I've made some observations that may be interesting to some here.
My brother is an interesting individual. On one hand, he's very intelligent, has a massive vocabularly, top-notch writing skills, is very socially involved, and attends one of the top universities in the country. He happens to also be liberal (extremely so), atheist (raised Jewish - not that his being atheist is important, but it fits an existing stereotype), and very anti-gun.
He has been living in San Fran for several years now and is now home to take a semester off to study for the LSAT.
Last time he was home, he got into a massive argument with me over my purchasing at the time an AR15.
He has never actually seen either of my ARs since then.
The argument was so massive that it went into other areas unrelated to guns that were very personal and we both left things on very bad terms and didn't speak for 6 months.
Now that he's home, things are definitely strained again now since we're both in our parents' home. He's taking the semester off to take the LSAT, and I just took the LSAT and am waiting to hear back from law schools about whether I got in or not. I moved in with my folks to save some cash in the meantime as school is expensive as you all know.
Now to the meat and potatoes of my points.
The other night he mentioned in the car that he didn't trust the police to protect him. I told him that while I imagine most have good intentions, I don't trust the police either to protect me. I pointed out that it is interesting that we both are aware of the same problem, yet we respond very differently. He does nothing, while I actively carry to protect myself. He said, "Carrying a weapon implies that you feel you need to protect yourself from somebody." - to which I replied, "Not somebody in particular, but I do feel it is wise to be ready in case I should need to protect myself from somebody. The potential is there for the need to arise." He told me he disagreed and never feels that he is in any danger.
I dropped the point right there to avoid getting into another big argument, but took note of this interesting point. I had never thought of this being a potential argument, as flawed as it is. Anybody who watches the news enough, reads the paper, or just plain gets around enough that they see things happen knows that bad stuff happens.... and some of it is REALLY bad! To think that nothing happens is naive to say the least. In fact when I asked my mother if she felt the same way the other day, she told me she did. She later came home to exclaim that she had witnessed a carjacking that day. Needless to say, she changed her mind.
This is just an interesting note to take. I don't think enough Xanax exists in the world to make me feel 100% comfortable all day long like that as though there is NO chance anything could ever happen. I thought about this for a little while and just how odd it is. No wonder he feels it is absurd to have guns, because to him anybody who has a gun isn't protecting themselves from anybody (as there is nobody to protect themselves from), but rather they/we are the problem itself.
The second thing that I took notice of was that he handed me that Fred Grimm article from the Miami Herald the other day (search THR for a copy). He skimmed it and thought I'd agree. I obviously didn't. Somehow in our talking about the issue, he mentioned that AK47s are illegal. I told him that this was pure BS, and I could buy one quite easily, and almost did several months ago, it's newly manufactured or converted fully automatic AKs that are illegal, and that you can even buy fully automatic guns still legally with a tax stamp.
The third thing I have noticed is that when it comes to these issues, he refuses to hear facts. When I point him in the direction of factual information, he says that he doesn't care..... which obviously is not true given his strong anti position on this. You can't hate something so much, and not care about it at the same time. I think it's that he, along with many other antis, subconsciously doesn't want to hear the facts because if they knew them, and continued to spout falsities, they would transition from being simply naive as to the facts, to lying.
The last thing I think is interesting, is that on his LSAT prep, he has an odd weak point. My cousin and myself both were very strong (at least in prep) with our logical reasoning sections. I am very pro-gun, and my cousin is pro-gun with borderline opinions on certain gun related topics that often go the way of pro-gunners when he hears both sides of the argument finally.
My brother on the other hand is struggling with the logical reasoning section. From what I understand, for somebody to have such strong verbal and writing ability as he has, and yet be so weak on the logical reasoning section of the LSAT, is unusual. Upon talking to him about it (he consults me b/c it was my strong section), it seems his primary issue is actually in understanding the logic involved, or the progression of the argument.
Questions that he has particular trouble with are "Method of argument" questions - "Point at issue" questions (odd)... anything with formal logic.... "Assumption" questions (big time), and perhaps as bad as anything with formal logic are "paradox" questions.
This may mean nothing at all..... I will grant him that because he is a better test taker, he will still likely end up with a better score on test day than I got.
I just thought these points were worthy of noting and decided to post them. Maybe it can help understand some of the disconnects that exist between us and the antis. Maybe not.
My brother is an interesting individual. On one hand, he's very intelligent, has a massive vocabularly, top-notch writing skills, is very socially involved, and attends one of the top universities in the country. He happens to also be liberal (extremely so), atheist (raised Jewish - not that his being atheist is important, but it fits an existing stereotype), and very anti-gun.
He has been living in San Fran for several years now and is now home to take a semester off to study for the LSAT.
Last time he was home, he got into a massive argument with me over my purchasing at the time an AR15.
He has never actually seen either of my ARs since then.
The argument was so massive that it went into other areas unrelated to guns that were very personal and we both left things on very bad terms and didn't speak for 6 months.
Now that he's home, things are definitely strained again now since we're both in our parents' home. He's taking the semester off to take the LSAT, and I just took the LSAT and am waiting to hear back from law schools about whether I got in or not. I moved in with my folks to save some cash in the meantime as school is expensive as you all know.
Now to the meat and potatoes of my points.
The other night he mentioned in the car that he didn't trust the police to protect him. I told him that while I imagine most have good intentions, I don't trust the police either to protect me. I pointed out that it is interesting that we both are aware of the same problem, yet we respond very differently. He does nothing, while I actively carry to protect myself. He said, "Carrying a weapon implies that you feel you need to protect yourself from somebody." - to which I replied, "Not somebody in particular, but I do feel it is wise to be ready in case I should need to protect myself from somebody. The potential is there for the need to arise." He told me he disagreed and never feels that he is in any danger.
I dropped the point right there to avoid getting into another big argument, but took note of this interesting point. I had never thought of this being a potential argument, as flawed as it is. Anybody who watches the news enough, reads the paper, or just plain gets around enough that they see things happen knows that bad stuff happens.... and some of it is REALLY bad! To think that nothing happens is naive to say the least. In fact when I asked my mother if she felt the same way the other day, she told me she did. She later came home to exclaim that she had witnessed a carjacking that day. Needless to say, she changed her mind.
This is just an interesting note to take. I don't think enough Xanax exists in the world to make me feel 100% comfortable all day long like that as though there is NO chance anything could ever happen. I thought about this for a little while and just how odd it is. No wonder he feels it is absurd to have guns, because to him anybody who has a gun isn't protecting themselves from anybody (as there is nobody to protect themselves from), but rather they/we are the problem itself.
The second thing that I took notice of was that he handed me that Fred Grimm article from the Miami Herald the other day (search THR for a copy). He skimmed it and thought I'd agree. I obviously didn't. Somehow in our talking about the issue, he mentioned that AK47s are illegal. I told him that this was pure BS, and I could buy one quite easily, and almost did several months ago, it's newly manufactured or converted fully automatic AKs that are illegal, and that you can even buy fully automatic guns still legally with a tax stamp.
The third thing I have noticed is that when it comes to these issues, he refuses to hear facts. When I point him in the direction of factual information, he says that he doesn't care..... which obviously is not true given his strong anti position on this. You can't hate something so much, and not care about it at the same time. I think it's that he, along with many other antis, subconsciously doesn't want to hear the facts because if they knew them, and continued to spout falsities, they would transition from being simply naive as to the facts, to lying.
The last thing I think is interesting, is that on his LSAT prep, he has an odd weak point. My cousin and myself both were very strong (at least in prep) with our logical reasoning sections. I am very pro-gun, and my cousin is pro-gun with borderline opinions on certain gun related topics that often go the way of pro-gunners when he hears both sides of the argument finally.
My brother on the other hand is struggling with the logical reasoning section. From what I understand, for somebody to have such strong verbal and writing ability as he has, and yet be so weak on the logical reasoning section of the LSAT, is unusual. Upon talking to him about it (he consults me b/c it was my strong section), it seems his primary issue is actually in understanding the logic involved, or the progression of the argument.
Questions that he has particular trouble with are "Method of argument" questions - "Point at issue" questions (odd)... anything with formal logic.... "Assumption" questions (big time), and perhaps as bad as anything with formal logic are "paradox" questions.
This may mean nothing at all..... I will grant him that because he is a better test taker, he will still likely end up with a better score on test day than I got.
I just thought these points were worthy of noting and decided to post them. Maybe it can help understand some of the disconnects that exist between us and the antis. Maybe not.
