This Is What Changes Hearts And Minds

[tellner]

There are ways to preserve shooting. Some of them work. Some of them don't. You can encourage people who are already gun owners to open their hearts and checkbooks to fund-raisers and lobbyists. That works as long as the lobbyists actually accomplish something and don't turn into just a self-perpetuating fundraising machine. You can also encourage new people to become shooters or at least to be familiar with it. That way they will support things which support their hobby or at least they will not exert social pressure on friends and relatives who want to give it a try.

The first is easy but self-limiting. The second is difficult but ultimately the only way to win in the long term. It ties into a post on another topic in MT.

In late 2006 the NRA stepped on its pecker and shot itself in the foot with a really stupid, racist comic book designed to make Joe and Jane Whitebread cower in fear at the hordes of mud people oozing through the window. They twisted and fibbed and tried to pretend it never happened. But finally they said "Yes, it's our baby, but we decided to abort it." It was a three-day wonder that disappeared without a trace. Like most of their political material it wasn't designed to change a single mind. It was intended to make the believers afraid and run to the NRA-ILA credit cards in hand to Keep Them Safe. That's why I'm no longer the NRA. The adrenal glands just wear out under a constant barrage of FEAR! FEAR! FEAR! Well, that and the time a training counselor referred to my wife as "that pretty Colored girl" during the Basic Pistol instructor course a while back.

I just saw something on Slate that fits nicely into the second category. Now, Slate is somewhat left of most gunnies. It's middle-of-the-road white collar mildly liberal with a self-satisfied contrarian streak. You wouldn't go there to find Mallard Fillmore or Mike Fluggenock. The bland contemporary Doonesbury is as radical as they get.

So it was a surprise to see this video on the front page. One of their reporters went to the only public shooting club in Manhattan. She went through the safety course, shot a .22 rifle and had fun. I have to add that even for a brand new shooter she wasn't very good. I think she hit the target once. But she enjoyed herself and was as proud as could be of that one hole in the paper. The interviews with the RSO and customers - mostly young, White and female - were non-judgmental and not defensive. It looked like everyone had a good time. Nobody felt threatened. And a few of Slate's readers had a chance to look outside their comfortable little box. It won't change worlds. But it will do more to bring in new shooters who would not otherwise have considered it than most of the appeals to naked terror from the lobbying industry.

It's yet another reason to support groups like the Pink Pistols. They are one of the few organizations that has any cross-over appeal between traditional gunnies and traditional lefties. Without that shooters are facing a demographic and political decline which will render the whole issue moot in a generation. The country is increasingly brown and urban. Hunting is in a long downward slope, and violent crime is far reduced from its peaks in the 1930s and 1970s. Increased specialization in so many things has put guns into the category of a tool that is only relevant for people in certain well-defined job categories - cop, soldier, security guard. Anyone else is an amateur meddling in things best left to the pros.

 

[Big Don]

Because it is fun is the number one reason I shoot. If it wasn't fun, I wouldn't do it.
The practicality of knowing how to handle a firearm is a close second, but, the fun shooting has brought me is far and away the reason I shoot.

 

[thardey]

That fits with my approach to introducing people to guns. I skip the hunting, and the self-defense stuff, but just defend the fun of "plinking."

Shooting is a matter of "can you hit that target that's far away?" That's fun.

The hard part is when people just associate guns with death -- period. My wife understands that I enjoy shooting, and that I like guns. In fact, she seems to like that I like guns, and know how to use them, but she has a hard time being comfortable around guns because, in her heart, they equal death. That was what she was raised with, that was reinforced during her college years, and now it's an emotional feeling that she gets when she sees a gun.

 

[Deaf Smith]

Since I teach CHL classes, most of the people I come into contact have decided they need a gun for protection. And they a) intend on carrying it, and b) intend on using it if they have to.

A few have felt they could 'scare' their attacker by the mear presence of the weapon (it does actually happen alot but one should never ever think that way least you end up having the weapon taken from you cause you hesitated.)

Many of them never have really even shot a gun before the class. Thus a 'this is a gun' is part of the presentation.

I emphasize to them the importance of practice and shooting for fun and trophies is the way to go if you really want alot of trigger time. I show them my, er..., collection of trophies as well as all the fun sports like NRA Hunter pistol (you can use a .22 auto!), big bore long range of IHMSA, or cowboy action shooting (and use a hogleg SSA, shotgun, and nifty lever gun), or fast action and high round count of IPSC (I've shot in all but cowboy matches.)

I have found those who shoot matches alot tend to know well how guns work, and if they have been in such as IDPA, they are fairly quick and understand a fair amount of tactics.

But to attract shooters, yes we need to show them that guns are for more than just fighting. There are lots of fun games one can do.

Deaf

 

[Big Don]

One of the churches here in town has a family shooting day once or twice a year.
It is great to see people who have never so much as touched a firearm, after a few hours, gleefully blowing clay pigeons to dust with a 20 ga.

 

[tellner]

The church BBQ/skeet shoot sounds like a good one as long as nobody asks the cook to grill what they shot Fun, non-threatening and done with people you are used to having fun with is always a good way to make strange things comfortable.

For a CCW class you need to impress on people that it's serious business. No doubt about it. Even then it can be helpful if they have a way to get used to firearms in some context that isn't life-or-death. It can make that little chunk of metal way too intimidating to carry around if there's a huge skull and crossbones mentally stamped into it.

 

[Big Don]

The church BBQ/skeet shoot sounds like a good one as long as nobody asks the cook to grill what they shot Fun, non-threatening and done with people you are used to having fun with is always a good way to make strange things comfortable.

Those clay pigeons taste like crap...