Want to Understand Anti Gun People?

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Deus Machina said:
Anti-gunners are still human. Humans of all courses are prone to their own personal logic, lack thereof, and stupidities.
You can't paint them under a blanket cause, you need to understand their personal ones and, yes, you do need to understand them if you're trying to convert them. You can't combat what you don't know.
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I agree with you, and others who have posted here, that if your goal is to convert someone from an anti gun position to at least a neutral position, you need to understand their reasons for their position. I further agree their reasons are varied. My OP was partly serious, but mostly intended as humorous. Converting someone is a big job if their feelings are based on something other than fear. Often, simply getting someone out to a range with hearing protection and a .22 and first showing them and then teaching them the basics is enough when fear is the primary reason for their anti gun position.

For those with other reasons for an anti gun position, the job can be very hard.
 
OK, it's like the joke going around, "how do you know today if someone is homosexual, bi-sexual, pan-sexual, asexual, etc.? Wait ten minutes and they'll tell you." Same for vegetarians and vegans.

Anyway, today everyone gets their info from social media, and what do they see when it comes to guns? Not how people are enjoying hunting or target shooting or gun collecting. What they see is another nut job killed 50 people in a shooting spree.

Seriously, if that was all I knew about guns, I'd probably want 'em banned, too.
 
One reason I come here is because of....well reason....yea I know coming from me saying that. I like to think this board has a little more....was going to say educated, informed....but lets go with well rounded people on it.

And yet I read some posts on here and go.....you have got to be kidding me....do you really think that?

Like the poster said there are almost as many reasons for every position as there are people. And I bet if you looked you could find people in the most extreme group on one side or the other, that just do not fit that mold. Ban all guns one group might say, but I bet there is someone in that group that thinks....well, a single shot shot gun would be ok to keep....and on and on......an pistol is bad but a revolver is ok....and they could even know that the revolver can hold as many boolits as the automatic.

One thing people on "our" side think is they are all idiots on the other side, this is pretty far from the truth, sure some might not know what a pistol grip is, or muzzle break....or brake....or beak....we have all seen the videos. And just like everyone on our side is not a flag waving, hood wearing, god fearing, bible thumping simpleton that has more guns then teeth. Both sides have very smart people....if not we would not be here now, this would have been long settled by the smarter of the two groups.

Back to the OP....you want to understand gun people.....do you really want to know. F_NG TALK TO THEM. Really talk to them, educate them, do not be pushy....it can be very hard, and you may not change their mind and he may never change yours....but unless you really need to talk. Really the issue with most of them is they do not know the TRUTH. This can be a very hard pill to down.....after (for some) a lifetime of anti gun being in their face....they have no basis in the other side.....and many don't want to see the pro gun side past what they have had drilled into their heads.......You have to have the art of communication down.....and if you can get past the well I never licked both fingers and stuck them on the back panel of a breaker box (yes it happened to me) I know guns are bad. If you can work around that, you can perhaps not change their mind, but educate a little.

I have a few stories on people I have converted, perhaps I will start a thread.....waiting on a web server to rebuild....perhaps after I drop the old one I will post somethig up.
 
You're not really going to touch an anti-gunner with rhetoric. They live in a world of social norms where gun owners are evil, a picture painted by years of watching CNN and reading major media. It's no longer argued what we are. It's an assumed reality. To them, when you say you're in the NRA and own a gun they don't see a nickel's worth of difference between that and being in the KKK or the Neo-Nazis.

The best thing you can do is just act like a normal person. That you have as much education, as much humanity, as much decency, will stun them, and leave them with more to assimilate than they can easily manage.

Once you start arguing, you lose everything you've gained. They'll simply mutter, "Everytown for Gun Safety taught us how to handle that one."

The one argument I sometimes drop is "That while I understand you believe the world would be a better place without guns, in that world, I would already be dead, starved to death, killed by predators. I hope you understand that this better world that can't include me is an abstraction that might be difficult."
 
ChanceMcCall said:
if your goal is to convert someone from an anti gun position to at least a neutral position, you need to understand their reasons for their position.

For those with other reasons for an anti gun position, the job can be very hard.
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Actually, we don't "convert" anyone rather the person "chooses" to change their perspective. And this conversion could be rather easy.

What has worked the best for me to "convert" anti-gun to pro-gun is to present factual reality of inability for police to provide immediate response and protection when someone is put in immediate danger. I don't try to convert anyone rather provide information and allow the anti-gun person to process that information and let the person arrive at a new appropriate response/course of action.

Once the anti-gun person realizes the police cannot provide personal protection and the act of self defense and self protection now falls on the shoulders of the anti-gun person, everything changes as right to self defense and protection becomes a higher priority than anti-gun agenda. They may still support the general tighter "regulation" of firearms but will essentially change from anti-gun to pro-gun.

Over the decades, I have experienced this first hand many times, especially when federal judge ruled California prison system guilty of overcrowding and released a bunch of inmates to communities. As crime rate increased again after years of decline, people working in my office reached the point where they were personally burglarized/robbed or knew someone who were. One by one, gun ownership increased, even by anti-gun people.

One day when I arrived at work, I was met by several female coworkers who were well known anti-gun supporters. Crime rate in the city increased to the point where now they were affected personally or knew someone who were. They asked if I would take them to the range and teach them how to shoot as they knew I competed in USPSA matches. Pleasantly shocked, I welcomed their invitation and taught them defensive shooting techniques - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-help-me-speed-up.824618/page-4#post-10902245

Within a few weeks, they all purchased pistols and many of them ended up getting conceal carry permits.
 
hso said:
It is an oversimplification to decide that any one pejorative reason is why some folks are anti as it is that some are pro.

Suffice it to say that starting from the pejorative is the loser's starting point.
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I've been called a lot of racial pejoratives by anti-gun cultists.

I think I'm going to go with observed reality rather than wishful thinking.
 
bds said:
To me, anti-gun people imposing their will on rights of gun owners is "bullying" that must be stopped.
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Racially invidious anti-gun laws are the Jim Crow and anti-sodomy laws of the 21st century. They're a way to harm people different from those proposing them. That's one of their primary purposes, secondary only to a wish to control not guns, but PEOPLE.
 
Deus Machina said:
Anti-gunners are still human. Humans of all courses are prone to their own personal logic, lack thereof, and stupidities.
You can't paint them under a blanket cause, you need to understand their personal ones and, yes, you do need to understand them if you're trying to convert them. You can't combat what you don't know.
Click to expand...
ISIS, the Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church are human too.

If you don't believe that humans can (and frequently do) have profoundly evil motivations for the things they do, you haven't read any history.
 
Keith G said:
Not all anti gun people have problems with their sexuality or are immature.

Not all republicans are pro gun.

Not all Dems are anti gun.

Not all of any particular race is bad/good.

Not all anti gun people are nut jobs.

Not all pro gun people are nut jobs.

I could go on adnausem.

The point is people and issues are complex. Each person comes to every issue with their own history/experiences/baggage. To say that “all” of anything is any certain way is a very simple minded way of thinking. It’s grade school thought, and really isn’t going to move any issues forward.
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But ALL anti-gun people are incapable of comprehending the basic facts of reality.
 
Some people hate and fear firearms because they have experienced someone taking their own life, violent street crime, or have relatives/friends/ or acquaintances affected by it. Some fear firearms because of what they have been fed via the media that often equates firearm ownership by ordinary people as a mental illness or a latent desire to be a criminal. The media often downplays or excludes long records of violent crime, threats, etc. by criminals in order for the narrative of "they just snapped" and the availability of a firearm when they snapped made it happen. The object rather than the person is blamed and thus the object must go. I suspect that the elites fear common arms among the people because of what they have done and what they might want to do to an unarmed populace.

For example, ethnic, political, and racial arguments have been used in the past to deprive common folks of the right to be armed. The South tried to restrict firearm access for blacks before and after the Civil War and New York's Sullivan Act did so in New York to exclude firearm ownership from new immigrants such as the Irish and Italians who were blamed as congenitally violent. The Sullivan Act was then followed by the Brits in trying to disarm union supporters and Reds. Once enacted, these laws will always drift into control by the elites over who can own a firearm.
 
bds said:
One day when I arrived at work, I was met by several female coworkers who were well known anti-gun supporters. Crime rate in the city increased to the point where now they were affected personally or knew someone who were. They asked if I would take them to the range and teach them how to shoot as they knew I competed in USPSA matches. Pleasantly shocked, I welcomed their invitation and taught them defensive shooting techniques - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-help-me-speed-up.824618/page-4#post-10902245

Within a few weeks, they all purchased pistols and many of them ended up getting conceal carry permits.
Click to expand...

This doesn't make them "gun people", just people with a gun.
 
Deanimator said:
ISIS, the Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church are human too.

If you don't believe that humans can (and frequently do) have profoundly evil motivations for the things they do, you haven't read any history.
Click to expand...

I never said they can't or don't. It's indeed an extremely common thing.
The thing is, an extremely small number of people actually think of themselves as the bad guy. They either think they're justified or working for the greater good, and while the actions are undeniably evil, the intent may be evil or just plain stupid. These often overlap.
Others think what they do is justified simply because it's them. This may be due to someone actually being a psycho- or sociopath, but more often it's just 'justified' because they're not those other guys. You have to put down a staunch resistance while making it clear and understandable why that's not acceptable so they're not the only voice of influence.

My point is, in the political or logical arena that the anti-gun type field, you have to understand why they want to ban them if you plan to combat it. "No, you can't take my guns!" doesn't do anything but sound stubborn, justified as it may be. "No, banning firearms won't solve anything and can compound problems, for these reasons" can educate the people that want to through ignorance or fear, or at least keep the logical but misinformed ones from closing up and ceasing to listen. Actual logic can come around, given access to information.
Of course, the people that push gun control for the sake of control want just that. It's a matter of resisting them and preventing them from building a following from the well-meaning but ignorant that don't see they just want the power.
 
Texas10mm said:
I doubt they are even "pro-gun". If push came to shove they would probably fold like a cheap tent in a hurricane.
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-You might be surprised. By my experience, they are as likely to not know when to stop shooting as to know when to start - if they remember that they are armed at all.

-Also by my experience, these ladies may be pro-gun for themselves, but not for you... .
 
theotherwaldo said:
-Also by my experience, these ladies may be pro-gun for themselves, but not for you... .
Click to expand...

That's the most common one. "Well, I'm fine with banning X, because I have no need for X" and "I know I can trust me with it, but not other people."
It's a matter of either mistrust of others or misunderstanding one's self and projection, which are kind of missing the point.

On the other hand, I've found that teaching someone to handle a gun can in just as many cases make them realize it's just an object when they find out it didn't instantly make them want to go rob a nun.
 
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Tommygunn said:
I don't believe modern psychologists place a lot of credibility in ol' Sigmund these days ..... but many antigun people do seem to have inordinate fears of armed people and weapons, and often are "projecting" their own perceived insufficiency especially into others.
And even that is not always true ....
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And on the flip side don’t many gun enthusiasts display an inordinate fear of confiscation, the deep state, Armageddon, and subjugation if deprived of their guns? What foolishness are they projecting?
 
rpenmanparker said:
And on the flip side don’t many gun enthusiasts display an inordinate fear of confiscation, the deep state, Armageddon, and subjugation if deprived of their guns? What foolishness are they projecting?
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Anyone who talks about an "inordinate fear of confiscation" probably views confiscation with anticipation rather than dread.
 
fpgt72 said:
One reason I come here is because of....well reason....yea I know coming from me saying that. I like to think this board has a little more....was going to say educated, informed....but lets go with well rounded people on it.
.
Click to expand...

I agree this board does seem to reflect more measured thinking than most. Perhaps it is time for this board to share their collective intelligence and experience to come up with a detailed plan for moving the anti gun people who can be moved to a pro gun position. What do you think folks?

I would contend that people who espouse anti gun attitudes are driven by different emotions, some of which can be dealt with, and some that can't, and it is important to understand the difference.

Those we stand little chance of changing:

  • Those who gain money and power advocating for more gun control. This would include politicians whose constituents who are anti gun as well as the ladies running The League of Women Voters, et al whose main gain may be social acceptance and prominence.
  • Those who actually believe that a strong central government that controls everything, or almost everything, is the only path to Utopia. This can also include those who think they will be one of the people in charge, or who will benefit in some other way.
  • Those that lack the intellectual capacity or are intellectually lazy enough to not care enough about what is correct or accurate, let alone original thinking. We see this all the time in people who vote straight tickets without consideration and in people who never bother to vote in the first place.
feel free to add more...

Those whose minds we might change:

  • People who pride themselves on their intellect and work to operate with facts rather than feelings.
  • People who have little or no experience with weapons and don't understand the legitimate purpose of them.
  • People who have had some negative experience with weapons either first-hand or second hand. As another poster mentioned, a family suicide for example.
feel free to add more...

Strategies?:

Example: My wife and I were friends with another couple and we did a lot of socializing. The wife came to me and confided that her husband owned a gun and even though it was in the attic it scared her to death. She asked me to explain guns to her so she could safely touch it in case she had to move it. The gun was a collector's item of some value which the husband had acquired as part of a business deal and he was somewhat fascinated by it but also knew it should not be shot or handled very much. He had zero gun experience. I took both of them to a range and taught them safe gun handling with an empty gun and them moved them to the range with a .22 revolver and a .22 semi automatic using reactive as well as paper targets. My wife demonstrated while I explained each step. Finally both of them wanted to try shooting. My wife and I coached both of them to the point they could do OK with slow, close range, shooting. That made it fun and they began to compete against each other. Six months later they had joined the NRA and taken a number of NRA sponsored courses. They now own more than 15 guns, have concealed carry permits, and regularly shoot trap. Their kids have been through the age appropriate NRA programs and also actively shoot. She is very active in Well Armed Women as well as the NRA.

They are both very smart people who pride themselves on gathering facts and information when making decisions. They are also very competitive people. Their anti gun attitudes (mostly hers) were strictly based on fear and ignorance. Knowing that made it easier.

feel free to add your examples of successes and failures...

We have some very smart people here so maybe we have some of the answers. Chime in.
 
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