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flintknapper wrote:
Sounds like she'd make an excellent reporter however.

She used to be an environmental lawyer

seamusTX wrote:

MrsFosforos wrote:Arguing with someone who has strongly ingrained beliefs on any topic are just not worth the time and effort to try and convince them otherwise.

I agree that you won't change the person's mind. However, depending upon the context, you may affect the opinion of a bystander who is listening.

- Jim

Very true. Hadn't mentioned this, but thursday was the last day of class for our school, and as an extra credit assignment in my Business Law class, we were told to research the castle doctrine and apply it to the Pasadena shooting case (Joe Horn vs. the two deceased burglars).

Once our discussion began, the teacher immediately began making all kinds of false statements (such as, you're allowed to use force to protect yourself, but only at night, etc.). I contradicted her on that one but she didn't seem believing. Luckily as part of my proof for the extra credit deal, I'd printed Penal Code Sections 9.31-9.33 and 9.41-9.43, and SB378 as it was adopted. So I walked up front and showed her that, and she quietly moved to a new topic. She later made another comment about all guns in texas having to be registered, etc... apparently this one other young guy that sits behind me in class is very pro gun(his exact words were "I'm a member of a lot of gun organizations and don't think the state has any business in my gun cabinet") and well read on his defense laws, and called her out on that one. It went that way for the rest of class, us calling her back and forth on her mistakes and way of thinking, while the rest of the class seemed mostly indifferent.

At any rate, several people in class brought up other bad points (such as, you can now buy anything, including full auto weapons, since the AWB ban expired not long ago) that we WERE able to correctly inform some people on.

In the end, the teacher simply said "well, it's obvious you two are far more read on your gun laws than I am" which was pretty sweet, given her know-it-all attitude on everything all semester. But her opinion didn't change.

We were however able to definitely spread some seeds in the minds of our peers. One of them who originally was on the side that Mr. Horn was in the wrong, eventually even said "well, you gotta at least think he was a pretty good neighbor, because he risked his life to cover his neighbor's property without even knowing the neighbor."

And that's the moral of my story :)