I hear quite often in here that the best thing to do with anti-gun persons is to take them shooting. In most cases the hope is that being guided out of their ignorance by a (assumed) safe and knowledgeable shooter will overcome all previously held biases transforming them from gun grabbers to shooters if not punting them straight past mere shooters and into gun ownership.
Having recently gone through that journey with a friend (I was the taker, who took him shooting), here are a few pointers.
1: as should be obvious, a person’s openness and relationship with you are most important here. Someone may go through the motions just to shut you up but not be willing to actually see the world into which you are immersing them. Also, they have to know you well enough to be willing to ask themselves, “what about this activity would appeal to someone I otherwise respect but disagree with on this subject?”
2: have a goal that they wish to accomplish. In my case it was hunting. He is into nature and not a fan of the industrialized food process, knew I opted out of that for my family’s meat supply, and wanted to learn what goes into turning animals to dinner from start to finish. That goal is the only reason he ever got near a gun. His desire to accomplish it, not my desire to change his mind, is what kept him engaged in the activities related to it including learning to shoot.
3: be willing to spend. I wanted him to do this, and it cost me over a hundred rounds. Luckily a lot of components were given to me shortly before this so I was only out powder. Still, it was worth it to me. If he had to find and buy loaded ammo, during panic/pandemic scarcity, that would be another reason to quit.
4: realize that gun acceptance is on a spectrum. He is now a gun owner, but still looks down on those who own what he thinks are assault rifles (except me for some reason, I guess because he knows me enough to know I’m a pacifist). We justify things in our minds however we need to do so. In his mind, he owns one rifle, it is for putting food on the table, and that is okay… but others have different reasons which may or may not be okay. We all do this to some degree. Not necessarily with guns. We may think less of “converting,” and instead look at it as sharing time with people because we are decent human beings.
5: have a plan. Many think blasting away is fun, but it seems pointless to many. We rarely stick to things that are pointless. My strategy was to show him a good group (shot by me) and challenge him to work toward that. At whatever range he can do that is his hunting distance. He practiced until he did so at fifty yards. The point is that he kept practicing which kept him shooting (and even wanting to shoot).
In my case, he shot a deer at about twenty yards on opening day with a borrowed rifle, and then promptly went home and made an offer on the rifle because it felt good to accomplish a goal. Put differently, a strategy based on working toward something paid off well. Use this or don’t accordingly.
