My new co-worker is an Anti!!

Glenn said, "You have to have the personality substrate to build upon. Some dudes are just "sheeple". '

Bingo! That's it! I was just trying to think why it was relatively easy for hubby and I to go from never considering the matter--neither pro nor con--to being very, very pro RBKA. We're homeschoolers and have had a few years of practice in de-conditioning ourselves from
"sheeople thinking," so when we read the facts (thanks to John Lott), it was a fairly simple switch.

Thanks, Glenn!!

Danger Dave, my only comment to you would be to remember that you're in a fairly long-term relationship, here. You don't need to convert him immediately. Take the longer approach, and you'll be less likely to totally offend him.

Someone's comment about anti's being afraid of guns or never having handled them before is a valid point. I'll second the recommendation on taking him shooting. Target shooting is fun! And when he sees that the folks at the range look 'normal,' that'll help, too.

-- Denise
 
This is all good advice. For a little different suggestion, off the direct subject of what is good gun ideas to bring up, consider reading a copy of (I'm serious here now) "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Check it out. One of my better
$7.00 investments this year.
 
"How to Win Friends and Influence People" is an EXCELLENT book. One of the better ones ever written on how to deal with people AS people, and on their level. I would also recommend it to anyone who has never read it.

I believe that is where the tactic of asking questions is covered. In any conversation, the person who is asking the questions is in control. The questions posed about defending family and/or self while inside your home is definitely the place to start. If you get a "no" there, know for certain that you are fighting a losing battle and waste no more energy. But I have used that line of questioning before with amazing results.

I have a number of co-workers who are anti-gun, which came as a shock to me as I am in the Navy. They are of the mindset that the police and military ought to be armed, but that the general population ought to have sporting arms only. Needless to say, we've had some pretty good go-rounds about that subject in my shop! I finally stopped carrying a copy of the Consitution around with me when most of them finally realized that I was just a lot better informed on it that they were. Changed a few minds in the process, too.

The bottom line is that you have to lead the person with whom you are conversing to the place where you want him to go. Ask question after question, and allow him to make the proper discovery on his own. If you do that, using tact, then you will have permanently converted him. Forcing your opinion down his throat will only alienate him and cause him to put up barriers even stronger than the ones currently in place. Patience is needed.

I wish you well.
 
Gwinnydapooh said: <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"No, of course you don't have the right to defend yourself if you have to kill somebody else to do it!"
(Me, incredulously) "You mean I'm obligated to die, and let my family die?"
"Yeah, if that's the only way to keep from killing somebody!"[/quote]

I've run into this before, and sometimes, you can defuse 'em, sometimes you can't. The best course of action goes like this:

"So let me see if I understand you correctly-I, a good and moral citizen and provider, am supposed to sacrifice my life, and maybe the lives of my family or other innocents, in order that a violent criminal's career might be successful? How is that supposed to make the world any better?"
"Well, at least you won't be contributing to the violence."
"But that choice was taken from me when the crook initiated his attack on me. The only option one has at that point is what part one is going to play in the violence-as a victim, or as someone who refused to be vicitimzed."

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Passive good will never overcome dynamic evil.

------------------
Shoot straight regards, Richard at The Shottist's Center http://forums.delphi.com/m/main.asp?sigdir=45acp45lc

[This message has been edited by 45King (edited February 14, 2000).]
 
If you feel that you must, you can try, this can get touchy, to inform. This may or may not work.

Perhaps a better way to go, and this depends at least in part, on yourself, is as follows.

If you do not inflict your unsolicited views on others, you then might expect the same courtesy from them. Unfortunately, people being what they are, common sense and ordinary courtesy are often lacking. One sometimes finds altogther to much "common", and nowhere near enough "sense".
 
I hear what you're saying, Alan. This guy and I are good friends and had known each other awhile; I innocently mentioned that I was going shooting over the weekend little suspecting how much that would frighten him. He now acts like we're friends but he's keeping a close eye on my sanity. It makes me more sad than anything--before he found out that I shoot guns, he thought I was an OK guy. Now that I act exactly the same way but he knows I have a possession in common with some criminals, I have become equivalent to those criminals in his eyes. Meanwhile I am forced, once again, to choose between friends and doing what is right.
 
Here's some material:
GUN CONTROL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the newest piece of evidence supportive of that contention that guns in the hands of Americans are overwhelmingly a net benefit to society, a forthcoming study of 15 years' data by University of Chicago researchers shows that "1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly" if currently restrictive states would reform their laws to allow more mentally-competent, law-abiding adults to carry concealed handguns for protection outside the home.1


1 Lott JR and Mustard DB. "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns." Journal of Legal Studies. January 1997 forthcoming.

Without exception, review of all 14 studies of defensive gun use suggest that protective uses of guns by Americans number 1 to 2.5 million annually.8 The largest-scale, most comprehensive study of protective gun use, Kleck & Gertz's National Self-Defense Survey, suggests about 2.5 million protective uses by adult Americans against human attackers annually - lives saved, injuries prevented, medical costs averted, and property protected. Protective uses against animals and protective uses by teenagers or children were not included in this study. About 400,000 of these gun defenders believe that they would almost certainly have lost their lives if they did not have a gun for protection. Even if 90% of these gun defenders were mistaken, the number of lives saved using guns still outnumbers the lives taken using guns by thousands.
In about 98% of these protective uses the gun is not even fired. In only about 0.1% (one-in-a-thousand) of the protective uses is the attacker killed.9 This exposes the fundamental flaw in the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)-sponsored research claiming that "a gun owner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder"10 - gun defenders apprehend or repel attackers a thousand times as often as they kill them.


9 Suter EA Waters WC 4th Murray GB Hopkins CB Asiaf J Moore JB Fackler M Cowan DN Eckenhoff RG Singer TR et al. "Violence in America - Effective solutions." J Med Assoc Ga June 1995; 84(6):253-263.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Piercing the False Claims of Brady Law Benefits

Arguably the most prominent Brady Law supporter, President Clinton, stated "Sixty thousand people with criminal records have not been able to buy handguns because of the passage of the Brady Billx."16 and "It has made us a safer country."17 The President's remarks encapsulate all that is wrong with his and countless similar claims of Brady Law benefits because:
* the GAO survey,18 the source of President Clinton's projected figure, stated that it's Brady Law sample data could not be projected to the nation at large as President Clinton has done to arrive at the "Sixty thousand" figure

18 United States General Accounting Office. "Report to the Committee on the Judiciary - House of Representatives - Gun Control: Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act." GAO/GGD-96-22 Washington DC: USGAO. January 1996. hereinafter "GAO survey."


* the GAO survey shows that approximately half of the individuals fingered by Brady Law background checks are not individuals disqualified from gun ownership19. As of the date of the GAO survey only 7 criminals detected in the Brady check had been prosecuted and not all had been convicted and imprisoned.

19 GAO survey Chapter 2.

For more data, go to: http://home1.gte.net/bforeman/gunndx.htm

Cowboy
 
Some how some college kids managed to rent the house next to mine,they came out and introduces themselves and ask if there was any crime in the neighborhood,I told them no it was a quiet bedroom community but I also casually mention that I carry a pistol and participate in the shooting sports,slowly you could see there expressions change on their faces as if I had just told them I was a member of the local leper community. Now they go in an out barely waving!

------------------
RosieProtestPage
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top