karder wrote:Arguing with academia about guns (or most anything really) is like explaining calculus to a 5 year old. They are dug in, partisan, idealogues who cannot be swayed no matter what evidence you present. The students are different. I have successfully swung some left leaning college students more toward the center, but every discussion I have ever had with a leftist teacher has dissolved into them calling me names and becoming ridiculously emotional in very short order. There is nothing like delivering facts in an absolutely calm and respectful manner while a red-faced professor with tears welling up, profanely screams how paranoid and full of hate you are.
I think that they hope we turn into a screaming, gun waving lunatic, when we get into a disagreement, because that's how we have been portrayed. When we show ourselves to be calm, cool, reflective, well spoken, and use actual facts to back up our position, it unnerves them so badly that they turn into the screaming lunatics they want us to be. Once they run out of media induced catch phrases, they have no platform from which to draw, and they will resort to infantile name calling simply because that's all they have left to do.