My experiences have been that hoplophobes tend to have an image of gun owners as “Rednecks”, “Paranoid Loonies”, “Survivalists” or “Weirdos”. One of the effective ways of convincing them otherwise is introducing them to normal, everyday people who own firearms. People they can identify with, who are like them- but own a gun.
I’ve also found that clay pigeon shooting is an easy sport to introduce those who are unsure about guns to- it involves shooting harmless clay orange discs, safety is paramount (earmuffs, safety glasses, general range safety, etc), it’s got a veneer of “Respectability” (for want of a better term) about it- it’s an Olympic Sport- and when you hit a target, something noticeable happens (the disc explodes in a puff of orange dust)- and you’re outside in the fresh air.
I’ve heard clay pigeon shooting described as “Golf with a shotgun” which I think is a pretty good way of describing the “leisurely but sporting and safe” element of it to people who have trouble seeing firearms as anything except weapons for killing.
Hey, good for you. I am totally cool with your hypothetical scenario.
I dislike guns on a personal level, but on a political level, it does make me nervous that they are so readily available and there is so little done to ensure that people are going to be responsible with them. I know that the vast, vast majority of gun owners in the US are responsible and concerned with safety, and I like to think that most of them would be okay with being required to pass a test to prove it, to ensure that the minority who don’t know/care about gun safety cannot acquire deadly weapons.
Unfortunately, the NRA’s lobbying efforts - which don’t seem to be based on the opinions of the people Zeriel is talking to - have proven me wrong.
The problem is, was, and always will be the “one step more” types. Gun-control advocates at the highest levels of government (or with ready access to such) who have publicy stated that their endgame is complet banning of civilian possession of firearms, and also stated that the “incremental approach” is the best-suited method to achieving this goal.
First it is licensing, with fairly reasonable requirements. Then the requirements increase a little, say every 2-3 years. Then registration, with same. Fees increase. The offices where licensing/registration take place have their funding cut, so they’re only open occasionally. Hours are routinely changed without notice.
“Evil” guns are banned; “Evil” being defined as any type of gun the incremental banners think they can most easily publicly demonize to curry the non-gun-owning public’s support to remove from circulation. Registration lists are used to send “Turn In For Destruction” notices to gun-owners.
The NRA blocks these “reasonable” proposals because the NRA can’t get the gun-control proposers to agree to things like sunset clauses in case the above described scenarios begins to come to pass. The NRA opposes them because they wan’t “shall-issue” instead of “may issue” when it comes to any kind of licensing scheme. The NRA opposes them because they craft legislation, either by intent or by ignorance, that would have sweeping unintended consequences for gun owners. For example, the “Cop Killer Bullet” armor-piercing bullet ban, as originally drafted, would’ve banned ~80% of all rifle ammunition, including bullets that have no inherent armor-piercing qualities (metallurgical, hardened core construction, etc) other than high velocity.
A test range isn’t real life. We’re talking about panic situations. You know you’re not going to shoot a living breathing person when you take that test.
They have dual purposes. A gun kills people when it’s used as intended. A car is intended to transport stuff. All dangerous? Sure. But those other items haven’t become a national debate. Other civilized, democratic societies are as free as you and me, aren’t killing each other in anywhere near the numbers we have here. The difference is obvious to me. Many, many, many legally issued guns are issued to people who aren’t reponsible enough to have them.
It is that “could” that comes into play for some people here in the US. Again, there isn’t a lot of hard facts any side can point to (its all left up to humans honestly reporting what they are doing) but it looks like rural people have the highest rate of “packing” and inner-city folks the lowest rate. The stats look to also showing that rural people have the lowest chance of being a victim of violent crime and inner-city folks the highest chances.
Those who favor more people being armed all the time (I’m told by those same people that I’m not “one of them” - somehow I like that distinction) say the deciding factor is that chance; the chance that anyone you attack will be armed and prepared for that attack. More than any other factor (density, income, whatever), that is what separates “rural” from “urban” when it comes to crime and victim-hood. I guess you could argue that’s also why drivers in the rural counties are friendlier and more helpful to each others than those in Pittsburgh or Philly ------ but like the racism thing, that’s probably best left to another thread some year.
I wouldn’t disagree with this statement, but I’m not sure what you’re arguing at this point–as nearly as I can tell you:
A) agree that theoretical responsible gun owners are not the problem
B) don’t think there’s any way to completely discriminate between responsible and irresponsible gun owners except by testing and training…
C) …which you also seem to think are just short of completely useless because you seem to have the idea that no matter how well trained someone is, a “real” situation is completely different.
Our point of disagreement seems to be entirely C).
Two questions suggest themselves:
Would you agree I’m characterizing your position accurately?
How would it be possible to convince you, via a scientific study, of the value of proper training in reducing accidental gun deaths and injuries? Is there data you’d accept that’s not currently being collected?
ExTank has it right–unfortunately, a lot of sensible gun regulation is held up primarily by the fact that the pro-gun side doesn’t trust the anti-gun side not to move the goalposts or set pseudo-conditions (short hours, fees, etc) that are not strictly legislated for but that restrict gun ownership unfairly (when compared to the letter of the law).
I’ll debate that point a bit. A gun doesn’t always kill a person when its used as intended. It kills an animal to provide food, or pleasure. Sometimes it just pokes a hole in a piece of paper the way the manufacturer and buyer intended. It can kill a person but I’m not sure I agree that that is its intended purpose. After all, some Quakers, Amish and other people who would rather die than harm another person own (and sometimes make) guns.
And the other civilized democratic societies aren’t killing each other at as high a rate as we are with anything. Cars, guns, knives or anything else. It could be - just maybe be - that in this country we look on deaths caused by things we personally like as less unreasonable than things we personally don’t like while some nations look at all accidental or deliberate deaths as unnecessary compared to us.
Maybe we need to look at how we accept people getting killed more and single manners less? Or look at dealing with offenders of all our laws more uniformly? Possibly stricter? Any of those look to have a higher chance than the gun debate of making a real difference.
95% of anti-gun sentiment has absolutely NOTHING to do with murder statistics, crime statistics, legal issues, or anything else which is somehow tied up with facts, logic and order. The fear of guns is on a basic, visceral level, strongly compounded with the idea that gun owners are “rednecks,” “loonies” and “paranoid.” And, largely, that gun ownership has become an issue of right versus left. I really wish guns could be de-politicized.
As one of the lead hijackers, sorry. And my sympathy on what occupied you; having a couple older parents between us, my wife and I know how little fun stuff like that can be.
I like the suggestion Martini had about clays but want to add a couple I’ve had luck with.
a) Stay with single-shot firearms. Not just plugged but ones designed to be single-shot and nothing else. If the persons fears are mostly variations of control, sometimes the fact that one and only one shot is possible helps that along.
b) Consider a caplock or flintlock IF YOU ARE SKILLED IN THEIR USE. Either in untrained or careless hands can make full-autos look benign (to those who understand guns) but if you have the skills they are a good “entry level” to shooting. Most folks view them as curios rather than guns and that gets around a lot of surface fears.
But whatever you do or how you do it, understand that failure is an option. I’ve met folks who had a desire but couldn’t even be near anything that looked like a gun in the hands of someone like you or me. They happen and they always will.
As an aside, the rhetoric that the pro-gun side tends to use (OMG THE GOVERNMENT IS COMING TO TAKE OUR GUNS AWAYYYYY!!!1111!ONE) when this topic comes up is what makes pro-gun control people think of gun owners as paranoid, survivalist nuts.
Yes indeed, the “cold, dead hands” thing does not inspire confidence in the pro-gun side either.
But given the sheer lunatic stupidity coming out of the debate for healthcare (healthcare, fercrissake - who doesn’t think healthcare is a good thing?), the chance of an intelligent discussion on gun legislation is pretty much nil.
That’s not going to happen in our lifetime. Guns are not only politicized, they are gendered, militarized, tangled up in levels upon levels of social meaning. So much that it can’t be reconciled even when someone we love has had half a head blown off.
I suppose starting at “the fear of guns is the fear of gun owners” might be step one. “The fear of guns is the fear of stereotypes of gun owners” would be step two. They might happen in our lifetime, but it’s not going to be easy or quick.
Social attitudes mostly don’t change because people try to change them. They change because overarching social conditions change first. In the case of fear, it’s usually because another thing, or group of people, comes along to be afraid of.
I think you’re characterizing it pretty accurately.
I think that there is “some” value in training, but when I see law enforcement make mistakes fairly regularly and they undergo far more, and more frequent training than the average citizen, I think it’s clear that the value is limited. It’s not going to change the problem.
I think the problem lies very much in the fact that most gun owners I talk to actually feel they “need” their guns in order to feel safe. There is a prevailing sense of insecurity in this country that people think can be remedied by owning a gun.
We have guns, but they are locked up in such a way that we might as well NOT have them. They are not, and were never intended to be “protection.” The whole idea that you need to have deadly force close at hand in order to live worry-free is something I simply don’t get. I don’t understand why someone would feel that killing a bad guy is the response to burglary. I don’t understand why so any of those same people take security so lightly that their guns are stolen.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on your point about guns being designed to kill things. They may be used for other things, but the bullets that are used by 99.99% of the people who have guns are the kind that kill people. I don’t even know anyone who doesn’t use live ammo at the range.
I will agree that we have a seriously skewed outlook on crime and punishment in this country. We kill people for killing people, fercrissakes. The problem resides in the mindset of the american people and their (in my opinion) twisted interpretation of the 2nd amendment. The guns are a convenient and deadly expression of that warped interpretation.
I should note since it wasn’t clear–I don’t AGREE with those guys, I just know they’re one of the two obstacles to rational discourse (the other being the my-mother-in-law faction, position statement: “Any anti-gun legislation is good because it can be expanded and subverted to ban more than the letter of the law”)
Honestly, I am of the opinion that the average police officer should probably not be terribly trusted with his gun, either–but the reality of the situation is that most handgun owners don’t get enough training, whether private citizens or police.
I’m on your side here–my guns would be worthless in a home invasion because the “threat” is primarily drunken idiot college students or even more idiot meth-heads here, and even that on a ridiculously low level. I’ve said before my current home defense weapon is a push broom (and my attack cat, but she’s not a publicly available option. =P). I don’t think I could kill a bad guy for stealing my stuff–I probably COULD kill a bad guy who was threatening me or mine with a weapon, should it ever come to pass, but I can’t even describe the conflicting emotions that sets me up with (and I have at least one thread exploring civilian-legal less-lethal rounds–unfortunately the consensus is that there are only two kinds of those: Ineffective and more lethal than advertised.).
While I wouldn’t want to live somewhere where the possibility of deadly force is higher than, say, a freak lightning bolt killing me…my wife does eventually, because she loves inner cities and the whole bohemian thing. So if I end up there, I’ll have a pistol for home defense. In a combo-locked safe near the bed (there’s a brand that uses a code you can type in by feel in the dark that seems good for this purpose) and I’ll hope every day that I won’t have to use it and be very happy when we retire to the country. How’s that?
Although the OP’s been pretty well answered, I’ll chime in with my fears. I have a phobia of sudden loud noises - anything from balloons popping to fireworks (I hate the 4th of July.) to guns. So I have a visceral response to seeing a gun, even one that I know isn’t loaded, say in a theatrical production, leading to not going to shows very often unless I’m really sure there won’t be any guns. And I won’t go to sporting events because there might be fireworks/pyrotechnics, say when someone gets a home run. So with that level of phobia, seeing a “real” gun (i.e. not part of a theatrical show, one which may actually be loaded) would terrify me. Not because I’m afraid someone might shoot me, but because I’m afraid it will make a noise.
Note that I am very (irrationally, unreasonably) nervous around cannons in parks even though I know those really won’t be fired. (You can find someone who’s afraid of anything around here!)
I wouldn’t be one of the women coming to you to trying to learn to shoot though so I can’t explain what they’re feeling. But I just wanted to provide another reason for fear (although emmaliminal also cited the noise, but not to the same extent).
I’ll say this–I know me. If I ever use a gun for anything other than target shooting or hunting, it will be because I am being actively attacked by a similarly deadly weapon.
