Attended a Discussion on Guns

Last night I attended a discussion on "Gun Safety" at the church I attend.

This was a moderated discussion with about 12 people there. It was an interesting demographic spread. I learned a lot about the thought processes of some people.

Unrelated but interesting

 

It had a couple people that were of the "Guns are Evil" camp. They were operating on a pure emotional level. Facts were slim with them. I came to this meeting with a pile of data from the FBI and CDC and media sources. One believed that "Assault Weapons" were all full auto and murdered over 30,000 innocent people in the US every year. When I showed her that in 2011 only 323 people were murdered by rifles of all kinds she vapor locked. As topic after topic was presented with facts she actually said to me at one point, "Stop with your facts, it will not change how I feel.".

The moderator was great, described the concept of talking past each other. She was talking about feelings, I was talking about stats.

Two women that were there had been raped in the past. One of them became a gun owner and is now a concealed carry supporter. One was in the "Guns are Evil" emotional camp, a talisman that make otherwise normal people become evil.

It was mentioned that to avoid the 2nd Amendment issue the Fed "Should tax guns and ammo. make it cost $100 per bullet. I replied. "So you just want wealthy elitists to be only people armed?".

"Only police and military should have guns." was said. My reply was, "I just saw a movie where only the police and military had guns: Schindler's List".

I cleared up several myths like, "Silencers are Illegal" and "Assault Weapons are machine guns". 

The moderator brought it back to gun safety very well. We talked about how to keep kids safe. I was surprised how productive this conversation was. The consensus was that ignorance is not the solution. We keep our children safe by teaching them to swim and be safe around pools. We give them drivers education to make safe drivers. Early education would help them be able to tell a real gun from a toy. It would tell them what to do if they encountered an unsecured firearm.

We cleared up the that 2nd Amendment was not about hunting or written about muskets.

The willful ignorance was amazing. Head buried in the sand.

--There was more. Got to head to work now!