First HD gun phenomenon

[jeepmor]

All,

I've been reading a lot of threads regarding women and guns of late. Reading most of it here, I'm admittedly pro-gun biased. I've read of the mindset required to own the gun, the responsibility that comes with it, the pleasures of plinking and practicing, and the frustrations with society in general with current American culture regarding pro and anti stances on firearms.

I posted a thread regarding a woman that was attacked in Wilsonville or vicinity and fortunately did not become a statistic. The perp was not so fortunate. My stance was that single moms should own guns. Many chimed in on both sides of this statment. And I am firm in my position having grown up with a single mom at the reigns. And admittedly, she did not own a gun to my knowledge.

Okay, enough background. What I have not seen much discussion on is the process of deciding you need a gun for home protection. Then the period shortly thereafter where it can dominate your conscience, dreams and psyche in general because of it's primary purpose, self defense. You know, the thoughts of actually having to follow through.

I've always had a rifle, but putting a handgun on my nighstand made me sleep uneasy for a week or two. I had some bad dreams, every o'dark thirty bump woke me up for a while. I almost doubted it was the right thing to do since so much anti programming present in metropolitan environments. I got over it and have now come to a position that I rely on that pistol being there and do sleep better at night because of it.

I imagine this is a normal response to the first SD/HD gun purchase, however, I don't see it communicated as effectively as it should be. I think this very process I went through is what antis are afraid of. That somehow their going to become deranged lunatics on a killing spree simply because they bought the tools to do it.

How do you comfort someone, particularly a woman in this case, that this is a prudent decision. The heady stuff is just part of the curve and it will settle in. I'd like to just stay on the point of this initial "setting in" rather than arguing the minutia of details of why it is or is not a good idea for people.

jeepmor

 

[Leatherneck]

How do you comfort someone, particularly a woman in this case, that this is a prudent decision.

Education and familiarity instill comfort. If the lady is open-minded about the topic, introduce her to some of the topics discussed right here on THR. Show her Pax's website, and others with links there. Then introduce her to guns in reality. 'Splain the four rules, show her how they work, and finally take her to the range. Be patient, and said open-minded person will gradually see the light.

If she happens to be a screechy, liberal anti, don't waste your time.

TC

 

[ZeSpectre]

Remind them of how nervous they were the first time behind the wheel of an automobile.

It's a similar responsiblility for life and property (both yours and others) and it weighs heavily at first until experience is gained.

This is perfectly natural and (as they say) it will pass.

 

[highlander 5]

I was more concerned about my driving at first than owning my first handgun. Took three tries to get my driver license:banghead: :banghead:

 

[ndh87]

when i turned 18 (literaly the day after) i went and bought a mossberg maverick 88 and some assorted ammo. From that night on it has sat next to my bed with 00 Buck, never had a problem sleeping, actually sleep better knowing its there.

 

[mnrivrat]

The heady stuff is just part of the curve and it will settle in. I'd like to just stay on the point of this initial "setting in" rather than arguing the minutia of details of why it is or is not a good idea for people.

This heady stuff (min-set) is part of the exposure and personality of each individual.
I don't think it just settles in, so much as it is overcome perhaps by those that have a fear, or concern of some nature regarding this issue.

If you grew up without firearms in the house and listening to the media demonize them as if they had a mind of their own, you likely have to overcome that by working through the myth vs the reality. I grew upo in a household where firearms were part and parcel with everyday life. They helped put food on the table, took care of sick varmits before they had a chance to harm you, swerved as intertainment during plinking sessions, and gave one the sense of security from preditors who would do you harm.

I started shooting when I was 7 years old - I don't overthink the use of a tool that I have used for over 50 years. It is not something that has a mind of its own, and it will only perform the task assigned to it by the person who is in control of it.

 

[pax]

Jeepmor ~

Wow, excellent post.

I've always had a rifle, but putting a handgun on my nighstand made me sleep uneasy for a week or two. I had some bad dreams, every o'dark thirty bump woke me up for a while. ...

I did that too. For me, the dreams were literally terrifying; I've always been subject to vivid dreams, but the ones triggered by purchasing a firearm and learning to use it were horrifically unpleasant. It helped the day I discovered that such dreams are fairly common among new gun owners, and helped even more when I realized that nighttime dreams are often just the brain's way of processing daytime experiences. Whenever you have a lot of new or unfamiliar experiences, or thoughts you've never had before, your dream activity tends to kick up a bit.

The other thing that helped me was learning to close my eyes and replay the unpleasant dream, but changing the outcome to one that I could accept. Instead of freezing, I would fight back. Instead of the gun malfunctioning, it functioned flawlessly. Instead of shooting a loved one, I followed the safety rules. I would just deliberately change the ending to give me a solid vision of what I wanted to happen. The nightmares gradually turned into merely bad dreams, and I gradually internalized the determination to fight back and prevail.

Gila Hayes discusses some of this process in her book, Effective Defense. Here is a quote from that excellent book:

As you internalize your survival determination, you may experience thoughts, dreams and day-time reveries about assault and self-defense -- envisioning scenarios with varying outcomes. Defined by Ayoob as a process of inoculation, most experience it when beginning to grasp concepts of righteous self-defense. This seems to be the mind's way of dealing with concepts that run counter to our earliest training to "do no harm" or "turn the other cheek." The thoughts and mental images are your social conscience weighing the propriety of your newly-embraced determination to survive. The best advice I can offer is to accept the process. Don't judge yourself harshly for your thoughts. Understand that your mind is judging your new belief that you have the right to survive unmolested against the unfair constraints society has imposed on women.

A student told me that althought she had no nightmares during her first months of carrying a gun, she was weight down with guilt because she thoroughly enjoyed shooting her new gun. It seemed terrible to like something capable of deadly results, she confessed.

Like all of us, she needed the company of like-minded individuals who could share similar experiences and confirm that she had not become evil. Other students have reported uneasiness and feelings of unspecified anxiety, as they grapple with the concept of using deadly force in self-defense, or even just possessing a deadly weapon. Women often report that their friends are horrified by their interest in guns, contributing to their feelings of generalized disapproval.

Back to Jeepmor's post, I agree that this process often is not communicated very effectively. It is possible this is so simply because so much of the material about learning to defend yourself is written for men rather than women, and designed to appeal to more-conventionally masculine learning styles.

How do you comfort someone, particularly a woman in this case, that this is a prudent decision. The heady stuff is just part of the curve and it will settle in. I'd like to just stay on the point of this initial "setting in" rather than arguing the minutia of details of why it is or is not a good idea for people.

Most people are happier when they are surrounded by peers who are facing or who have faced similar life challenges. So you need to help her find a group of like-minded people who have experienced the same process and are willing to talk about it.

You've made a good start by talking about your own internalizing process. But you're only one person, right? And she might suspect that you're humoring her.

If you can point her to written material that covers this stuff (did I mention Gila Hayes' Effective Defense as an excellent resource?), that's another good step. Send her past my website and she'll discover that there are other women who've asked the same basic questions she is just learning to ask, and wondered about the same types of things.

Finally, the absolute best thing for her is to find a like-minded peer group that she can talk to face to face. Best way to do that? Encourage her to sign up for a professional firearms class. Beyond the practical bits about learning to shoot, a good class that meets her needs at the stage she's at will also put her in touch with other women who are in the midst of the same process and who can help allay her fears simply by showing that she is not alone.

pax

 

[vynx]

Huh, never had that dream - I have the one where I wake up and my guns are locked in the safe - then I can't get back to sleep until I bring one out and put it on the nightstand.

 

[Headless]

Huh. I feel entirely more comfortable with several firearms within reach while i am asleep. The only self defense related dream i've had was a home invasion. I had the dream a week after a good friend of mine had his house invaded by 3 armed individuals - in my dream, i heard them kick in the door and was able to arm myself before they reached my bedroom. My friend wasn't so lucky and was surprised, in bed at 10am on a saturday morning by 3 guys with guns to his head. My dream ended much better than his situation, thankfully, and i didn't feel uneasy even upon waking. I don't know if i'm weird or if all people simply react differently to the presence of a firearm, but it certainly doesn't bother my sleep one bit, and dreams involving using it don't either.

 

[sacp81170a]

I wonder if this is why our instructors at the USAF Security Police Academy made us sleep with our M-16's when we were in field training? I didn't have any problems, but some of the troops were from areas where gun ownership was not as common, i.e., NY city, etc. I understand Marines sleep with their rifles in basic. I guess it does help get over some psychological hurdles. (There's also the "gotta be armed at all times" factor in the military, so getting used to the mentality takes a little adjustment.)

 

[jeepmor]

More good stuff

I like the car parallel, I was more nervous about that than firearms and had similar experiences with the responsibility settling in also. This acceptance process combined with an active imagination is normal. I suppose getting married had that affect too and other life changing events like landing the good job that I went to college for.

Admittedly, I had a really good guard dog that I got in college and she passed at 14 years old. She thwarted intruders at least twice and kept a mama bear and two cubs away from the tent one night. Yes, they wanted the cooler, not us, and it was in the truck. But when she passed, I knew I would not have the same security at night and it tipped the scale for me to purchase a handgun.

I've always counted on my dogs as alarms to wake me up and alert me of bumps in the night, but this dog could take care of business, and she did not wake you unless it was serious. Now, I only have alarm dogs, not guard dogs.

Appreciate the sharing of experience on this matter and will use the advice given to help newbies along or change the minds of some antis in regards to the apocalypse occurring shortly after a firearm purchase.

jeepmor

 

[UglyGlock]

Remind them of how nervous they were the first time behind the wheel of an automobile.

be careful of using that one, or she might remind you that she had car 3 accidents the first year she was driving.

 

[Nicky Santoro]

How do you comfort someone, particularly a woman in this case, that this is a prudent decision.

Let her know that if the perp puts her out of the way, he may spend the next several hours "partying" with her kids.

 

[Hemicuda]

I think something's wrong... a gun causing nightmares?

the day I turned 18, (legal age to own a handgun in Michigan) my Dad bought me a Ruger Mk.I .22 pistol, that night, I loaded it up, and put it on my nightstand...

I had the BEST nights sleep in all myt 18 years... the NEXT night was rougher, I realized .22 wasn't enough... SO, I bought a Dan Wesson .357 Mag, (from Dad, with my birthday money...)

I've kept a loaded handgun on the nightstand, and usually, a shotgun leaned next to the bed... and NEVER had a bad dream about it...

 

[Standing Wolf]

Remind them of how nervous they were the first time behind the wheel of an automobile.

I guess I must have missed that part: I was thrilled through and through. Heck, I still enjoy driving, if you'd like to know the truth.

 

[huaco]

I won't deny having thoughts and fantasies about defending myself but no dreams that I recall.

Shooting someone in self defense is the second to last thing I would want to happen in my life, second only to being killed or having someone I care about being killed by someone who has no regard for lives they may take for their own purposes. That thought makes me quite comfortable with it all.

 

[ZeSpectre]

I think something's wrong... a gun causing nightmares?

Some people have a LOT of social programming to overcome and that's a fact!

I know someone who had such a bad case of it that she had a repeating dream/nightmare about unscrewing her hands from her wrists and keeping them locked in a box for weeks after her first self-defense class

She was really upset by the dreams until we figured out what it was about (I.E. she was having a hard time with the concept of ever using force against someone else). Once we got it settled in her head that self-defense doesn't mean you go looking for trouble the dreams went away pretty quickly.

 

[Critter183]

There is an awesome resource for ladies exploring the world of firearms called The 2A Sisters, at http://2asisters.org.

The Liberty Belles is some kind of offshoot from the 2A sisters. Political catfight I guess. hehehe

 

[javacodeman]

My major concern was that somebody would use my handgun against me so I didn't want to leave it out on the nightstand. It turned out that my wife went to visit family shortly after I got my guns, so for 2 weeks I got to sleep with the gun in bed with me underneath her pillow--didn't figure that a BG would be able to get to it (or know where it was) before I could get to it. I slept great. But once she returned, I put it under my pillow pointing away from her but she was concerned with a possible AD/ND or that I'd leave it there for my daughter to find the next morning (I can't CC to work on a military base). So I got a small push button combination safe which is near my bed where the handgun now resides at night. It allows for easy access for people that should have easy access but not for others. Once we got this, both my wife and I slept easy.

I still do from time to time have SD/HD dreams (I've only had my guns since 11 August 06), but I wouldn't classify any of them as nightmares. I do find my mind running through the multitude of (dark) possibilities and also of the need for the 4 rules all of the time.

java

 

[Henry Bowman]

The other thing that helped me was learning to close my eyes and replay the unpleasant dream, but changing the outcome to one that I could accept.

This is a proven technique for dealing with any kind of bad dreams. I use it with my children when they wake up from a bad dream. At first they are reluctant to rehash to subject of the dream. But once they see how it works (they next time they have the same dream it has a good ending) they find it comforting.

And Pax's website (corneredcat.com) has just what you are looking for.

It turned out that my wife went to visit family shortly after I got my guns, so for 2 weeks I got to sleep with the gun in bed with me underneath her pillow

Mmmm. I love the smell of Hoppe's No.9. Hope she did too when she returned.

 

[javacodeman]

Mmmm. I love the smell of Hoppe's No.9. Hope she did too when she returned.

You know she never said anything about it. But I don't have Hoppe's just oozing out of my gun either. Also, the gun wasn't were her head would be (making it closer to the possible smell) but beside me as I had her pillow turned sideways. I'll ask her if she ever noticed the sweet hint of No. 9.