Good talking point against Antis

[ilbob]

I doubt you will make much headway with people who have strong opinions one way or the other. That is just the nature of human beings.

OTOH, inviting them to go shooting with you a few times might work. You might find a new shooting buddy.

 

[AlexanderA]

I doubt you will make much headway with people who have strong opinions one way or the other. That is just the nature of human beings.

The antigun slogans have to be translated into concrete legislative proposals. The "Moms Demand Action" are not going to be the ones writing the bills. This is where the serious discussions are going to take place. If you can prove that something is unworkable, the key legislators (even those that are ostensibly antigun) are going to listen. After all, in 2013, Sen. Feinstein dropped her idea to bring semiautomatics under the NFA when it was pointed out to her how unworkable that was. (Biden has resurrected that idea in his platform. He will learn better.)

 

[ojibweindian]

That's actually a good talking point, but don't couch this as a threat to personally not comply (that always rings hollow). What you're saying is another way of saying what I said, above:

When you sit down with antigunners, try to walk them through the consequences of what they're proposing. Compliance is going to be a big part of that, but don't make it personal. A gross reduction in the number of guns extant is one of their goals. Point out that if they succeed in that, it's also going to skew the distribution of the guns that remain. They're not going to like where the guns would be after an attempted confiscation.

Each time I've had that conversation, it invariably ends up with "fingers in the ears". Additionally number of them are actually OKAY with seeing us shot dead; I've personally been told that on numerous occasions, and, no, I didn't invoke the "from my cold dead hands" argument.

 

[v35]

Each time I've had that conversation, it invariably ends up with "fingers in the ears".

I don't intend to derail this thread because I completely agree those are good talking points. They are enlightening statistics that definitively illustrate how complex a subject this is to anyone actually interested.

However, "talking points" are only as good as the nature of a conversation. If someone is not interested in having that conversation, it's just a waste of time. The discussion ends. Nothing is gained, other than perhaps some time devoted to more productive tasks.

This is what gets me curious: as gun owners, we are presupposed to thinking of what's next. As in, you buy a gun and then what. Do you carry it? What are the consequences of carrying it? What are the consequences of using it? How to store it. How to transport it. How to maintain it. The list goes on and on but the point is we think about those things. By and large, anti-gun people don't. They just want them gone, as though some magical sweeping legislative effort would accomplish that.

Ok, so let's examine the consequences of such a magical sweeping legislative effort. Does some agency get saddled with the task of going house to house, apartment to apartment, search warrant in hand? Which agency, and with what force of law? How does it happen? What are the consequences of noncompliance; of failure. Again the list goes on and on seemingly without end, and as you wrote "it will not go the way they think."

And there's the impenetrable obstacle: it requires thought, as in thinking about Step 2, Step 3... Step n. "They" don't do that. Discussion over.

I'm genuinely interested in what it is that makes "us" vs. "them" so different, but that gets off-topic which is not my intent.

 

[AlexanderA]

Each time I've had that conversation, it invariably ends up with "fingers in the ears".

A lot of that has to do with general polarization ("tribalism"), of which guns are only a part. They see you as their social enemy, and so they pay no attention to anything you say. If they saw you as part of their social cohort, they would be more willing to listen to you on one specific thing (guns). This underlines the importance of building bridges to different social groups, and reducing polarization. We've had this discussion before. Guns should not be exclusively a "right wing" phenomenon, but increasingly, they are.

 

[jmr40]

This is good information to know and with the right people may make a difference. Suicide is a very serious problem in this country. It happens a lot more than most of us realize. They almost never list suicide as the cause of death when you read death notices or obits in the paper. But a lot are. Firearms are the preferred method, but a determined person will find other ways.

Suicide prevention is the real solution. Hopefully when presented with facts such as these some of these people will start using their efforts in the right direction.

On a related note here is another good talking point that ties in with the above link. This link lists the suicide rates of all countries in the world. It is based on suicides/100,000 residents. The USA ranked 34th in 2016 when this info was compiled. There are many of the 33 countries with higher rates where firearms are almost impossible to access. Countries such as Japan and South Korea have a higher suicide rate than the USA. Israel, where guns are common, ranked 147th.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

 

[LiveLife]

There are no good talking points against hoplophobes; they're too bat crap crazy.

You start with "When 911 doesn't work, what do you do?" ...

Then add, "What would you tell a rape victim? Work on her negotiation techniques to prevent another rape?" ...

And then, "What would you do to prevent you being raped?" and "What would you do if gang bangers are kicking your door down?" ...

And provide reminder that during natural disasters like hurricanes, etc., there have been incidents of robbery, rape and murder and police couldn't respond as they were unable to maintain law and order for several weeks, even with the assistance of National Guard. (Yeah, the media stopped covering crimes committed during natural disasters after hurricane Andrew)

 

[ojibweindian]

You start with "When 911 doesn't work, what do you do?" ...

Then add, "What would you tell a rape victim? Work on her negotiation techniques to prevent another rape?" ...

And then, "What would you do to prevent you being raped?" and "What would you do if gang bangers are kicking your door down?" ...

And provide reminder that during natural disasters like hurricanes, etc., there have been incidents of robbery, rape and murder and police couldn't respond as they were unable to maintain law and order for several weeks, even with the assistance of National Guard. (Yeah, the media stopped covering crimes committed during natural disasters after hurricane Andrew)

I've used those arguments. When considered by a person who isn't hyper-emotional, those points do much to get them to think about the validity of our position.

My personal experience, though, has usually been with people who ARE hyper-emotional.

For instance: "When 911 doesn't work, what do you do?" is countered by "I have a dog", or "My ADT system will call...". I then say "A dog can be shot, your alarm system disabled, and all this can happen within 90 seconds. Then the bad guys have a good 10 minutes or longer to do to you whatever they want." Their response, generally, is "You're paranoid and I don't want to live my life in constant fear, like you do". And their responses are not phrased in a genteel manner.

Pressing on at that point has been a waste of time.

 

[aarondhgraham]

Pressing on at that point has been a waste of time.

And, as I stated earlier,,,
It annoys the pig.

Aarond

.

 

[.38 Special]

Here is a study showing Republicans kill themselves more often than Democrats.

In today's polarized world, an anti-gunner would probably find that a compelling reason to advocate for more guns.

 

[hso]

Well this has wandered off the rails.