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RoyGBiv wrote:

VMI77 wrote:There are different types of antis. The type that is active and joins anti self-defense groups like Moms Demanding Action have emotional attachments that are unlikely to be overcome with logic. A lot of the non-active types haven't thought things out and may be susceptible to logic. In any case, if for no other reason, responding to them, especially in public forums like comments after an article, can alert them to the fact that they're really in a minority, and that tends to have a wonderfully demoralizing impact on them.

As a generalization perhaps.

My Yankee sister and her Hillary-loving clan came to visit us for the holidays last year. (Needless to say, we don't spend a lot of time together )
Long story short, in the end I sat with them in the living room and we had a very frank "lesson 1" about guns.
I probably didn't change their minds, but, I believe I changed their perceptions somewhat.

My favorite part was when I put a loaded gun on the kitchen table (holstered, empty chamber, just in case... they ARE Yankees, after all ) and said...
"Ok.... here's a loaded gun. Let's sit here and see how long it takes for it to go bang if nobody touches it."
I let that sink in for a solid 5 minutes before moving on.

I felt better that my nieces and nephews at least got a safety lesson.
Good luck getting lane time at a range the first few days after Christmas.

Jago668 wrote:Yes. I dated a lady that was liberal (we all make mistakes). I've owned my own personal gun since I was 10. So I had a pistol in the house. Now I am rarely pushy towards trying to make someone do something. However the one area I am is guns. If someone is going to be around guns then they need to understand them, and have shot them at least once. Just so you know what is around. So I took her to the range and we rented a .22 pistol and bought like a hundred rounds. Not a very big bang, not any recoil, and cheap (before the ammo scarcity). She really enjoyed it and we went back in a couple of weeks with my 1911, and she enjoyed the .45 more than the .22. Got her to see that they are enjoyable to shoot, and it is a fun activity.

She still wasn't convinced of needing them for self defense though. Like many people, she thought she knew more than she really did (we all get guilty of this one). She had gone to a couple of self defense kind of workshop things before. So she bought into the only thing that matters is skill. Which it matters greatly, but so do size, aggressiveness, physical conditioning, speed, experience, and desire to win. It all goes in there. So I told her if she thought she could out fight a burglar why don't we have a little wrastlin' match. Needless to say it didn't go nearly as well as she had imagined it would. No bruises, nothing hurt, but I asked her, "Okay now what if I had hauled off and punched you in the face? How well could you have fought through that? When I had you down, if I had broken your arm? Now what if I had a club or a knife? Worse yet what if I had a gun and you never even got close enough to fight? I am one man, not in the best of shape, and very little training; I managed to gain control of you while taking care to not hurt you. You think a robber or rapist is going to care if you get hurt? Are you really willing to take that risk? Are you willing to risk your children on that?"

I didn't get her to be conservative, I didn't get her into being an armed citizen. I did get her to change her mind on being anti-gun though. I never did get her into being self-reliant which I thought was a much easier sell. "Why don't you have jumper cables?" "Someone around will have a pair." ... "Where is your first aid kit at?" "We don't have one, I have some bandaids. If anyone gets hurt too bad we'll just go to the emergency room."