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Mine wasn't exactly a single conversion experience, but a weekend of conversion experiences.
I grew up around guns and starting shooting my grandpa's .22 when I was 5 or 6. I definitely wasn't anti by any means, just had never thought of needing to purchase a gun for myself.
Last year around this time me and my wife left for oklahoma for the weekend to meet my parents for a family camping trip. Experience number one happened about 15 minutes after we left my house. We were on 30 in Arlington and traffic slowed to a stop right in front of us. We could see that traffic a few cars in front of us was still moving fine but couldn't tell what had stopped traffic. So the cars start moving slowly and we get up there and turns out a guy was crossing interstate-30 on foot at 5:30 on a friday and using a pistol to do it. He pointed it right at the car in front of us to get them to stop and moved in front of them. He was past us and did it to the car right next to us to pass in front of them. The rest of the three hour drive I spent thinking about the fact that the guy could have easily shot me or my wife and I had no way to protect us. It was devistating to me to realize how helpless we were.
Experience two: We get to the campsite, get set-up and are having a great time and go to bed around mid-night. Around 2:30am I sat straight up in bed. There was a guy probably 4 or 5 campsites down screaming at the top of his lungs. We couldn't tell what he was saying, but he was screaming at someone who he was apparently extremely upset with. So I got out of the tent to go use the bathroom and my parents were standing outside their tent also listening and just keeping an eye on things I guess. So we're standing out there kinda talking, trying to figure out what is going on and look down the road and see two guys running full speed down the road. So my dad goes in his tent and comes back out and is kinda standing at the entrance to our campsite but still by our tents watching them and sure enough, one of the guys for some reason leaves the road and starts heading straight for our campsite. I guess he couldn't see us standing there and was just planning on running through our campsite and into the woods. He gets maybe 5 yards from us and my dad steps out in front of him with his handgun pointed at the ground and just says "wrong campsite." The guy throws on the brakes and just heads off into the woods.
Both of those experiences were the turning point for me. Both made me realize that there are crazy people around and crazy things do happen when you least expect it. I realized that if either one of those situations had gotten out of control that I couldn't have done anything to protect anyone of my family members. So I purchased my xd40 two weeks later and am currently in the waiting room for my chl. I hope to never again be so helpless.