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Having been blessed with two wives in my life who, between the two of them, have bought me more guns than I ever have for myself, I consider myself very lucky. Don't change wives, change the wife's mind.

Wife number one was a single mom when I met her and once told me that between all of the other things involved in single motherhood, she never really had much of a chance to consider gun issues other than superficially. Within a year of our marriage she was shooting on a rifle team with me, and eventually so did her kids, and later our son too. It wasn't hard to "convert" her because she just never gave it that much consideration either way, and with some of the life lessons she had, I have no doubt that carrying anywhere would not have bothered her in the least. Unfortunately I have to speak for her based on my own memories of her, because she passed away 18+ years ago.

Wife number two was also a single mom with similar struggles and issues, but she lived in an inner city neighborhood where shootings between gangs and druggies were not uncommon, and with propaganda and such, and a bullet hole in her bathroom window, she had formed some very anti gun opinions. The first time she came to my home, not without some trepidation I might add, as it had been my first wife's and my "dream home," she saw my gun cabinet and told me that she was not sure she could live in a house with guns. With patience and persistence I broke down her resistance, isolated and eliminated her objections, and she has, for years, had her CHL and were it not for her job at a school district, would carry much more often.

It has never bothered her that I carry at church, and it was she that pointed out that I had carried my BUG in my pocket the day I was baptized, before I went in the horse trough. We attend Narrow Trail Cowboy Church and its location has a slight tendency to encourage the occasional seedy walk in customer. A couple of years back this one scruffy specimen came wandering in during service and we welcomed him, per our usual demeanor, but after the service ended and he started panhandling the crowd, my wife's first comment was; "I hope you have your gun." There are those who would accuse us of not being very "Christian" with that attitude, but my belief is that Christ himself would approve of caution and preparedness when faced with a possible Philistine in our midst.

And I am pretty sure Jeanne Assam would agree.

Patience and persistence, patience and persistence.