Guns represent the individual taking care of business. People who are antigun generally have coniptions at the thought of you and me living our lives unhindered.
No, in my experience they honestly believe that there's no "business" to take care of. Until you understand that at the person-to-person level, you will not advance our goals, you will only serve to lump anyone who is "anti-gun" into some nebulous "them liberals" cloud.
I'm playing Johnny-come-lately here, but I have been thinking about this a lot.
Yes, I was lumping, but the idea which I think I failed to convey works at a level deeper than "screw liberals". Each of us depends on certain things happening or not happening in order for our society to work - like getting from point A to point B without getting hurt, or not having to worry about this week's invasion of our country.
There are exactly two ways to go about this. Either let all of the citizenry contribute to creating this situation voluntarily, or choose only certain citizens to tackle the problem. Individual gun ownership represents the first option.
Antis - in my own experience - almost always subscribe to the second option. It is not the individual's responsibility, or even right, to perform tasks which they see as reserved for the government. For whatever reason (perhaps the fact that they're spending 50% of their income on an entity who is supposed to be performing these tasks) they simply want someone who is not them to take care of it, and they want to be able to trust that person.
They don't say this, and this is not always the exact opinion. I'm sure that the president of the Willie Horton Fan Club, or anyone who honestly thinks the need to reform serial rapists outweighs the need not to be raped, would have a different opinion.
But frankly, I'm not interested in that opinion because I think my words are wasted on that mentality. I subscribe to the idea that most antis aren't trying to protect rapists - they just haven't thought it all the way through. At the core, most people will agree that they simply don't want to be raped.
I'm typing this post on a machine running Linux - a real-world case study in how on a completely level playing field where anyone can do great harm, more people always volunteer to create a safe society and will police those interested in harming others.
I have faith that people who go to work, pay their taxes, own homes, and raise families - in other words, voters - fall into the category of people who are interested in a safe society. When I run into one who is an anti for whatever reason, I try to point out that they are at the core one of these people, and that there's a way to have a safe society with no tax increase, no extra cops hired, no extra bureaucracy, an economic boost, and fewer accidental deaths than are caused by swimming pools.
The only catch is that you have to trust your next door neighbor enough to let him own a gun and, if it comes down to it, "take care of business".
So I apologize - I agree that one should not come at it with the stock "liberals suck" argument, and I admit that my wording was poor. Hopefully I've shown that I have thought it through farther than I originally posted, and I also invite everyone to do the same.