We all have one. Be it a friend, someone on Facebook, a family member or a co-worker—everyone has someone in their life who is anti-gun. In the weeks following the Sandy Hook tragedy, many angry voices spoke out through the various media outlets.
For example, this Facebook post showed up on CTD Scott’s newsfeed, “This is the third mass murder in the past 6 months, total body count of 42 people. Killed at worship, school, and a theatre. ALL of the weapons were obtained legally. Clearly having easily available guns increases the body deaths of innocents. Guns f****ing kill people. If you think otherwise, you are a child stamping on the ground with your fingers in your ears. Wake. Up.”
How does it make sense for someone who is anti-gun and anti-gun violence to threaten death on anyone?
Further, a University of Rhode Island Professor repeatedly tweeted angrily calling for Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick” and for anyone who advocated teachers be armed be “beaten to death.” How does it make sense for someone who is anti-gun to threaten death on anyone?
It happened on the other end, too. Pro-gun radio host Alex Jones appeared on Piers Morgan’s CNN show and immediately got angry and yelled. At one point he interrupts Morgan shouting, “I want to blame the real culprit—suicide pills. Mass murder pills.” Jones also told Morgan the gun used in Sandy Hook was a “.223 M4.” This sounds crazy and perpetuates wrong information.
Anger and irrationality have never won an argument.
Perpetuating stereotypes that liberals believe to be true does not help either.
What I find in my personal Facebook news feed is many emotional responses to the current gun debate. Some comments have gotten me heated quickly, but I have chosen not to respond. If I read something that angers me immediately then I would respond with just as much emotion and less rational facts than the person who posted did. So I just don’t respond. However, I do not necessarily believe that ignoring the issue is the answer.
I think I might be doing a disservice to the gun community by remaining silent on my friend’s Facebook posts when they regurgitate the wrong information.
There is a right way and a wrong way to approach your liberal friends. As we can see, yelling, anger and attacking the opposition is not a successful way to get someone to see your side of the story. Emotions are running high and if you choose to respond, the best way to approach is calmly and with empathy. Don’t be angry, defensive, attacking or call people names. The best start is by being a good listener. When someone perceives you as a good listener, you are more likely to gain their trust and respect. This means you have a better chance of them listening to you when you present them with your side of the debate.
A good listener reiterates what someone says, does not interrupt, and asks questions for clarification. When it is your turn, do not make the other person feel stupid or tell them they are wrong. Present facts in a calm and logical manner. Don’t ever raise your voice, type in all caps or use inappropriate language. To learn more about arguing with someone who is anti-gun, read our blog post Arguing with Anti-Gunners.
An argument based on fact is more valid than one based on emotions.
I appreciate my friends who are starting to think about guns who never did so before. Remember, the majority of them are uneducated on guns. They only know what the TV tells them. Think of this is an opportunity to educate and maybe… just maybe…. introduce a new shooter into the world.
Unfortunately, some will never change their mind. In that case, maybe radio silence is best. Evaluate who that person is to you. Is it worth losing a friendship, a family member or peace in the office? The best you can do is lead by example. Be kind, be patient. You are rational, respectful and a law-abiding person who also happens to be a gun owner.
My father—not a gun guy—said he saw an interview with a customer leaving a gun store answer the question, “Why do you own an AR-15?” with a not-very-well-thought out response of “because they’re fun.” Liberals and anti-gunners will hear, “it’s fun to kill babies.” What I am asking you to do is think long and hard why you are a gun owner. Give a better reason than “it’s fun.” I would like to believe we can have this discussion with respect for each other’s view.
What are your experiences with the liberals in your life? Tell us about it in the comment section.
The opinions and statements contained within this article are solely those of the author and in no way should be construed to be reflective of Cheaper Than Dirt, its management or employees.
The mission of Cheaper Than Dirt!’s blog, “The Shooter’s Log,” is to provide information—not opinions—to our customers and the shooting community. We want you, our readers, to be able to make informed decisions. The information provided here does not represent the views of Cheaper Than Dirt!
Very well said. Though the liberals usually get their way by repeatedly shouting irrationality and emotion. My feeling is we need to start organizing around the Civil Rights aspect. We have a God given right to protect ourselve in our person and in our homes. My first reaction was of course heartfelt sympathy for the persons that were killed, and their families. Once I saw the progressives start changing it to a new gun grab, my emotion was “when you pry them from my cold, dead hands”. This, of course, is not a solution. Our first defense needs to be Reason, and the Rule of Law.
I have a black freind that buys into all the liberal Pablum, and I just can’t understand his reasoning. (Or lack thereof) NRA was started to provide Black Americans a modicum of defense from the KKK. The Black Panthers felt it necessary to take up arms to defend the Rev MLK Jr. When the Nazis started murdering Jews, the wealthy Jews thought it would never reach them.
The question to all is: if you won’t stand with me to defend MY Civil Rights, which of Your Rights and Freedoms will be next?
Comment by Al V — January 29, 2013 @ 12:52 pm
I have been a subscriber to this blog for many months and read everything that is posted. I have been shooting since I was very young and find the information here to be insightful and encouraging within a world of opposing views. The content is great and I think all the posts help to promote a responsible and well-educated community of gun owners and shooters.
However, I often will see simple errors in spelling and grammar that occur within virtually every post. Although the content is the most important thing, if someone outside of your normal group of readers were to start following this blog, they could easily make the argument that the blog is run by a group of individuals that aren’t even intelligent enough to use the spell-check feature on their computers. I would think that by taking a few extra minutes to review your work for simple errors that it would make all of your posts that much more credible in the eyes of those opposing the culture as a whole.
In such dire times where the rights and freedoms of all American citizens are on the chopping block, I would think that you would be doing yourself a disservice by allowing such an easy fix to prevent the full message from ever even having a chance of reaching the ears of those that stand on the other side of the fence.
Comment by Doublezer6 — January 29, 2013 @ 1:46 pm
To Doublezer6 — Thank you for commenting. While we make every effort to catch every typo, spelling and grammatical error, we are human. We found the offending errors and made the corrections.
Comment by CTD Lady Blogger — January 29, 2013 @ 3:42 pm
Seems to me you handle a Liberal like an emotional girlfriend every 23 days; they rant – you pretend to listen. A Liberal is pure emotion. There is no reasoning or account for consequence. As a result, there is no “reason” to debate them. Otherwise, stay the course on what one knows to be true. My father used to say, “The waves will pitch back and forth up and down. Keep your compass on (your values) and they will be soon be behind you”. This includes Liberals.
Comment by Undex — January 29, 2013 @ 5:02 pm
When people want to know why I need an AR15, my response is that I am not a rich CEO or politician and can not afford to hire personal protection, I therefore, must provide my own security. Having the responsibility to protect my family, I believe it is my responsibility to acquire the same or similar weapons that any domestic security team would employ. I also let them know that the AR15 is such a good choice that the Department of Homeland Security, a non-military domestic entity, has recently requested 7000 AR15′s with 30 round magazines for the express stated purpose of personal protection in close quarters encounters. With all the weapons available to the government they chose the civilian AR15 which speaks volumes about it’s effectiveness for personal protection. I let them know it is incumbent upon me to seek training for myself and family to use these weapons properly. I will not allow my family access to any less than 30 rounds in the AR15 because I can’t always be there and I won’t let them be overwhelmed by more than one intruder while reloading. In forty years of gun ownership not one of my guns or high capacity magazines has escaped and killed anyone.
Comment by Big E3 — January 29, 2013 @ 5:49 pm
The local liberal or anti gun person will gladly give you their judgments on how others should live. Beyond magazine capacity, your cars MPG, sugar intake,your weight to height ratio and current tax rate etc. Anything more or less than what they feel or want is the only expression of American freedom, based on their individual preference.
When it comes to things like alcohol and the number of people that die from that “freedom,” then you can see the two faced hypocrisy that swells their ranks. And so much more … this argument extends to infinity when speaking to all of Satan’s anointed kings.
Comment by Kurt Mathieson — January 29, 2013 @ 6:06 pm
I watch liberals in my circle. I see how they react and I counter with facts. One or two will stop and think for a minute. Some just keep on drinking the koolaid. They like to believe they’re enlightened. If you can’t see the other person’s point of view how enlightened can you be?
Comment by EdH — January 29, 2013 @ 6:08 pm
Well working in a closed shop union industry like the world of Class 1 Railroads, you have quite a few liberals. On the other hand there are quite a few conservatives like myself. While yet we are maybe a third of the work force, we have a responsibility to educate our fellow man to commonsense understanding of our nations given freedoms.
I spend 12-plus hours or more per trip cooped up in a cab of a locomotive with these people, so I can understand the tuning out or changing the subject. It can be very miserable in a situation where you’re overwhelmed by ignorance and absolutely no possible way to peacefully diffuse an escalation in the warmth of an argument/debate. I prefer to either feel a fellow employees feelings out before allowing a conversation to drift towards the whole 2nd Amendment Debate. Plus working in an industry where liberalism is almost deemed mandatory there are times when conceding an argument to maintain peace and a job, this is due to the fact the rules allow for these mind of incidents to lead to harassment issues and being the minority group in an industry can lead to compulsory loss of employment or inequity within the organized labor. There are even mandatory yearly briefings that must be reviewed and given accepted via signature
that you will act as an internal Gestapo within the industry by reporting fellow employees that show interest in weapon or affiliation with groups that do. e.g.: NRA, GOA etc. This all in the name of preventing work place violence. So indoctrination is not only grade school it permeates industry controlled by liberal means.
So please understand it is not always possible to stand up and support our views due it is unacceptable. So in a nutshell I love God, trains, westerns, and guns—the last three not in any particular order. I do not want to forfeit my position with the RR to support my position on guns. I do my part by donating my paycheck to groups like the NRA, GOA etc. so they may speak on my behalf and I donate enough to offset my mandatory dues to a Union that works to elect members of our society to government positions that work to undermine our
constitutional rights. The second set of dues are not optional for the record. My donations however to the NRA, GOA and other constitutional groups
Far exceeds my 120.00 per month to a union that fails to accept the fact it has members like myself in its ranks…
Comment by American Mountain Railroader — January 29, 2013 @ 8:11 pm
I am surrounded by people who live in gated communities who pay extra for their private security, beyond and addition to which is provided by the Sheriff’s Dept.
They have their views on what the rest of us need for security…. It is not unlike most other ivory castle views as to how the rest of the piss ants should live or survive. Again, we have the liberal elites backed by tens of millions of their street masses (from which they are insulated)to proclaim their wine & cheese tolerance. The gun issue is a good measure of the “Who’s Who” and yet other political comparisons are a much bigger slap in the face to their false reality…That extends any word limit here,BTW … How many rounds of ammo can come to bare when a politician, like Governor Cuomo of NY, gets threatened … just asking. Sorry I’m clearly not writer by profession but still need to say what I think after 64 years of intent observation.
Comment by Kurt Mathieson — January 29, 2013 @ 8:43 pm
Now finally someone who actually sees there are at least two sides to an argument, where has he been. Look, there are many in this country like me, a 66-year-old veteran. The government does not know anything about what my family has in the way of protection, the weapons you own known will determine who comes after you and what they will bring. As a veteran I like surprises on my side, so do not go around bragging-boasting or carrying weapons in the streets like some want-a-bee. The second amendment to me is my right to be ready for anything, flash and talking trash have nothing to do with that. As far as folks who hate guns, most women do not like loud anything, and those who never served or lived in an area where guns were tools would have fear of something they know little about but know can kill. My thing is if you like guns find, but like religious nuts do not keep shoving it in every-bodies face, aggressive behavior is hostile and people here have shoot other people for less reasons. Intimidating folks here seems to get shit to happen quicker. Other places on the planet, which have less access, or use fewer weapons are a lot slower to boil. My point is their are no liberals, rednecks, crackhead Christian extremists, their are 300 million Americans, with a casual estimated 4 million minimum weapons, making us the most violent, well armed people in the world, trying to coexist in geographically smaller areas, starting to feel like we were being pressed closer together and messed with. The easy solution for everyone is to locate, ID the deranged relatives and familiars you would not want be around if they were armed, you know the type, and the only people that can find and fix the position of these malcontents, or mentally challenged individuals are folks who understand the culture. As far as the criminals these and the sociopaths are the wild element, the one no one can see coming most of the time, that and a tyrannical government are what the 2nd amendment was made for. Do not believe for a moment the liberals are not armed, that would be a fatal error, they just do not want to be suspected of hold-in, until the moment of truth comes. There are no real Americans that would do anything to protect their kids, but the politicians and their agents work us against each other, for the good old “divide and conquer” crowd of robber-barons and foreigners who wish us ill! Today the corporations that are almost in control of all the major countries can not have us united, most people sense that, because if unified even the best army in the world, numbering 2 million can be beaten by a ragtag bunch of regular folks, been done before, 1776. So some clear thinking and less animosity between groups has to be found, maybe meeting one day every other week, hidden in the woods to drill and then store the weapons, go to a pub drink some beer and learn enough of the ways of your fellow citizen in a pub. I often wonder with all the Torrie’s snitching, and the British spy’s everywhere why the British approached bridges where the local social centers, pubs were, because in those days that was were the men usually went to do collective work or politics! Lexington and Concord had men who had been in bars all night when the Brits showed up! Turns out the people had convinced the British spies we were at odds with each other and could be taken down segments at a time. While it might sound old fashion, or unbelievable in these times, being a veteran I would still defend any of our citizens, redneck, liberal, black or gay, just because they are us, and I guess hope some of the others on this site see the point, the direction my efforts would take us is toward unity on at least one level, as opposed to being taken where the powers want to take us, “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”! Any feedback will be appreciated, can always delete that which offends! Sin Loy!
Comment by Joe6pK — January 30, 2013 @ 12:27 am
My always unpleasant experiences with liberals are that they are overbearing, condescending, narcissistic and possibly sociopathic jerks. I have never been able to present my side of a topic to these people no matter how hard I tried. I have come to the conclusion that being a liberal is a type of mental disorder.
Think about it. These people have not resided in a cave or under a rock their entire lives. They have been exposed to the same life experiences everyone else has. They choose to be brainwashed by the “elite few” that have come to political power in the past few years. These are people that are either too lazy, do not have the interest, or they have been brainwashed to the point that the truth is an abstract reality for them.
Some of that is due to the fact that all of the mainstream media (except FOX News) is totally in the tank for progressives and liberals. This brings up a point about the intelligence of these people. They are not exactly the brightest pixels on the screen are they?
Here is an important point to ponder: Stupid people are easily brainwashed. I am not saying that stupidity is a permanent condition, not by any means. However, to be smart, I mean to be really smart, one must necessarily have the ability to admit when one had erred. Liberals hardly ever do that.
Can you remember a situation where any liberal at any time actually admitted they were wrong? I am not talking about politicians; I am talking about the people mentioned in the lead in of this story. It could be people you work with, your neighbors and classmates, those kinds of people. These are people that already have a very firm opinion about any issue they deem to be important: Like gun control.
Besides gun control, they believe that it really is possible to squeeze blood out of a turnip. They think that taxing rich people at a total rate of over 65% in some parts of the country is just fine. They also believe that the death tax which is responsible for many families losing businesses such as farms is OK too. Printing money like there is no tomorrow is fine with them as is all the other policies of the current administration, simply because they have a total trust in their government and in the Democratic Party.
I’m not a psychologist but I believe it is only common sense to observe that anyone having that kind of trust in a political party does so strictly because they are basically insecure. They want that feeling of an omnipresent “mommy and daddy” watching over them at all times. A mommy and daddy, who will protect them, watch over them and generally ensure that nothing bad happens to them in their little utopian world. This world consists of no guns, no crime, no wars, no famine, no evil rich and an absolute assurance that all of the citizens’ needs are met by a central authority.
In order to achieve that utopian dream, they must do several things. Redistribute wealth, disarm the people, control everything including healthcare, the automobile industry and through regulation of all kinds ensure that the central authority is in control of basically EVERYTHING.
This paradigm is also known as communism. We fought a long cold (and sometimes really hot) war to reject this ideology. Now, after all that and thousands of American lives lost to preserve capitalism and our way of life, we are surrendering to the very system of government we fought so hard to reject.
This brings me back to my original critique of the average liberal. As I said I am not a psychologist but I know what makes sense. I think liberals see themselves as creators. They believe that they are the apex of intelligence and that the others that don’t agree with their views just have not had their argument explained well enough.
They want to help poor people and the best way to do that is tax the crap out of rich people. They want an end to gun violence and the best way to do that is eliminate guns. Their view is so crystal clear in their own minds and it makes so much sense to them that can hardly see what the problem law abiding gun owners have with that idea.
If you take away from them the statement “It can’t happen here!” their argument for the banning of high capacity magazines falls apart. They continue to make the same statement over and over; “why does anyone need a 30 round ‘clip’ to hunt deer?” The sheer ignorance of these people is obvious to anyone who owns and shoots an AR15 or similar rifle. Can we convince liberals that we DO have a need for these weapons? I doubt it, because to do so would be an admonition by them that they were wrong. Remember, stupid people remain stupid because they are never wrong!
Comment by Frank — January 30, 2013 @ 11:38 am
When a Democrat family member, ( brother-in-law ) asked me about my being registered as an Independant, I stated, I simply listen to both sides of the issue(s) THEN, I do MY own choosing of a candidate. I do NOT pander to a leader of sheep. One more thing, for those of you folks “held” into a job or a position, where you feel “surrounded” by the opposition, just think of yourselves not as being “surrounded”, but as …….Infiltrators ! Sometimes, it is more beneficial to “absorb”, rather than “dispense” !
Comment by Ted M. — January 31, 2013 @ 8:11 am