Quote of the Day: The Jack

Found at Robb’s as we were discussing the willful ignorance of people who niether know, nor care who Joseph Goebbels was.

Part of it is a class aspiration. Think a British gentleman taking pride in his ignorance of how a boiler works.

*Of course* he doesn’t know such dirty low brow things work.

Another factor is fear. A fair fractions of Antis have friends. Friends who were good and anti-gun, friends who started learning about guns… friends who then started going to the range…

Friends who swore when they bought a gun that it was okay, that they sill supported “common sense laws” or “keeping guns away from the wrong sort.”

Friends who eventually became pro-gun.

And for the anti looking on in horror at the transforamtion… what started it all?

Why learning about guns.

I certainly agree that they see going to the shooting range, or even reading up on information on “politically Correct” guns like the Winchester Model 70 differ from guns like the AR-15 (or God forbid even know what the always ban-compliant M1A is) as “low” behavior beneath them.

I question if they indeed have seen friends and acquaintances change their mind on gun control. True believers like people who want to become active members of groups created by Bloomberg tend to, in my experience, be denizens of the Ivory Tower. Not only would reading ballistics data, and taking means to understand what those numbers mean, or throwing on eyes and ears and firing their first shots be “low” activities, but also associating with people who would be willing to stoop to that level are beneath them.

Now this isn’t EVERYBODY who may stand up for gun bans, or mandatory background check laws, or vote for a politician who is actively anti-gun. But I would say it IS everybody who is willing to run an anti-gun blog, or put on a T-Shirt for an Anti-Freedom PAC and go out for a rally flanked by armed guards payed for by Bloomberg.

There is a reason why reading anti-gun writing you get the distinct feeling that they want a civil war. They have “othered” our side so much that they won’t even speak to them.

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3 Responses to Quote of the Day: The Jack

  1. The_Jack says:

    Not everyone who is an anti is quite so cloistered. Especially when you get out of the blue enclaves. There it gets harder and harder to not have any friends of family outside of the “bubble”

    And that’s just the true believers, what about the more casual antis? The ones that don’t have any experience with guns, but don’t see the *need* and think they’re icky.

    Heck, you yourself are an example of a non-rabid anti that went over to the pro-gun side in steps and stages. And while you were at university (if memory serves) it was in Maine (again if memory serves).

    Did you have anti-friends back in those days? Did they see your transformation?

    Personally, I grew up in New Jersey and went to uni in New York state. I was raised with firearms and liked them, and my father was very pro gun, but I didn’t start to get politically pro gun until I learned about the laws of said states.

    • The_Jack says:

      Though on reflection the “fear of knowledge” is probably positively correlated with the intensity of anti-gun feelings.

      The latter of which is also positively correlated with self-cloistering.

      However, all it takes is a break in the wall for a more passionate anti to be friends or family with a less passionate anti who then became a “heretic”

      • Weerd Beard says:

        Yep, that’s what I was getting at. Yes I was anti-gun, I was indeed VERY happy to hear the 94 AWB passed. Also my transition was VERY gradual. When I hated the AWB, I still found Maine’s mandatory training to be a very good idea before getting a carry permit.

        Still even in the depths of being a full-blown anti “If you keep a loaded gun in the house, you’ll end up shooting your kids if they accidentally knock over a chair heading to the bathroom at 2am, you paranoid redneck!” still my full extent of being an anti meant giving that opinion when asked directly, and watching an anti-gun report on TV when it happened to be covered by a show I was watching.

        I was not active, and I was not a true believer. Hell my actions to BECOME a true believer was what started my transition to pro. My argument is people who decide to double-down on their anti-rights involvement and STAY anti-gun are a very special breed of people, because hard-factual support of being anti gun is REALLY weak, and even the most brassy NRA talking points are pretty solid, if not a bit short-sighted and simplistic.

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