Teufelhunden
Member
I had an interesting experience with a friend a couple of days ago. She lives in NY city, and had come down to my house in South Georgia with my best friend for a couple of days before the New Year. She is anti, and my best friend owns a couple of handguns (encouraged by me a few years ago).
My best friend and I were attempting to educate, or at least expose our anti friend to firearms since she has some pretty strong opinions for someone who hasn't ever even seen a gun. To put it in perspective, her firearms knowledge is so lacking, that she (until a few days ago) thought that the entire cartridge went downrange, brass and all, when you pull the trigger. I don't mock her for that, but it is useful for showing how ignorant she is of firearms. When we disassembled the weapon and placed the parts on the mattress next to her, she ran, shrieking, from the room. Needless to say, such a reaction surprised my best friend and I.
That female friend is an educator--she teaches 1st graders in NY city, and as such, I would have thought she'd place value on firsthand experience and education in all areas. Her reaction showed that even in the prescence of two men she considers brothers and trusts, she wilfully maintains her ignorance of what they were trying to show her. My wife convinced me to just let it go, but I am still amazed that someone would rather hold on to their misconceptions and maintain their ignorance rather than safely being shown that guns are not evil entities, they do not 'go off' on their own, and they are simply mechanical devices with no will of their own.
I consider her reaction to be reaction to be initially simple ignorance, as she had never had an opportunity to be exposed to firearms in any manner, and later on, wilfull ignorance, as she had the opportunity to educate herself on the matter, but chose not to.
Her reaction is, on a small scale, how I see political gun-grabbers to operate. A great gripe of theirs is how the firearms industry cosmetically altered some weapons to 'sneak them in' under the AWB. They make this complaint without considering what they are truly saying, as such a statement is a de-facto argument that the AWB does not ban anything BUT cosmetic features.
So have people like Feinstein and Schumer never been exposed to someone like the constituancy here, who would be willing to educate and erase misconceptions fostered by Hollywood and yes-men?
-or-
Have they had the opportunity to hear it true, but either fear the topic or the truth too much and turned away the knowledge and people that would better equip them to intelligently legislate on such matters?
-or-
Have they been educated, know the truth, and are simply personally biased against our interpretation of the 2nd? They've proven they see a use for firearms; IIRC, Diane Feinstein has a CCW. Is it that they see no need for the general populace to be armed?
Personally, I find it terrifying that someone such as my friend has such political motivation and makes the effort to get out and vote, but simply won't educate herself on the issues on which she is voting. I suppose though, that she isn't probably all that different from a lot of people...she votes with how she 'feels' as opposed to voting the issues.
-Teuf, continuing down that cynical aging road to being the crotchetiest 25 year old in Georgia.
My best friend and I were attempting to educate, or at least expose our anti friend to firearms since she has some pretty strong opinions for someone who hasn't ever even seen a gun. To put it in perspective, her firearms knowledge is so lacking, that she (until a few days ago) thought that the entire cartridge went downrange, brass and all, when you pull the trigger. I don't mock her for that, but it is useful for showing how ignorant she is of firearms. When we disassembled the weapon and placed the parts on the mattress next to her, she ran, shrieking, from the room. Needless to say, such a reaction surprised my best friend and I.
That female friend is an educator--she teaches 1st graders in NY city, and as such, I would have thought she'd place value on firsthand experience and education in all areas. Her reaction showed that even in the prescence of two men she considers brothers and trusts, she wilfully maintains her ignorance of what they were trying to show her. My wife convinced me to just let it go, but I am still amazed that someone would rather hold on to their misconceptions and maintain their ignorance rather than safely being shown that guns are not evil entities, they do not 'go off' on their own, and they are simply mechanical devices with no will of their own.
I consider her reaction to be reaction to be initially simple ignorance, as she had never had an opportunity to be exposed to firearms in any manner, and later on, wilfull ignorance, as she had the opportunity to educate herself on the matter, but chose not to.
Her reaction is, on a small scale, how I see political gun-grabbers to operate. A great gripe of theirs is how the firearms industry cosmetically altered some weapons to 'sneak them in' under the AWB. They make this complaint without considering what they are truly saying, as such a statement is a de-facto argument that the AWB does not ban anything BUT cosmetic features.
So have people like Feinstein and Schumer never been exposed to someone like the constituancy here, who would be willing to educate and erase misconceptions fostered by Hollywood and yes-men?
-or-
Have they had the opportunity to hear it true, but either fear the topic or the truth too much and turned away the knowledge and people that would better equip them to intelligently legislate on such matters?
-or-
Have they been educated, know the truth, and are simply personally biased against our interpretation of the 2nd? They've proven they see a use for firearms; IIRC, Diane Feinstein has a CCW. Is it that they see no need for the general populace to be armed?
Personally, I find it terrifying that someone such as my friend has such political motivation and makes the effort to get out and vote, but simply won't educate herself on the issues on which she is voting. I suppose though, that she isn't probably all that different from a lot of people...she votes with how she 'feels' as opposed to voting the issues.
-Teuf, continuing down that cynical aging road to being the crotchetiest 25 year old in Georgia.