The Truth About Guns, Part 3
By Peter and Helen Evans (10/25/04)
Since taking our handgun safety class and qualifying for concealed-carry permits, we have had several opportunities to talk with people about guns... not formal presentations; just shooting the breeze, so to speak. In our last article (The Truth About Guns, Part 2), we speculated about the deep seated-fears many harbor about guns. In this column we're going to talk about the response from a few "ordinary people" who aren't necessarily pro- or anti-gun, they just don't think about the subject much. As a result, they tend to rely on an un-examined belief that's invariably associated with guns. It's seldom directly articulated but you can hear it implied in their tone of voice when they say "Oh, you like guns" as though they were saying, "Oh, you eat babies for lunch."
Consider one person who stated, as though everybody knew, that "People who carry guns are macho, people who need to abuse power." Then, without skipping a beat, he said, "... except for the people I know who carry guns; those are really nice people who are responsible about it, and in fact, very low key." So we asked, "Why don't you believe your own personal experience then?" We just got a shrug. We feel that we may have planted a seed of doubt in his mind about his original assumption. In fact, most law-abiding citizens who carry guns have the confidence to be low key, rather than be show-offs. However, in movies or on TV, we are much more likely to be shown criminal punks or wild-eyed rednecks using guns.
Another revealing conversation took place when we attended one of the "open carry luncheons" in support of a restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia which welcomes open carry patrons. We had been assured that the owner was glad to have us and so we assumed the waiter knew why we were there. A nice group of about 10 of us, including two young girls, talked, ate and were generally enjoying ourselves when we stepped away to the bar for a cigarette. Since it was a slow day, our waiter was doing double duty as bartender. He leaned forward and told us he was so glad that "all you cops" were here today. We asked, "Why?" He replied, "I feel so safe."
He went on to tell us how it's a dangerous world and you never know what might happen, but with all of us there, he felt safe. We smiled and told him that we weren't cops. "Who are you then?" he asked. We replied, "Just ordinary, law-abiding citizens who carry guns." His eyes grew wide and he backed away. We said, "Many people carry guns in Virginia, but you don't know it because they can legally carry them concealed. We believe in obeying the law, so we're not breaking any, and remember... you said you feel safe around us. So what's changed in your mind?"
He moved a step closer - but not too close - and said he's just scared of guns. "But you weren't afraid when you thought we were cops," we said. "That's right," he replied. He admitted that it didn't make sense, but he was still uncomfortable. But he relaxed a bit when he told us that. We allowed that it's not something you see everyday, but if he thought about it, the world would be safer, as he had said, if law abiding citizens carried guns. We told him we all had jobs and families and wouldn't want to ruin all that by doing something stupid with a gun. That made sense to him. We continued that statistics show that just by showing a bad guy that you have a gun usually makes them back off and there is no trouble for anyone. That too made sense to him, but after years of being told that "all guns are bad" he still didn't feel comfortable. Yet, he was thinking about it. Afterall, here we were in the flesh; nice people who directly contradicted his notions.
So, what's going on here? Their own eyes, their own logic, their own experience tells them that law-abiding citizens are not gun-toting brutes out to shoot up the town, yet they still feel uncomfortable.
The problem is that over the years, little by little and bit by bit, the news-and-entertainment media and the schools and universities have saturated the public with wrong notions about guns. People begin to doubt their own experience and their own common sense because they've been told over and over that guns, not criminals, cause crime. However, the good news about the little by little and bit by bit scenario is that the right ideas about guns can creep back into society. We CAN begin to change the tide. It's time for us to confront people's wrong ideas. They probably won't change their minds overnight; remember they acquired their old ideas gradually. All we have to do to change the direction is to begin speaking up, questioning, and letting them know the Truth About Guns.
It's not just our personal preferences that are at stake. The idea that "guns are bad" is infecting the world community too. It's not just people who own guns who are perceived as "bad," but also nations that own guns. It's time we let them know law-abiding, normal, sane people own guns too.
(By the way, we completed our rifle safety training this past weekend. Pictures can be seen in our photo album at "Assault Rifles - We're Trained" - http://peterandhelenevans.com/pho-rifle.html)
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