It was a multitude of different factors:
* No emphasis placed on firearms growing up, good or bad.
* Historical aspects of 2nd Amendment in schools focused on the group right, not the individual right
* Media Portrayal of guns, I grew up in the DC area. Every night there would be crime posts and gunshot murders
* Didn't understand target shooting, or hunting. I thought both were silly and dated and that their practitioners should change
* Thought that the police could be everywhere at any time.
My wife grew up in a similar situation, but add on top of that her first "experience" with firearms was that in high school her best friend committed suicide with one.
Honestly, what I don't understand is why so many of you guys don't understand anti-gun types. Firearms are dangerous. Firearms are powerful. Firearms are shrouded in a cloak of myth and stereotypes. For someone who has had no experience with them, or worse yet someone whose experiences were those of my wife, it's very easy to understand why they would think "firearms are dangerous, we're better off to prevent danger". If you can't understand their position, I suggest you sit back for a moment, take a deep breath, and
think about it. Sure, it's a position I disagree with for many reasons, but it isn't that difficult of a position to understand.
Seriously, stop for a minute, think about what you truly believe. If the RKBA is truly that important to you, can't you see how understanding your enemy is so much better than resorting to slander?
Think about the car analogy. How many here are saying we should get rid of seatbelts? To these people it's the same thing, they see a danger, and want it to be minimized. The problem is they are focusing on the tiny part of the system, and don't understand the higher level dangers that disarming a populace imposes. The trick is to be smarter than they are. To them their beliefs on the situation are rather rational and we seem to be the irrational ones. Education, not name calling, will be the solution.
For instance:
Guns represent the individual taking care of business. People who are antigun generally have coniptions at the thought of you and me living our lives unhindered.
No, in my experience they honestly believe that there's no "business" to take care of. Until you understand that at the person-to-person level, you will not advance our goals, you will only serve to lump anyone who is "anti-gun" into some nebulous "them liberals" cloud.