeps someone at the range (especially a new shooter, or the girlfriend who came along relunctantly), or shoots a few rounds in the air at New Year's, there's some reason for people to be anti-gun.

You can't police every other person's stupid behavior, though -- I think the best you can do is be a good advocate by demonstrating good practices, being friendly and polite, inviting people to shoot .22s with a good expectation-setting session first, etc.

timothy
 
Some say it's irrational and others intellectually justified, but I feel it's a combination of the two. Case and point, when I decided to buy my first rifle I told my mother out of respect as I was living with her at the time. She acted in an immediate manner that would suggest absolute fear, as if I told I was going to commit murder. Now as I tried to dig deeper into what caused that immediate reaction she became frantic and started questioning my intentions. Why do you NEED a gun?! I told her my reasoning and my desire and she seemed to transition from that initial knee-jerk reaction of fear to a defensive state in which she began clearly expressing the dangers associated with firearms and how they bring danger into households, crime into neighborhoods and tragedy into families. I retorted each remark in a grounded and reasonable way. Finally she completed the transition by trying to "back up her claims" with statistics, studies and stories from the newspapers and friends. I had heard them all before and explained why they are either irrelevant or flat out wrong.

Many of the anti-gun or hoplophobic individuals I meet seem to have a deeply rooted and irrational fear of guns that they then try to justify with "facts" they heard on the 6 o'clock news. It is a phobia justified by its prevalence and political support. We can all agree a fear of bees is irrational, but if the majority of society was afraid of bees, there were statistics showing how bee hives increase poverty and street violence and there was a political party with an interest in eradicating bees, you might very well see an organized anti-bee movement. But as it is people associate guns with violence and therefore feel they do have a justification to fear guns AND gun owners. It is the irrational supported by the irrelevant and the fearful egged on by the fearful.

BTW, my mother is now an avid supporter of the 2nd Amendment because I actually introduced her to what the gun community is really like instead of how it's portrayed in main stream America.
 
I believe that most anti gunners are simply ignorant of firearms and misled by the media, Lefty politicians, anti gun groups and the media (they deserve to be mentioned at least twice).
Every handgun is a cannon that can blow someone across the room and every "Assault Weapon" is obviously fully automatic and can cut someone in half. BTW, did you know that you can carry Glocks through metal detectors?
Most anti gunners just recite what they are told on the news and what they see in movies. They are ignorant but can be reasoned with if you can get them to debate you one on one. If they're in a crowd then they'll go off topic and you'll never get to clear up all of the nonsense as they shout you down.
Then there's the politicaly active anti gunner. They generally know a bit more about guns but have no problem lying, twisting the truth or making up "Facts" to support their opinion. We see this in many of the anti gun groups. These are the dangerous ones because they are willing to set aside common sense in order to promote their political agenda.
 
Some anti-gunners are that way for obvious reasons:

The Washington Post has been on an anti-gun crusade ever since its publisher, Philip Graham (husband of Katherine Graham), killed himself with a shotgun in 1948.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy has been on an anti-gun crusade ever since her husband was killed in the Long Island Railroad shooting.

And we all know about Sarah Brady.

But, I think that a lot, if not most, of the anti-gun feeling is the result of political "tribalism." That is, if you live in the Northeast, or in California, and most of your friends are "liberals," you'll go along unthinkingly with their prevailing ideology, which includes being against guns. (The converse is also true -- being pro-gun has become part of the so-called "conservative" ideology.)

My hat's off to the brave souls who buck this blind polarization. There are some of us who are pro-gun "liberals."
 
There's almost as many reasons for being anti as there are anti's.

At the "average person" level, there's irrational fear, ignorance about guns, bad experiences with guns or people with guns, brainwashing from friends, relatives or media, or just going along to get along (as in college).

My brother is anti-handgun. He hunted all of his life with guns and bows, and I consider him to be a model sportsman. However, handguns scare him. He has no experience with them, and sees their purpose as being only for shooting people.

Move up to the anit-gun organizer, and the reasons become more interesting. There's all the reasons above, but there's one that I find the most disgusting: money. There's very good money to be made being involved in anti-gun groups, and the work isn't very hard.

It's very possible to make $60K with every conceivable benefit (car allowance, pension, health insurance, etc) and work part time.
 
If you go to Dave Champion's websight (Davechampion.com) you'll find an excellent article written by a shrink about why people are anti's. The article also has really good advice on how to talk to an anti, and maybe get them to think.
 
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