Pro turned anti???

[del4]

I wouldn't say he was pro turned anti , but I had a friend I used to take shooting. He was getting stoked, talking about different guns he wanted. The last couple of times we went shooting he was exposed to some pretty poor examples of gun owners. He hasn't been back since and I noticed him picking up the term "gun nuts".

He kind of already leaned anti to begin with so I think he more or less reverted back to his old way of thinking. His dad did give him his M1 (one of the guns he always wanted) but I don't think he shoots it.

 

[Majic]

I worked with a guy who was an avid hunter and clay shooter. After 10 years with his wife he now has no use for guns and questions people about why they have theirs. I tell him he's now just a parrot for his wife.

 

[Magnum Mike]

I guess I can say that I turned a potential anti-gun person to our side. I went out with a gal a few years ago, she moved here from Columbus OH and she wasn't too crazy about guns. When she first found out that I have 14 guns and I reload my own ammo and all that, she thought I was a "crazed gun nut", but as she knew me a little better, she realized that the great majority of gun owners (like myself) are the kind of people she would trust. I trained her on how to handle a gun safely and the proper shooting techniques.

Had she not been exposed to guns, I strongly believe that she would have been influenced by how the media portrays guns and gun owners in America.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I never met the questionable individual personally, but used to work with a man who turned out to be a fellow Python afficionado. He brought his six-inch Python to work one day, and asked how much I thought he'd paid for it. I couldn't guess. He wanted me to guess. I finally said it looked like about a $600 gun to me.

Turns out a neighbor had been bitten by a peculiar religious bug, and sold him a Python in very good condition for $100, which the fellow promptly donated to his church.

Prettiest $100 Python I've ever seen.

 

[Big Bad Wolf]

John McCain.

His NRA rating has gone from an "A" to an "F" in a matter of a few short years.

 

[AJ Dual]

The way I see it, there's only three kinds of "retrograde conversion" from pro to anti, and they've all been covered:

- Trauma/Emotional: They've been shot or shot at, either in crime or war, or had a suicide or acident in the family. They "cope" with their fears anger or other uncomfortable feelings by blaming guns and not people/criminals/stupidity/the enemy.

- Cynical: They see some kind of advantage, money/employment, or political in switching to anti. Whatever the rewards are percieved power or income outweighs their prior principles.

- Peer Presure: They are either in a relationship with an anti, or surrounded by an anti peer group, and weakness and/or fear of rejection or ostricisim forces them to change their thinking.

Frankly, only the first has any of my sympathy, and then, not much. It's still personal weakness to indulge in such a a failure of logic and character.

 

[atek3]

I agree that politicians tend to go where they think the votes are. Whenever I hear a "regular guy" suddenly start spouting "libberish"(liberal gibberish), I ask to meet his new girlfriend. Invariably there is one.

this is mildly off topic:

Funny, I met my fairly apolitical but conservative-leaning friend one time and he had a hot new girlfriend, that spouted "libberish" (I love that one ). But since I wasn't dating her I could call her on every point and argue, guns, taxes, the environment, you name it. I took them to the local range and they shot an MP5. I started giving him books to read (Economics for real people, Boston's Gun Bible, The skeptical environmentalist). Now he owns guns and they are both pro-gun libertarians. That was my good deed for the week

atek3

 

[JohnKSa]

Agree with al.ulak.

The most famous "conversion" I'm aware of is Jim Brady.

In a single instant he became liberal, anti-gun and brain-damaged.

 

[geekWithA.45]

When she first found out that I have 14 guns and I reload my own ammo and all that, she thought I was a "crazed gun nut", but as she knew me a little better, she realized that the great majority of gun owners (like myself) are the kind of people she would trust.

That's one of the Big Converters: Mildly bigoted or fearful unarmed folks interacting with perfectly normal and honoral armed folks.

(The other Big Converter is being mugged)

 

[Brett Bellmore]

No, as I recall, it took some time after he got shot before his wife's efforts brought him around. You can't really blame him, it takes a certain minimum amount of functioning grey matter to hold out against that kind of brainwashing.

I'll tell you, though; Taking advantage of your own husband's brain damage to turn him into a spokesman for a cause he opposed while mentally intact. That's a whole new world of evil compared to your average lobbyist.

 

[Mauserguy]

I met a sales clerk at Walmart once. He worked the gun counter. In talking to me, he told me that he was South African and didn't like guns. He used to carry, back home, but a buddy of his got ambushed by a gang of "youths" and plugged one in the chest, and drove over a second with his car.

That gentleman accepts that guns are necessary, but he doesn't care for them any longer. I think that he was a good man and, though I dissagree with him, I respect his opinion. At least his opinion was based on knowledge, not like most antis who are only familiar with propoganda.
Mauserguy

 

[JohnKSa]

That's a whole new world of evil compared to your average lobbyist.

I can't believe how rarely this view is aired. I agree 200%.

 

[Kurush]

Lobbyists don't count, they don't believe anything they're not paid to. I can't say I've ever heard of someone who was a pricipled RKBA supporter switching sides, but I suppose if somebody had a stroke and enough brain cells died they just might

 

[WT]

On a similar note, I recall President Bush dropping his NRA membership because the NRA called federal agents 'jack booted thugs.'

 

[JohnKSa]

Hardly a similar note. There are many serious progunners who disagree with the NRA for one thing or another and have therefore dropped their memberships.

Bush may not be as pro-gun as many (me included) would like but implying that he's anti-gun is stretching things a bit.