Non-gun folks just don't know any better

[roadchoad]

I've been spending a lot of time countering anti-gun comments on Facebook lately. Before you dismiss this thread on accountof the FB connection, realize i am only connected with close friends and family on there, so these are all people I see at least once in a while in my busy life. I value these people and would not alienate them over a difference in opinion on firearms. We all seem to see how fast the Antigun and non-gun crowd gets their "info" via social media. Gun owners should really be more receptive to using the same channels.

What has become clear is that a non-gun person really has no idea what laws are already in place at the federal, state, and local levels. I've found that I have been able to use impartial data from CDC, ATF,FBI, and other websites to disprove misinformation or just inform someone of a current law that covers something they've suggested. Someone mentioned that background checks were needed, I pointed to NICS. Another seemed to think that a Walmart AR was fully auto, I explained the difference. One seemed to think an AR needed special training to operate, I explained the similarities between all action types.

Most of hese folks were just repeating the rhetoric they've heard without versifying any info or thinking critically about it. Overall, when the facts and logic were explained clearly and calmly, without sarcasm, defensiveness, or analogies, the non-gun person abandoned their attack on firearms.

 

[mg.mikael]

Most of these folks were just repeating the rhetoric they've heard without versifying any info or thinking critically about it.

Unfortunately, just because you changed their mind for the moment this stupidity(what else could it be?) shows they'll go right back to repeating anti gun rhetoric without the facts again and again. These people are more swayed by emotion and the popular ideas in public then any facts, data, and common sense.

 

[RX-178]

Educate them the best you can, and hope they can educate others with it. The knowledge that you give them may not change their views, but an honest person would have to bring it up when others less informed than them make such statements.

It seems pointless, but it's something that we can do, and we should do it.

 

[Deanimator]

I spent a few minutes at work today correcting received stupidity.

Anti-gunners use tactics IDENTICAL to those used by Holocaust revisionists and deniers. They:

• seek out the ignorant and the gullible
• tell half-truths
• tell outright lies
• deceive with figures
• repeat the same half-truths and lies over and over, trying to make them "common knowledge"
• masquerade as "normal" people
• use multiple aliases to simulate "popularity"

It's a long and hard fight, but the alternative is to leave a pack of pathological liars to define "truth" to suit their own malicious ends. Some people are content to allow that to happen.

I'm not.

 

[barnbwt]

What has become clear is that a non-gun person really has no idea what laws are already in place at the federal, state, and local levels.

There is probably no other issue more lacking of technical expertise on the national policy stage. I would say banking, since it is far more complicated, but many of our leaders are financial dudes and even more have enough money to know how the financial system works. We've got people mistaking basic jargon daily, something I've not seen on other issues (i.e. confusing "miscarriage" with "abortion" or "Israel" with "Iraq"), and politicians openly and unembarrassingly expressing utter ignorance for the very policies they pen (case in point, Ms. Feinstein's "shoulder folding thingy" barrel shrouds).

What is probably more important than even correcting people, let alone arguing positions with them, is to emphasize how important it is they know what the heck they're ranting about. No one likes to feel ignorant/uninformed, so that tack should even work on an emotional level for people who don't think logically. When people bother to educate themselves on firearms, not "gun issues" they invariably moderate their illogical oppostion.

Then again, you will always run across people whose computer works such that the stronger they feel something, the more right it is. A logical person would tell you immediately that something can only be correct or false, and that no amount of "feelings" will get you through first grade mathematics (but perhaps freshman Rhetoric).

Anti-gunners use tactics IDENTICAL to those used by Holocaust revisionists and deniers

It's probably more helpful to describe them as the mere propogandists they are, than to drag Nazis into the ring. Less likely to shut down discussions and threads, too.

TCB

 

[Deanimator]

It's probably more helpful to describe them as the mere propogandists they are, than to drag Nazis into the ring. Less likely to shut down discussions and threads, too.

I've been dealing with both for 20+ years. The tactics are absolutely IDENTICAL.

 

[RX-178]

The problem is that trying to discredit the propagandists as a whole is at best, only partially successful, and even when it is, we end up mostly preaching to the choir.

What we really have to do, is actually conduct a calm, rational debate.

Listen (or read, as the case may be) carefully to what they're saying, identify the rationale of their thinking. Try to empathize with it, which is the REALLY difficult part, especially if they're being irrational. It's incredibly tempting (especially when you know you're right!) to say 'that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.', but your goal should be to approach it in a manner like 'I think I can see why that makes sense to you, BUT...'

The main thing is, if you take this kind of approach, you're STILL not particularly likely to convert the person you are debating with, but you're MUCH more likely to be seen by others reading as the person making more sense.

 

[Deanimator]

The main thing is, if you take this kind of approach, you're STILL not particularly likely to convert the person you are debating with, but you're MUCH more likely to be seen by others reading as the person making more sense

It's almost always an utter waste of time to try to "convert" a movement anti-gunner. Theirs is the "faith" of the religious zealot, completely divorced from fact or reason. I don't even waste my time.

What I do is destroy their arguments in detail, and to ESPECIALLY catch them in any and every lie I can. Being a liberal, I have no problem at all attacking them from the LEFT. That almost INVARIABLY catches them flat footed. Their responses usually make them look shifty, dishonest and hypocritical.

Movement anti-gunners are nothing but a means to an end for me. I want the average person to know that they're not just being lied to, but being lied to like slow children. Without fail, the movement anti-gunner will do everything they can to help me do it, and they're usually too stupid to realize it.

As I said, I've been doing this for 20+ years. I know what they're going to say even before they do.

 

[Sam1911]

It's almost always an utter waste of time to try to "convert" a movement anti-gunner. Theirs is the "faith" of the religious zealot, completely divorced from fact or reason. I don't even waste my time.

Ok, certanly true, but very few of the folks we might meet on facebook or at work are "movement anti-gunners." There just aren't very many of those guys around. There may be a few who get really wound up in the argument they've latched onto and want to be obtuse, but most folks are simply uneducated and use the very little reasoning the average person can muster to conclude that the matter is "simple" and we would be better off with "a little" gun control because then we'd be safer.

It isn't hard to burst some of those notions. And while there's no harm in refusing to waste time on (or firmly rebut) those died-in-the-wool antis you meet, most folks who make these off-hand and fairly thoughtless assumptions and comments will probably respond better to a gentle explanation. You have to be seen as a rational and "nice" person before you can sway most folks. Nobody outside of a movement likes a strident zealot.

So we have to go undercover!

 

[SSN Vet]

I'm still lookin' for that You-tube video that shows me how to convert my AR to full auto in 10 minutes..... NOT!!

Sorry, a multi-year holiday at club Fed is not on my bucket list.

 

[MachIVshooter]

What has become clear is that a non-gun person really has no idea what laws are already in place at the federal, state, and local levels.

This has always been true.

most folks are simply uneducated and use the very little reasoning the average person can muster to conclude that the matter is "simple" and we would be better off with "a little" gun control because then we'd be safer.

It isn't hard to burst some of those notions.

And so has this.

You have to be seen as a rational and "nice" person before you can sway most folks. Nobody outside of a movement likes a strident zealot.

And this.

Don't give up the fight, but if you find yourself getting to frustrated to engage in civil and articulate discourse, take a break.