Today a friend of mine bought a handgun at a local gunshow.
What's remarkable about this? It was his very first firearm purchase. A Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm.
A year ago he would have never contemplated buying a gun. What he knew was what he saw on TV and read in the papers. He thought an 'assault weapon' was something more than just a tricked out semi-auto. Shotguns and 'hunting rifles' were OK but.... etc. You all know the routine.
Then I started educating him.
I didn't feed him 'NRA talking points'. I asked him questions and encouraged him to find the answers on his own. I provided resources for both sides of the debate and made myself available for any questions he had.
After doing some research, he came back from reading the Brady Campaign site with "You've got to be kidding me. What a bunch of crap."
And another gun nut was born.
11 comments:
Congratulations. When are you taking him to the range? Assuming you can find / afford 9mm ammo.
B Woodman
III
As soon as he picks it up. This is the People's Soviet of Illinois remember. And our Friendly Neighborhood FFL has 9mm in stock.
Good job. Thank you for enlightening another person.
A REAL friend will encourage him to get a larger caliber gun ASAP...
Well he wanted the .45. It was a cost issue though.
"It was a cost issue though."
As a friend, I hope you warned him about the "Ooh, I don't have that one yet" bug.
Once he gets to the range and fires a multitude of different toys, he's gonna look at his 9mm as a gateway drug.
Also encourage him to get a decent cleaning kit and all the tools/doodads needed to keep it clean.
Show him how to tear it apart with nothing more than a flat head and his left foot, clean it to a master chefs' standards for cutlery and then re-assemble it in the dark with a forked stick and his tongue.
If he looks at ya funny, ask him why he never joined the boy scouts.
I got by for years with the .22 revolver and 1911A1 that my Dad gave me when I was a kid. Then after 25 years of being a 2 gun shooter I decided to get some other calibers to fill in between the .22 and 45acp and started buying handguns of my own. My first purchase was an Smith M&P 9MM. It like it, but my kids and wife love it. I prefer the 1911A1 because it shoots like an old friend. But lately I've really been enjoying the 9 mm Springfield EMP and a Uberti SA .357 magnum that we picked up.
Its a good thing that ammo is tough to find right now because this gun buying is addictive but I can't bring myself to buy a gun I don't have ammo for.
"I didn't feed him 'NRA talking points'. I asked him questions and encouraged him to find the answers on his own. I provided resources for both sides of the debate and made myself available for any questions he had."
Yep that's the way to do it. That's how I crossed over from Anti To Pro-gun. (Massachusetts' licensing laws turned me from Pro to Gun-Nut and 2nd Amendment Activist)
I shot guns and realized they were fun and safe for responsible adults to shoot, so I started reading about them. I quickly realized that the anti-gun groups thrive on lies and misdirection, so I had only two options, be dishonest, or switch sides.
Sadly there are just too many people willing to do the former for the sake of a political agenda.
Happily there are more people like your friend than there are Mikeb's and company, hence why we're winning.
Education certainly is the main issue. The tough part about that is how to do that with someone who has no interest to begin with? If I had no interest in guns I can easily see being befuddled by the constant bleating of the anti gun propaganda. If it were computers that were being demonized in order to regulate them, I would yawn and start to nod off as some tech-head started to inform me all about ROM and RAM and CPU speed and megaherz and megabites and bits. Guns are nearly as technical with lots of minutia of caliber and function etc, and with the anti 2nd crowd capitalizing on this ignorance coupled with a lack of interest, education is a long hard road. I am thrilled you managed it with your friend. For many unfortunate people it takes a personal tragedy to force them to realize their inherent personal responsibility for their own defense. Closing the barn door after the horse is gone is never the best idea...
What were the questions you asked him to find answers to? (You're on to something here and I'd like to be able to try the same approach.)
The conversation initially started with "Assault Weapons". I pointed him to the '94 AWB and the various state ones and asked him what the difference was between an 'assault weapon' and any other semi-auto.
With Registration/Licensing I asked him who where the ones that were required to and what effects did they have on ownership w/ points towards U.S. v. Haynes, Chicago and DC handgun registrations.
Really that was all it took. After that he started digging into other topics (cop-killer bullets, Saturday night specials, gun show loophole, etc) on his own.
Licensing ticked him off when he applied for his FOID card, he had to keep calling the ISP to get it and they kept giving him the runaround. It took almost 6 months when by law they have 30 days.
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