Interesting Pro Vs Anti Experience

S

SHNOMIDO

New member
Just thought this was interesting. Ill jump right into the story

I'm a guest at a persons home. The people are generally anti gun, not full-on Brady insane-o's, but just in general not gun people. The topic of firearms comes up, and i just smile and nod because i don't want to start a big debate when im a guest in someone else's house. Now, the conversation wasn't pro/anti, it was 1911 vs plastic, auto vs revolver, that sort of thing. Pretty strange for anti gun people to be talking about this, but i think they were trying to innocently bring up a topic they thought i would be interested in, just being good hosts making conversation. I bite on the revolver discussion. It goes something like this-

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Me- Revolvers have pros and cons. Im not a big fan for defense, but they can be great for other uses. And they definitely have some pros at defense, its just not for me. Everything has its ups and downs.

Him- Yea, they're more reliable

Me- yea, you gotta jam a wire coat hanger in them to get them to jam, haha

Him- Oh yea, they'll shoot every time. Also, they don't drop the casings.

(both at same time, talking over each other by accident, as sometime happens.)

Me- Oh yea, reloaders love not having to chase their brass around.

Him-Bad guys love not leaving cases at the scene of the crime

The conversation kinda dried up.

I said something about the recovered bullets having more evidence, they said something about fingerprints on the cases. The conversation switched to how pretty 1911's were.
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Just thought this was an interesting view into an innocent casual interaction between a pro and anti. When a simple subject like revolvers holding their spent cases came up, I immediately jumped to reloading, and he immediately jumped to criminals.

I think there's a lesson in this, along the lines of know your audience. When we are trying to bring anti gunners into the light, we have to understand their perspectives on things like fingerprint resistant finishes, easily concealable handguns, suppressors, etc. Not every anti gunner has a political axe to grind, they were just raised with a different perspective. If we can respect and understand this without blowing up, we stand a chance to get them to respect our lifestyle.

Antis wanting to ban guns would be like pros forcing non-gun people to have guns in their home. Its not about the firearms, its about the freedom to choose one way or the other, without forcing the other side to do it your way.
 
Not trying to stir anything up here, but I didn't see anything clearly anti-gun in the conversation. You started by calling him not anti-gun but then described the conversation as pro vs. anti. I'm not sure it was. A "not a gun person" person is probably not going to be very familiar with ordinary gun use, since it's rarely portrayed in the news or movies or even in the newer gun programs on TV. Almost all they see are heroes, cops and bad guys. If you're not one of those, they are not going to share your perspective. Of course I'm just going from my own perspective - I wasn't there - but there are plenty of neutrals who will say things that sound anti on the surface. They don't necessarily mean any harm. I wouldn't let it bother you.

EDIT: Will, I just noticed that I misquoted you and I want to apologize. I stand by the rest of my post, but I was wrong to accuse you of contradicting yourself.
 
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Perhaps he is fishing for information in how to plan a murder? You should tell how silencers make a "hwuph" sound and nothing else. Most killers use them because of this.


Seriously they maybe were trying to make polite conversation about nothing they know about.
 
well, the background of the situation was, i know these people are antis, so it was antis trying to have a neutral conversation.

Just pointing out how something innocent like revolvers not ejecting is viewed so differently by either side of the fence. It made me think and i wanted to share it.

And they are good people, just making an observation. Even good people can have wrong opinions :p
 
You might be surprised how often a chance remark will spark a thought in someone's mind, apparently vanish, and show up years later. I've not only sparked thoughts in others' minds, but had my own mind sparked the same way. I think we remember a lot more unconsciously than consciously.

I think you done good, SHNOMIDO.
 
I think guns are kind of an ‘in’ thing now even among the anti crowd. An advertising person might say they’ve got ‘sizzle’.

Lots of TV shows play up guns. The CSI shows and other cop shows of course, but some lawyer shows too. It could be that they are realizing that gun folk and anti-gun folk can both be interested/fascinated with firearms and what they can do.

Some of my friends have even pointed out some ‘chick lit’ fiction where guns and some technical details about them make an appearance.

I can’t help but think it’s a good thing for more people to learn more about guns.

Also, I think I’ll repeat this, I believe most people, even anti-gun people, are still fascinated with firearms.

And to echo what others have said I think you did just fine at the party. Who knows, you were so reasonable the guy might ask you to take him out to the range some day. (You supply the guns and ammo and get him to pay the range fee!)
 
Having a low-key, respectful conversation may bear fruit later when one of them asks you to take them to the range for the experience.

Be sure to try to end these conversations with that standing invitation.

Seems like it works better to not try to "win" these things in the first round because you'll just be dismissed as a radical fanatic.

Respectfully discuss to a draw, make your offer to let them try it, drop the topic and then let the seed grow.

Once they've actually partaken of the experience, it's a lot easier to win them over.
 
Perspective is an important thing. It is often at the root of arguments between people who otherwise agree. You'll see it here on TFL all the time. On topics where people don't agree, it can be even more critical. It's important to try to understand where people are coming from if you want to have a polite discussion.
 
Over the last 30 or so years I have spent a majority of my time with very liberal folks- with the people I went to school with and later worked with on campuses of the state university system who taught or did research there, at a local public radio and TV station where I have been a volunteer, on committees supporting liberal-minded candidates running for office, organizations that speak for the rights of minorities of several types, etc. For years these folks were nearly unanimously anti-gun, pro Brady and any other effort to limit or destroy private ownership of guns.

But lately- over the last 3 or 4 years- the number of them that have quietly applied for CC permits for SD has grown. Their politics are still convincingly left of center, but their support and use of the 2A is firm. I've had I don't know how many conversations about which handgun, what caliber, how to carry it, etc. More and more, they're "coming out", as CCers, as pro-SD with guns, as supportive of the right of individuals to own and carry guns, if they are not disqualified by a record of violence, drug use or criminal histories as determined by a thorough investigation of their application for a CC permit.

Unfortunately the NRA's identification of itself with right-wing politics and perspectives that have nothing to do with gun rights has prevented these folks, and me, from supporting it. I've written about this on this forum before- the new alignment on pertinent issues is different than it used to be. GOP-Dem, conservative-liberal, et al, as previously defined, are no longer the pigeonholes to which everyone can be assigned. The "undecideds" we hear of in the electorate are not really undecided, they just don't fit the old political stereotypes any more. "Liberal gun-owners" is no longer the oxymoron it once was.
 
Unfortunately the NRA's identification of itself with right-wing politics and perspectives that have nothing to do with gun rights has prevented these folks, and me, from supporting it. I've written about this on this forum before- the new alignment on pertinent issues is different than it used to be. GOP-Dem, conservative-liberal, et al, as previously defined, are no longer the pigeonholes to which everyone can be assigned. The "undecideds" we hear of in the electorate are not really undecided, they just don't fit the old political stereotypes any more. "Liberal gun-owners" is no longer the oxymoron it once was.
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There are reasons for this:

1) We've been fighting the left for half a century on the issue of RKBA. Old habits die hard. It's hard to vehemently oppose a group for so long and then just up and embrace them at the drop of the hat.

2) NRA is a national level lobbying machine. At it's national heart, the Democratic party is anti-gun. Until that changes, you won't see gun lobby support for liberals, they will not alienate "right-wing" politicians whose votes are going their way. Not going to happen, particularly when the political lean of this country is moving right.

That's as deep into politics as I'm going to go. My apologies if it's over the line.
 
Talking about the politics and politicians that are pro-2A or anti-2A must include all the rest of the politics of candidates, because all the rest of a candidate's positions on gun rights are nailed to the totality of right or left wing politics, a situation the NRA begot by dragging irrelevant social, economic and political issues into the gun rights arena. Shame on them!

I'm not saying that anyone, NRA included, needs or ought to embrace liberal politics as related to gun rights. I'm saying that the NRA ought not embrace ANY politics that have no bearing on 2A rights. If all who support the 2A and armed SD came together, our voice would be louder and be released to cross the deep divisions that other, unconnected perspectives and politics unnecessarily generate in the arena of gun rights.

But it's probably too late for the NRA to reduce its footprint to only gun rights, they've so thoroughly identified the NRA with all of right wing politics and perspectives that anyone standing up for 2A rights is immediately branded with that unnecessary baggage. Thus any person and especially any politician who voices support for the 2A has to take on that identity (if not those politics) which increasingly isn't acceptable to them.

Elected representatives are bound to measure the positions and preferences of the majority of those they represent on issues as they come up, and give them voice in their respective legislative bodies- that's how this democracy, which is a republic, ought to work. Ours doesn't so well, we tend to elect people whose positions we like and then ignore them , letting them voice what they think, not what we who elected them think. There are powerful voices on the left that would support their constituents' positive positions on gun rights if they could do so without branding themselves with odious, unconnected politics which are unpopular with those they represent.
 
I take it you guys don't realize that the NRA routinely endores left-wing, liberal pro-gun politicians over "unknown" right-wing candidates, specifically making the claim that they do so because they are a gun rights organization and do not consider other causes in their endorsements?

ie, Harry Reid.

The reason they endorse so few left-wing politicians is because there are so few left-wing politicians who are pro-gun. It's not because the NRA only endorses right-wing causes/candidates.
 
There aren't many left-wing politicians who support the NRA because the NRA has identified itself with right-wing politics well beyond just gun rights issues, and while there are liberal politicians who support gun rights, they won't buy into a wholesale acceptance of a right-wing identity that identifying themselves with the NRA would inevitably engender.

My perspective on the NRA's greater politics in part comes from the very public list of speakers at NRA "conventions":

Charlotte, 2010: Glen beck, Sara Palin

Pittsburgh, 2011: Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Cain, Bachmann

St. Louis: Santorum, Gingrich, Blunt, Bolton, Issa

That's a powerful list of "who's who" of right wing politics, perspectives and candidates, and identifies the NRA with the far right on a much wider list of issues than gun control. Anyone who joins the NRA or speaks of defending 2A rights joins the far right in toto because the NRA has dragged all of what the far right's positions are into the gun rights arena of debate, and that's repulsive to a growing number of "gun toters" and especially politicians who wish to get elected or reelected on positions that are the opposite.

Further, La Pierre sent a rude letter to President Obama who wanted to discuss gun rights issues as an answer to Obama's invitation to a sit-down. That's not good politics, it serves no useful purpose other than to alienate and abdicate any role in coming to a consensus. That's the GOP's M.O., but not good gun legislation tactics.

While the sale of guns has risen a great deal, membership in the NRA (that is, legit dues-paying members, not "freebees" at gun shows, etc) hasn't seemed to follow.

As I said, the politics, the issues around which people will accumulate are changing, and the old pigeon holes are becoming less and less valid. The NRA ought to wise up and stay with us into the future.
 
Further, La Pierre sent a rude letter to President Obama
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Good for La Pierre. Obama is no fried to gun owners or to the 2nd Amendment. Reminds me, I really do need to send in my dues to the NRA for their continuing good work.
 
What many people fail to understand is that the NRA represents what its supporters want it to represent. The fact that the issue of the 2nd Amendment is largely perceived as being aligned with a particular political ideology isn't the fault of the NRA; it's the fault of the gun culture itself.
 
And that is because, as much as the "liberal" members of the gun culture would prefer it not to be, the vast, VAST majority of enthusiastic gun owners and gun rights advocates have always been and continue to be conservative leaning.

Yes, there are liberals in our midst. There are also conservatives who support abortion. That doesn't make guns a "neutral" issue any more than abortion is.

The NRA is a conservative organization because the VAST majority of enthusiastic gun owners are conservative just the same as Planned Parenthood is liberal because the VAST majority of abortion advocates are liberal.

I'm sure there are conservative abortion supporters berating those organizations for alienating conservatives by being too liberal.

Fact is, it ain't so. Certain sets of beliefs commonly go together. Someone who "mixes" strongly disassociated beliefs is the exception, not the rule.

Those people might be turned off by the NRA but most people who hold they same beliefs on other issues are opposed to gun rights anyway.

There are more "liberal gun owners" today than ever before but it is still a minority by far and it's not the NRA's fault.
 
The "liberals" I know who are interested in SD with guns are not a part of the gun culture, not at all, no matter what politics it paints itself with. They are only interested in protecting themselves and those they care about. Their interest in the 2A isn't because guns are a hobby or an obsession for them, or that they love guns, or collect guns, or engage in shooting sports, or that guns make up 95% of who they are- they believe that they are entitled to be armed as a matter of defense, and their interest in guns is limited to what gun would be the most reliable, easiest to carry and most effective, period.

Thus they would join in active support of the 2A if the NRA hadn't made it into a far right love-in which includes so much that has nothing to do with gun rights. That's a lot of people, and growing.

It's too bad that gun rights have to rise or fall with the popularity of the panorama of right-wing (in some cases far right wing) politics, especially when gun rights aren't affected by any other issues therein. Support of gun rights on the left is growing; let's all hope that it succeeds in creating a focus of support divergent from the gun culture because then it would be available to a whole lot more people.
 
The NRA isn't necessarily a one-size-fits all. If there are a bunch of liberal gun owners out there that want to associate with other liberal gun owners, what's stopping them from forming their own group(s)? In fact, I believe there is a group - Pink Pistols - that caters to homosexual gun owners.

Now, if a bunch of communists form a group centered around gun ownership and training - that would probably be a militia - nothing wrong with that necessarily its a free country, so far.
 
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