How to communicate with gun nuts?

[Paul in Saudi]

I do not know what the Founding Fathers would think about gun control in the modern era. I feel I can safely surmise that they would be gobsmacked to learn folks today are trying to decide what long-dead people thought before arranging their affairs to best suit their own happiness.

 

[IglooDame]

You just need neutral phrasing. A CCW wouldn't have made a difference, because he'd've been nuts to pull his in such a situation.

/thread, well done.

It is a quite simple problem to resolve. Require every single gun purchase to be approved and recorded using a modern computerized database, along with requiring every single firearm be test fired when it is manufactured and the bullet sent to the ATF.

Then you send those to prison who let firearms get into the hands of criminals without the proper procedures being followed, as well as banning them from selling or even owning another firearm.

I am completely in agreement with you that Eric Holder should be sent to prison.

The system doesn't work properly because the NRA and our congressmen have assured that it is hopelessly broken with all sorts of absurd loopholes, including not even allowing the ATF to computerize the data they now have on legal firearm purchases out of sheer paranoia.

Because the BATF is going to be so much better at network security than the OPM?

 

[Arwon]

Theres no such thing as responsible gun ownership.

I was about to say unless you work for the police / army ... But no. They shoot civilians in the US for no reason at all now.

Farming, sport shooting, those are pretty legit

 

[Colonel]

We should simply turn in all guns to me and I will decide who can have use of them!! Muhahaha. But seriously, I think we should do forced conscription, weapons training, and once everyone has been trained and evaluated then we give them guns.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I am completely in agreement with you that Eric Holder should be sent to prison.

Even though the ATF, which Holder really had nothing to do with directly, was ironically just trying to send the real criminals to prison for violating the law?

Because the BATF is going to be so much better at network security than the OPM?

Because those who advocate silly restrictions in the ATF so they can't properly do their jobs don't have to be paranoid about some hacker stealing their guns which belong in a safe, instead of the government so with the data someday?

Those who advocate absurd gun laws lose all credibility by doing so, much less trying to turn a sting operation which shouldn't have been approved at a much lower level into yet another political circus. What is ironic is that this group represents a small minority in this country, yet they are able to buy enough congressmen and create enough blatant propaganda to override the democratic process by continuing to sabotage the gun laws. As a direct result, the US yet again becomes the laughingstock of the rest of the world.

So let's all just listen to Ted Nugent and pretend he isn't someone who belongs in a mental institution.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Step one: stop thinking of them as gun nuts. Communication is impossible when people insist on throwing nouns at one another.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Only he didn't state that he "threw" anything at them. Thinking of them as gun nuts when they actually are hardly changes the point that they simply cannot be reasoned with. They have already drank the kool-aid.

It is much like trying to convince a creationist that the Earth isn't 4000 years old, or that dinosaurs didn't exist the same time as man.

"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." Robert Heinlein

 

[Smellincoffee]

Only he didn't state that he "threw" anything at them. Thinking of them as gun nuts when they actually are hardly changes the point that they simply cannot be reasoned with. They have already drank the kool-aid.

It is much like trying to convince a creationist that the Earth isn't 4000 years old, or that dinosaurs didn't exist the same time as man.

It was Flavor-Aid. There is a special place in Hell for people who abuse that phrase.


(I hope.)

If you want to communicate with someone, then you have to do the work. You have to figure out what emotions are driving them, what's causing those emotions. People are alienated from one another only by mental walls. If they're defensive, they're not going to open up unless you expose yourself. If there's no empathy involved, then 'communication' is a lie: what people really want to do is make other people think they way they do.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Alright. You take a shot at how to convince these gun nuts to listen to reason.

I'm too busy digging up Ted Nugent videos to entertain them.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Step one: stop thinking of them as gun nuts. Communication is impossible when people insist on throwing nouns at one another.

It was Flavor-Aid. There is a special place in Hell for people who abuse that phrase.


(I hope.)

If you want to communicate with someone, then you have to do the work. You have to figure out what emotions are driving them, what's causing those emotions. People are alienated from one another only by mental walls. If they're defensive, they're not going to open up unless you expose yourself. If there's no empathy involved, then 'communication' is a lie: what people really want to do is make other people think they way they do.

I get this. And I actually restrain myself from throwing nouns pretty well. And even stay away fairly effectively from the background issue of gun regulations.

What I can't seem to do is find a way to divert their thought process from "have a gun, stop the crime" even in a case like this where it seems to me that it should be so blatantly obvious. If this guy had had a gun and tried to use it I don't see how anyone could arrive at any "saved the day and stopped the crime." I'm fairly certain that not a single one of these gun advocates, if they were in that position, would not recognize "this is a really good time to just keep my gun hidden and pretend I don't have one." But when they look at it from the outside they really resist going there and I cannot fathom what the payoff is for them.

 

[Formaldehyde]

They don't need a payoff. What they insist upon though is to not have their fantasy destroyed. The only way that will ever occur is if they are in such a situation themselves. And even then they still have to be willing to admit it to others instead of perpetuating the fantasy.

 

[Gary Childress]

If you want to communicate with someone, then you have to do the work. You have to figure out what emotions are driving them, what's causing those emotions. People are alienated from one another only by mental walls. If they're defensive, they're not going to open up unless you expose yourself. If there's no empathy involved, then 'communication' is a lie: what people really want to do is make other people think the way they do.

No truer words have ever been spoken.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

They don't need a payoff. What they insist upon though is to not have their fantasy destroyed. The only way that will ever occur is if they are in such a situation themselves. And even then they still have to be willing to admit it to others instead of perpetuating the fantasy.

Maintaining that fantasy would be their payoff...but what exactly is the fantasy?

That every gun owner is ... what? It seems odd that they would be so heavily invested in a fantasy that builds up other people.

I could totally get this if they were saying "that would have been different if I had just happened to be passing by." That's an ego fantasy, and certainly common enough. But that doesn't seem to be where they are coming from.

 

[Gary Childress]

Maintaining that fantasy would be their payoff...but what exactly is the fantasy?

That every gun owner is ... what? It seems odd that they would be so heavily invested in a fantasy that builds up other people.

I could totally get this if they were saying "that would have been different if I had just happened to be passing by." That's an ego fantasy, and certainly common enough. But that doesn't seem to be where they are coming from.

In truth, I wouldn't worry that much about it. You can't save everyone from their mistakes. You can save yourself and those who will listen, though.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Maintaining that fantasy would be their payoff...but what exactly is the fantasy?

That every gun owner is ... what? It seems odd that they would be so heavily invested in a fantasy that builds up other people.

I could totally get this if they were saying "that would have been different if I had just happened to be passing by." That's an ego fantasy, and certainly common enough. But that doesn't seem to be where they are coming from.

It's not every gun owner who see himself as a cross between Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. It is limited to the vigilante types who like to carry concealed weapons wherever they go, or the ones who kill people because they are trying to steal the property of their neighbors.

And I fail to see the difference between the "just passing by" fantasy and the "I would have kept them from borrowing my car for 30 minutes by shooting them all" fantasy.


Link to video.

 

[Bugfatty300]

So this happened recently in the town up the road. There isn't much to the story but I wanted to provide an "unbiased source link".

The gist is that four teenagers, two with guns in hand, carjacked a dude in his driveway. Two of them drove off and the other two took off on bikes. The car was abandoned unharmed like a mile away and recovered in half an hour.

My local chapter of the "if only California let more people carry guns" society has jumped in here ranting about how this would have gone so much differently if only the car owner had had a legal concealed weapon. I agree with them completely, since if the guy had tried to pull out a gun in the midst of four guys, at least two of which had guns in hand, he would almost certainly be dead. Of course, I am immediately ignored as just another lib'rul trying to dismantle the second amendment.

So here's where I need some help. How do my local gun nuts fail to recognize what seems an obvious reality? Is there any way I can get past their "anyone who disagrees is just tryin' to take our guns" filters? What are they thinking here, really?

It sounds like they're using a random act of violence to mindlessly spout some of their political side's talking points. Plus, if they're arguing for state-wide shall-issue carry permits, then they will be even less interested in the details of this one particular carjacking.

I wouldn't bother communicating with them if they behave like that.

 

[Archbob]

Bullet proof vest + Laser Death rays.

 

[Yeekim]

I do not know what the Founding Fathers would think about gun control in the modern era. I feel I can safely surmise that they would be gobsmacked to learn folks today are trying to decide what long-dead people thought before arranging their affairs to best suit their own happiness.