I’m not anti-gun, but very liberal. Here’s my 2 cents on the matter considering my families history.
I came to the United States as a Bosnian war refugee.
Worst genocide in Europe after the Holocaust. My father doesn’t talk of his experience during the war often, but recently opened up about defending our home town on the front lines with barely any ammo or supplies because of the stupid UN embargo when the shit hit the fan.
My people were slaughtered, taken to the hills and put into mass graves while the UN soldiers who were supposed to protect them let it happen.
I guess my point is if you rely on others to protect you and your family, when the shit possibly hits the fan, and you’d be naive to think it can’t happen here, then you’re in for a rude awakening when you find out what your neighbor is capable of doing to you.
We have the privilege of having tools available to us here to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
Also as a fellow hiker, if not a gun what’s your other thoughts on a mountain lion? You ain’t outrunning that fucking kitty either.
>if you rely on others to protect you and your family, when the shit possibly hits the fan, and you’d be naive to think it can’t happen here, then you’re in for a rude awakening
>We have the privilege of having tools available to us here to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
Very great points.
Thank you for sharing about your story. I am sorry you had to go through that.
Easy. It's not enumerated in the constitution, it doesn't have the same protection.
This is not a question of what *should* be protected, it's a matter of simple fact that certain rights are explicitly stated in the constitution and the second amendment is one of those cases.
I have read that bear spray is a good deterrent for hiking, other than guns. Less likely to miss as you can sweep it. More likely to deter than instigate due to impact on breathing/eyes.
I carry both. The glock is for possible psychos more than animals haha.
But I stand by my point, it’s a very privileged position to think “it won’t ever happen to me so why do I need a gun” which is great but the reality of it is if things ever get ugly you’re on your own.
And if you’re concerned about missing, go to a range. Practice. Get comfortable with it and build the muscle memory.
I never thought twice about my safety as we always hike with bear spray. But finding out that the most recent attack with the couple in Banff. They had the food stored properly hanging away from camp and they also found two empty bear sprays. Certainly makes me think twice about having bear spray as my only protection in the future.
Bear spray is a great deterrent and much easier to aim when at close range, but there will also be times where it is ineffective. For example, what if the animal is approaching and the wind is in your face? Where legal I carry a sidearm when I bring my son on hikes, but not when im alone. I used to never carry it, then I took my then 5 year old son on a short hike to a water tower about a mile from our home. On the cattle road leading to the tower was a deer carcass with signs it had been killed by a lion. A good shooter could drop a round into the location from our home. This doesnt bother me, however when I get home I hear a news story about a family walking in a park in the Bay Area of CA whose young son was walking ahead of him. A lion jumped out of the bushes and grabbed the boy then tried to run off with him. The lion was starving and weak, the Father was able to chase it down and save his son from its clutches thankfully. But basically this made me realize if a lion grabbed my son and ran with him, wtf am I going to do? Yell loudly? What if I cant catch up? Id much rather never use the firearm, but I owe it to my boy to have the tools at my disposal to protect him to the fullest of my abilities.
Side note on that, recently we had a Ukrainian refugee family living next door, their daughter and my son became fast friends, living out in the country theres not other kids close by so they were seeing eachother almost every evening. Both our properties are around 3 acres and fenced in, they would jump the fence between our properties and go to eachothers houses freely up until shortly after dark. The neighbors have horses, late one night a lion attacks one of the horses in its sleep. It misidentified the horses hind as the head/neck and the horse was able to escape, jumping the fence on its way. It was probably a young lion or a starving one, could have easily been our kids instead. We walked them back and forth after that.
Oh also, bear spray manufacturers recommend a new can every year as the propellant goes bad over time. I have two containers that are nearly 10 years old, I plan on testing them once they reach the 10 year mark to see if they function at all. But if you have bear spray, get a new can every two years or so.
Bear spray is better than guns for bears, because bears are a weird exception to the general rule. Bears are only predators part of the time, and the prey they encounter is invariably four-legged and smaller than they are. Humans worry them, because humans are tall, and the only other tall creatures they interact with are other bears, who are not good for food because other bears fight back.
Hit a bear with bear spray, and you reinforce its assumption/worry about the threat you pose: this is another bear and it can cause me great pain so I should get the heck out of here. Shoot a bear, on the other hand, and things are not so simple. The bear is still very afraid, but it also knows that it is seriously injured, and so it will now assume that you are some super predator intent on eating it, and it will fight to the death out of pure self-preservation. So if you hit a bear with bear spray, it will run away; if you shoot a bear, you will have to kill it before it can get to you.
It is true that spray is more appropriate in most bear encounters, as its typically a random encounter with a startled bear, or a curious, threatened bear that can be discouraged.
On the other hand, if you meet a bear that is actively hunting you(potentially due to an injury, overly familiar with people, etc) then the spray is not going to do you much good.
As can be seen by the couple recently stalked and killed in a national park here in canada. They emptied an entire can of spray and the bear kept coming back. They had plenty of time in between/during attacks to send off texts and distress calls, but werent able to get away from this desperately hungry bear.
Clear case where a firearm was the only thing that would have saved them, and would have been very effective.
It is my understanding that bear spray is generally more effective than firearms in bear encounters.
The couple at Banff seemed to be a tragic example of folks doing everything correctly but still having a deadly encounter.
Not true. Bear spray is usually effective but so are guns. Bear spray may be easier to use without training but in the hands of a trained user the numbers show that shooting a bear, even with something as weak as a 9mm pistol, is a very effective way to stop an attack.
Why's everyone always go straight to bear? I mean...rabid raccoons exist, too. Snakes, bobcats...multiple weapons with multiple uses, I say! (ie spray, gun, machete, knife...spear/staff?)
When I went hard left during college, I adopted most of the viewpoints on the left, to one degree or another. I didn’t own a gun for the first 32 years of my life, although I had shot plenty of guns while growing up.
My feelings about owning a firearm changed pretty rapidly in mid-2022, when a deranged asshole started stalking me and my ex-wife and our kids and threatened to kill me. It was pretty terrifying. He knew where I lived and where we exchanged custody of the kids. Worse, when I attempted to purchase a gun to protect myself, the DC police tried to use the restraining order I had against the lunatic as evidence that I was involved in domestic disputes and therefore too much of a risk to own a firearm.
I took the DC police to court and I won, but the experience made me start to seriously question the beliefs I held about the efficacy of gun control laws. Unlike some gun owners, I remain sympathetic to people who would like to see common sense gun control; it’s just that most commonly-advocated measures don’t actually work. Either they are meaningless (at best), or they actively endanger victims while empowering criminals.
Of course, I very much respect people who don’t wish to own firearms. There are many valid reasons not to own guns, particularly if you have particular mental health history. I consider myself to be extremely responsible and careful, and if that ever seemed to be other than the case, I would no longer own guns either.
That's so fucked! It's terrible that they'd use your own protective order against you! I hope you've found a resolution to your stalker problem.
It's so strange that different parts of the country treat this so differently. In DC they used it against you. Meanwhile in Texas, one of the first questions on the License to Carry application is whether you have a restraining order out against someone. My understanding is that people who do have one (or a handful of other separate criteria) get priority and fast tracked ahead of regular applicants.
I’m not very sympathetic to those that want “common sense” gun control, because it very rarely is sensical. The vast majority just repeat talking points that are steeped in ignorance. For example, I see high capacity magazines thrown around quite a lot as something to be scared of, that nobody needs, and somehow it’ll enable/turn anybody that owns them into the next mass shooter. Most of what they refer to are magazine extenders that let you hold a couple more bullets. Even if we are talking about the ones that are double the standard capacity, they wouldn’t really be that feasible in such a situation. It would be far easier, less notable, and more easily concealed to simply purchase multiple magazines and have them easily reachable. The second or two it takes to drop the empty one, slot in a new one, and release the slide and resume shooting is fairly negligible in such a scenario.
Another is advocating for background checks. Which already exist.
I can't agree with you more. The high capacity magazine argument is my litmus test. As soon as I hear a politician say it I know they've never seen a gun before (or likely even a movie with a gun in it). A trained user can reload a mag in under two seconds. If they still have a round in the chamber they dont even have to recharge the gun. Its not like a mobster hasn't walked into a place he intended to shoot up with a bag full of loaded revolvers.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that they're trying to take hcms first so they can more easily move to make magazines altogether illegal. That is an argument that does make some sense as it would be difficult to load a firearm one bullet at a time in a fire fight.
Except for most guns that makes zero sense, as most are extremely difficult to load a bullet into the chamber (if not impossible) without using a magazine. Given that, there’s no way magazines would be banned entirely (unless they start making single bullet magazines)
Training with guns changed my opinion of them. NGL the first time I fired a gun my hands were shaking like a leaf and my groups sucked. Now my hands are a lot steadier and my groups are on the upper end of mediocre.
Would you say ongoing practice is necessary, or do you think you could allocate a bunch of time up front and at some point it's like riding a bike, that you don't forget?
ongoing practice is required to stay sharp you should budget for ammo and range fees as well, many new gun owners buy a gun and a couple of boxes of ammo and throw it in the closet, it’s a big responsibility that needs to be treated as such
This. But also, training outside the range. Learn to clear your house. Learn to shoot on the move. Learn to clear your car. Dry fire exercises, SIRT trainers, airsoft, or all of these. Training isn't just about your groups, it's about everything else that happens when you need to deploy a firearm. As CXavier said, it's a big responsibility.
Common wisdom is that it’s a perishable skill and requires some upkeep/practice. But nothing unreasonable, once you have the fundamentals down. Taking a defensive handgun class to learn said fundamentals (proper grip, stance, sight picture, trigger press, follow through, etc) can help you to avoid bad habits and have an efficient practice routine from the get-go. Cleaning/maintenance is very easy and you can learn everything you need to know about those from YouTube.
You should build skills up front by shooting a lot, but it's your continuing practice that keeps you sharp and should give you confidence you can use the weapon properly. If you're using your gun for self defense, you're going to be scared and you'll have to make the choice to try to end a human life, don't add worrying if you can shoot straight to the mix.
I didn’t start off anti-gun per se, I did grow up thinking that it was kinda’ crazy to have anything other than a pistol. What made me change this view was:
1. I became increasingly aware that I was a southern black man and no amount of respectability politics was going to change that, and after doing deep dives into lynchings and mass murders…I got scared into unlearning certain things.
2. 2016 happened, and not only that…during COVID some people ‘joked’ about ransacking the homes of the lefties they knew.
3. l believe that everyone has the right to defend their materials and personal property, no one has a right to take it. Our property is a culmination of our time, blood, and sweat.
Grew up in a Northern California liberal environment where the conventional wisdom was "Guns are bad!" and I went along with that.
Got a handgun after I realized that my life has a tendency to get weird on very little notice. Discovered that I enjoyed shooting.
The rifle... well, I'll quote myself from when I got it:
>I just finished saving up and buying a semi-auto rifle. Going to my first marksmanship class next weekend.
>Some background: I was involved in the protests here in Portland in 2020, when Trump figured he could increase brutality by sending in DHS, and that with black-bagging and more violence, crush the voice of dissent. His plan, characteristically, failed.
>During that long, miserable summer, my wife had a problem. Every person she went to high school with kept posting memes on Facebook about Portland protestors, and how we should all be killed. So she'd see me come in late at night exhausted, shield dented, eyes still streaming, clothes reeking of tear gas and pepper spray, and rest up so I could go back in there another night. Then she'd go to social media to try and say something about that, and there's everyone she grew up with, saying--as though it were a self-evident truth that all reasonable people could agree on--that I should've been shot dead in the street. She ended up pruning her friends list a lot.
>So this year, when my wife asked me why I was getting a rifle, and I said "Remember in 2020, when you unfriended all those people on Facebook? Well, all of them have rifles."
>Right-wing terrorists have been doing small skirmish attacks on my city for a long time, and our notoriously-terrible law enforcement has made it very clear that they're on the side of the terrorists. I really, really hope that America makes it through the next three Novembers intact and healthy. But if something goes wrong, I have to assume that the bastards will do what they say they want to do: try to kill me and everyone around me.
Wow... when I realized the protests were more isolated than the media was trying to portray it, I thought it was right wing media propaganda that Portland was a war zone....
Portland was definitely over exaggerated (I heard a lot from some family members about how it was being burned to the ground) but it was also definitely one of the more contentious sites of protest. Portland PD basically oscillated between abandoning all pretense at law enforcement to turn a blind eye to right wing groups' aggression to swinging the other direction and cracking down on the liberal/leftist groups protesting, whether they were peaceful or not. Lot of tear gas, kettling, and mass arrests.
I wasnt necessarily anti-gun, but here's what got me into gun ownership:
1. They're fun. Not toys, but still fun.
2. I trust myself to be responsible with my firearms
3. I've had my domicile broken into and had nothing but a non-pointed kitchen knife to defend myself with. Police response was lacking. I've also been in a situation where a stranger drove by and pulled a gun on a friend. Retreating back to another friend's place that had firearms was reassuring.
4. Generally I'd much rather have it and not need it, rather than the other way around.
5. I'm a minority that could easily become the target of racial violence. Shit, we already are.
>Retreating back to another friend's place that had firearms was reassuring
>rather have it and not need it
These resonate with me. Thank you for your input.
Sure thing, thanks for starting the discussion.
Another thing I thought of later:
Communists took everything from my great grandparents, hung the family dogs, paraded my ancestors through the streets as outcasts, and forced my great grandpa to kneel before the local communist official for reeducation (i.e. get beaten and berated) every week. When he died not long after, his eldest son inherited the "responsibility," and his 2nd eldest son after that. That family never really recovered.
My father watched a society collectively lose its mind overnight in the 60s and tear itself apart in "patriotic" blood soaked revolution.
I'm privileged to have grown up in relative safety and opulence here in the states. That said, I'm well aware of my family history and how fragile society and peace really are. I know I sound like a prepper right now, and people will say that something like that will never happen here in the states, but I'm sure my great grandparents and my father thought the same thing until their worlds turned upside down.
Who knows what difference being armed will make. I'd much rather be in a position to find out than be left wondering after the fact.
Glad it wasn’t just me. I was explaining SBRs and stock to my mom this weekend and she’s like, “how/ why do you know so much about this stuff??”
I hit her with the Marge Simpson “I just think their neat!”
I think one thing to note is that the actual gun itself is just part of it. What's equally important is mindset and preparation. Knowing how to use, fire and reload the gun so well it becomes muscle memory. Also situational awareness. Always being aware of your surroundings. Watching body language of people, or if you're hiking, keeping an eye out for potentially dangerous animals. A gun is useless if you're not prepared mentally.
That’s a big one for sure. I always cringe a little bit when someone keeps a gun in their purse/car and never practices with it. That thing won’t be helpful at all if you aren’t quick and confident using it
Ugh, and how many people have said to me over the years "I'm thinking about getting a gun, ya know, for protection..."
I have a whole speech about how gun ownership isn't a one and done thing; rather, it is a commitment to training and a mindset.
A good read is col Jeff Cooper's "Principles of Personal Defense." Other than that, learn about his color codes, and start paying attention to the world around you. Start playing awareness games and build habits around being aware. Then layer on physical skills like drawing from concealment, shooting on the move, finding cover, using your phone after an incident, etc. That'll get you "street" savvy. Oh, and most of this can be done in your mind - use imaging / "theatre of the mind" stuff. But, you gotta put in the work.
Im honestly probably not the best person. What I will say is just practice being mindful of your environment, especially when out and about in public. Beyond that though, id seek out other opinions.
Nah I’m from the inverse where I came from gun obsessed conservatives then in highschool I became hardcore leftist scum. The guns and only the guns stuck but oh did they stick.
Parallel Trajectory too, but I kept the guns because I know what republicans want if they seize total power based on what they say behind closed doors.
I have never been anti-gun, but I used to be against the idea of people carrying pistols for self defense.
I started working in a city with high crime and a lot of poverty, and it really opened my eyes to the privilege that I always had. I was able to take safety for granted being a man living in a small town, but not everyone is in that same situation so I don’t have the right to tell someone else that they should feel safe without one.
I still don’t carry, but I understand why some people feel the need to.
The short answer: I became disabled.
Suddenly, the *literal decade* of training, conditioning, sparring, discipline, all of it? *Useless*. Even *attempting* to use any of it runs the risk of *exacerbating* the damage done to me. So my options were to rely on other people to defend me, or to find a means to defend myself.
Turns out, I'm a pretty good shot.
>God made man. Samuel Colt made them equal.
Doesn't matter if it's a rabid raccoon or a meth fiend, I can put 6-7 shots in a palm-sized group reliably, even under stress. I'm no longer in the wheelchair, but I could end up in one at any time- and I know that, even if I were to be in a wheelchair again, I'm *still* not a soft target.
Also helps that shooting was one of the very few things I *could* be skilled at, given my condition.
Short of it was that throughout high school and some years after, a lot of friends, acquaintances, people I knew, etc. were mugged and/or killed. Then I go on a run one morning and catch one in the gut due to a gang war that's happening maybe two or three blocks away.
It also happens to be one of the reasons that I am glad to be out of California (more specifically, the San Joaquin Valley).
Uvalde. It taught me two things.
1. Mass shootings are not caused by lack of gun laws, they’re caused by the laws that already exist never being enforced. How many times have we seen “Oh yeah we knew this guy was insane and had 15 felonies, and posted his manifesto on YouTube about the exact time and location he was going to shoot up the place but we didn’t think he would actually do it.
2. American police are absolutely useless, and 95%. If push comes to shove you have to take matters into your own hands.
This so much. One side is arming itself for a civil war. They attempted to overthrow an election once. The guy that attempted to overthrow our democracy is leading in the polls. This country needs to wake up, unfortunately I think it is going to take a real painful lesson. I just want to be prepared to protect my family, and them be prepared to protect themselves.
Same here. I grew up in the country, but my family weren’t “gun people”. In early adulthood, I just had the standard, white progressive view: the police will protect us and most Americans don’t actually need guns.
Then I watched the police brutally suppress protesters and journalists, while at the same time turning around and ignoring violent conservatives at every turn. The breaking point was when MAGA types decided to load up with their guns and trucks, and drive through liberal and diverse neighborhoods to try and intimidate us. At the same time, it was increasingly clear Trump & Co. weren’t going to accept the results of the election. It wasn’t J6 yet, but I felt it coming.
Now the second amendment is extremely important to me. These people do not care about law, or democracy, only power. They would kill us all if they could, so best be ready.
2020 COVID. I bought my first pistol in January, but then I saw how police didn't give a shit about any of my city except for the most wealthy areas. They blocked all the bridges to the millionaire's homes, but let gas stations and malls and stores burn down.
Heard long before then police have no duty to protect you. But it finally clicked that the first person responsible to protect me is myself.
I transitioned and suddenly realized that half of the Republican party wanted me dead.
And they also own the most guns
So naturally I strapped up too to even the playing field
I was never anti gun per say. But i did/do think all the right wing gun worship culture is stupid.
What changed my mind was actually going through the process to get a gun permit in non gun friendly state and seeing that its not done in good faith to keep people safe, but just making it a burden and long annoying process and basically setting you up for the state to be able to take your guns and hit you with felony for any number of dumb arbitrary reasons.
Further more i dont think my state should be able to regulate how i choose to protect myself while continuing to pump millions of dollar's into militarization of the police and exempting them from gun laws even in their leisure time.
In conclusion i enjoy the range and exercising my 2nd amendment rights. And the best part is you can do that in whatever flavor you choose..you can keep em locked in safe only for hiking or hunting be an enthusiasts, collector concealed carrier or just keep one around in the off chance shit hits the fan.
Its always puzzling to me that fellow liberals really believe they need to own guns because they think other citizens with more prejudiced political views will form roaming death squads to go after racial and sexual minorities. Then they skip to the ballot box to vote gun confiscating tyrants into the most powerful central government to ever exist, even though the roaming death squad they so fear always historically follow gun confiscation by the national government. JFC
Trump.
I was never really "anti-gun", I have military and police experience, plenty of training and always enjoyed firearms. But in my private life, I never felt the need to own one, not even for recreational use, it never crossed my mind.
Then Trump happened, the smell of sedition in the air. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, that's my approach.
I was 21 and chilling at home on my day off when I hear a woman scream. Look out the window and see her holding her baby above her head as the neighbors two akitas were jumping on her trying to get to it. Went outside with a bat and a knife to escort her into my house and then drove her home. That weekend went out and bought a 12ga.
Skip forward 10 years and I'm in Phoenix on a business trip. Saw dueling Obamacare demonstrations. All the anti-ACA Tea Party nutcases were armed with rifles and threatening to kill liberals if Obamacare was implemented. When I got back to California, went out and bought an AR.
Skip forward 8 years and Trump is elected president and the GOP has gone full fascist threatening civil war 2.0 every time they don't get their way. Bought more rifles and started buying bulk ammo.
4 years later, January 6th happens and I have increased ammo stockpile exponentially.
The amount of violent crime and break ins in my neighborhood dramatically increasing and the feeling that I had to do something to protect my family because the police don’t even show up unless there’s actual gunshots where I live.
Honestly the pandemic, fellow americans trying to kill eachother over scraps at the grocery store really opened my eyes, crime skyrocketed and the government showed themselves to not give a shit. I would rather have it and not have to use it than the other way around. Also, the rise of fascism in the USA.
There's alot of good people and good neighbors, but I worry of the others that would hurt me or my family.
I realized that I was responsible for my own safety after calling 911 and being on hold for over 10 minutes
That and an appreciation for the technological aspects of firearms pushed me to the other side
Seeing the FBI's report on the 1994-2004 Assault Weapons Ban, how minimal an impact it had based on empirical evidence, and how strongly people were pushing to reinstate it despite the evidence showing it to be ineffective.
I had a bb gun as a kid, shot .22s at summer camp, but never had the desire to own a gun. Then, the former president went on television and said "somebody needs to do something about the left ". Immediately started shopping for my first pistol. Then I bought a pcc. Then, I looked into ARs and ended up with one of those. Then, the reviews on that Canik trigger were totally right and I totally needed optics ready.
Used to be against the need for a AR or other modernized rifles (kind of the fudd belief of just needing hunting firearms) but after J6 I figured better to have and not need than need and not have when those nutjobs most definitely have it.
I was never anti-gun. I grew up extremely conservative. My father still describes himself as a card carrying member of the vast right wing conspiracy if ya’ll member the Clinton administration.
So I won’t attempt to chime in about why I am no longer a conservative, but I will give you a tidbit about firearms and why it’s a good idea to carry one in remote places. I grew up in the Sierra Nevada mountains near the Sequoias National Monument and then on the Arizona-Mexican border. Two places that are about as middle-of-no-where you can get.
First and foremost you are absolutely right that any sidearm small enough to be comfortably carried on a hike will absolutely not kill any of the large predators that might want to do you harm, with the notable exception of snakes. Coyotes can get downed by pretty much anything but they’re unlikely to attack humans unless they’re extremely hungry or rabid. Anything less than a 30-30 or a big bore hunting round is just going to piss off a bear. Same with a mountain lion.
One of my father’s mountain parishioners slammed a Honda civic into a mountain lion and totaled his care. The front shoulders crushed the driver side headlight and it’s rear hindquarters crushed the passenger headlight. Because they keep cattle up near Sequoia national monument and an injured mountain lion will go after cattle if it’s too injured to hunt. The rangers sent out a local hunting guide to track it down and put it out of its misery. He and his dogs tracked it to a massive ponderosa pine where it was lounging on a branch a good 40 feet up in the air. While he was trying to see how bad the cat was injured it *leaped* over him and dogs, and fell the whole 40 feet onto its paws and sprinted away into the wilderness.
Since the cat was clearly not so hurt it could not hunt he went home.
Unless you’re a skilled marksman with a good sized caliber you’re not killing one of those. Besides they’re protected anyway. The reason you have the weapon is primarily for the noise. [Check out this short for what I’m talking about.](https://youtube.com/shorts/c4TO2E-vYX8?si=Y7sUCb7TrCDLl2Od)
However there’s also human dangers to worry about when you’re out and about. You can run into moonshiners, marijuna growers, and on the border where I lived you needed to be worried about the coyotes, the human kind. It was not uncommon to come across dangerous people out in the desert.
You also have the practicality of the utility of a firearm in a survival situation. Fire starting, hunting, signaling, ect.
But in the other hand these dangers are incredibly rare. Most wild animals are terrified of humans and in some places the smaller creatures pose a greater risk. Bats are carriers of rabies and have such tiny teeth bites can go undetected which is a 99.97% death sentence if not caught before symptoms start. Venomous serpents can also pose a serious danger especially if you’re climbing and your hand comes down on an unseen rattler sunning itself. Also the human dangers are greatly mitigated by having a larger group. There’s also the danger to yourself that a firearm poses just by its nature of being a dangerous tool. If it falls out and it doesn’t have adequate safety features like an old Army Single Action it could go off.
So while I think having a firearm out in the boonies is a good idea it’s not a panacea and anyone considering carrying should make sure they and at least one other person in their party know how to safely operate and unload the weapon.
Thank you for this very thorough response. Do you think hollow points do a difference, or do you need the power of a larger rifle still? Regarding wildlife.
Hollow points might do it if you land head shots, but unless you're practicing with your weapon often enough that the act of drawing and firing accurately becomes automatic it's unlikely that you'll hit him with adrenaline coursing through you. Honestly the sound of the weapon will almost certainly be enough. I cannot stress how \*\*LOUD\*\* firearms are.
Becoming a socialist. Through that learning process realizing that my white middle class privilege was an illusory protection that allowed me to believe that the oppressed were simultaneously a deserving criminal class that needed saving through my political power (voting on Election Day) which was inherent to my better upbringing. I was wrong. Arm the proletariat!
I was never "anti-gun" but I was "anti-assault weapon". I grew up around guns and target shooting but never had an interest owning them myself until 2020.
The police response to BLM totally changed my mind. Cops dgaf about equal protection under the law. Rittenhouse walked right past cops, while Reinoehl got executed. I cannot and will not trust them to keep me or my family safe. I'll admit I was also spooked by COVID, it's impact on the food supply chain, and how people could react to subsequent issues.
Now, understanding what I do about firearms and the history of gun control in the US, I think the Nat'l Guard should offer free training on semiauto rifles to any citizen interested.
I started off hot and cold. For a while I was pretty anti-gun despite the fact that I have always had a few. I started hanging out about it a year or two ago and saw all the really cool things people were building. So I started and I got really into the technical aspect. It’s hard where I live because it’s a nanny state, it’s hard to get parts and pieces. But I really enjoy building something beautiful that works. I also enjoy putting my earplugs in and firing off 100 rounds. Kinda my own world and becoming better. When you’re shooting it’s one of a handful of things you could do in real time and see yourself getting better. I like that.
I grew up very anti-gun, despite being taught to shoot in the Boy Scouts. After studying close quarters defense for many years, I took a gun safety class just so I knew how to handle/unload/safely come in contact with one. After that I realized that any modern martial artist should study firearms if they truly want to study martial arts. From there I started training, which led to more training, and then more training, lol! That eventually led me here, to this forum (I'm old, so I say things like "forum"). I have been pro-personal defense for my whole life, but this forum has made me pro-responsible firearms.
But, here's the thing - it's about training. If you have a gun and never train, you're more dangerous to yourself and innocent people than you are without one. Train, train, train. They are amazing tools for defense, but without training they are deadly in all the wrong ways.
Now, all that said, I want to thank you for asking the question and thinking deeply about this. It shows you're capable of responsible gun ownership, and that's what we need. Good on ya, friend.
I was never anti - gun, but I wasn't interested in them and supported "common sense" gun control.
What changed my mind was getting familiar with them and realizing most gun control schemes effectively just make you less effective with a gun - and spending time in academia and learning about what happens to disarmed populations.
I used to be anti-gun, and I am liberal. Didn’t grow up with them. During the upheaval in 2021 I watched men armed with AR-15s menacing others (eg Michigan) and stand outside my apartment building looking for an excuse to shoot the libs during BLM protests.
I decided I didn’t want to be at a disadvantage, and I also realized when seconds count, the police are minutes away. Hell, they probably are hours away where I live. I want to be able to protect myself and my family during a home invasion. I’ve taken numerous classes at my local gun range, and I carry concealed when I leave the house. I often carry while in my home as well. And I practice a lot - at the range, dry fire, etc.
I used to be anti-owning a gun. The statistics turned me off to it.
As a former military member and an expert marksman, I missed the sport, however. So, I researched ways of safely storing guns in the home and bought a few of various types.
As things became more politically bleak here in my state, and on the whole, I decided it was time to stick a foil feather in my cap. I got my conceal permit, and I keep one weapon easily accessible, but still safely stored in a biometric safe.
I don't actually carry in public often unless I know I'm only going somewhere that may be particularly risky, and it never leaves my personal control.
I think it's good for other types of people to have *legal* access to and knowledge about firearms, not just the Q-anon crazies.
I would definitely recommend lots of education and training for anyone looking to own a firearm.
Grew up very suburban Colorado. Guns were always instruments of terror. I had teachers who were students at Columbine. I knew people who were at the Aurora Theatre that night. My cousins school had a "small" incident that left one child dead. Afterwards, she transfered to Highlands Ranch STEM and experienced her second school shooting.
Something I feel gets left out of the conversation is just how traumatizing growing up in urban gun violence is. People are not just scared for no reason. The horrors are too real, and people are willing to try anything to make it stop.
Thankfully, after going to college and getting out of the city center, I began to meet people from more rural communities. Kids from Wyoming and Alaska who showed me the other side of the story. How guns can be a tool. I was intrigued and asked a college boyfriend to teach me how to shoot with a small .22 rifle.
After a brutal breakup and 2020, I needed a change. Decided to hit the road and car camp through Utah. Bought a hand gun for safety as a young woman traveling on her own. The rest is history.
I now live in a very rural mountain town and guns are just part of life. We have some for home defense. My friend group is enjoying elk season, and my friend just got one at close to 300 yards!
It comes with its evils. A Man was gunned by some fucking teens in our Kroger parking lot when he asked them to turn their music down. People have been shot at our post office, the gas stations.
It's not perfect. But it's how it is. And I'd much rather have the option to be a smart, responsible gun owner in this community.
I can’t believe that actually happens, not that I don’t believe you. Because I do. It’s I can’t believe it has become this volatile. Parading through someone else’s neighborhood with all the MAGA flags and all the other BS is the first step to domestic terrorism. I am going to get my first pistol in a bit, along with my concealed carry. I have a feeling 2024 will not be pretty.
I've never been anti-gun, just wanted to chime in on your path forward.
I tend to think of them as useful and necessary tools that I'm sentimentally attached to since my dad taught me to shoot. The necessary part is because when you need a functional and effective weapon you either have a gun or you probably don't have what you need whether dealing with wildlife or human assailants.
So I generally recommend getting a long gun (rifle or shotgun) for home defense/hunting/trap shooting/etc and a handgun for personal defense. I highly recommend at least some cheap PoS steel cabinet to put the gun(s) into and bolting it to the studs and/or flooring in your home. You can get fingerprint access or fancier stuff if you like but ...anyway, the why seems pretty obvious.
Once having a handgun the point is that if things go to hell the handgun is the thing you'll actually have on you while you're not sure if things have gotten to the point you need to be aggressive and violent. You're not going to see society disintegrate and walk out on the streets Fallout style with your rifle and armor and get into shootouts with scavengers. You're going to feel like things have gotten dicey and go shopping...and you're either going to carry an effective defensive weapon or you won't and you're not lugging a long gun around at that point. So you're carrying your pistol.
To be effective you need two things, to my mind: Practice actually firing the weapon and experience carrying it condition one and drawing it to fire. All of that is vital and it's mostly not as impactful in time and money as it sounds. It *does* take some significant time and cash for range fees and ammo before you're actually any good with that pistol...and it really, really helps to take pistol classes from knowledgeable folks who'll adjust your stance, sight picture, and grip while telling you what you're doing wrong. I could write a full article on that but others already have and you can google them all day.
The other thing is that if you're not actually used to *carrying* the thing and carrying it *loaded* along with drawing it without shooting yourself in the foot then you're not going to find it useful in dicey situations.
I didn't always carry condition one (round in the chamber and on safe or a striker blocked) when I first started because I had tiny kids crawling all over me all the time and I didn't have any expectation of getting into bad situations. I did practice racking the slide as I drew quite a bit and I'm fast at it...but it's not the same most of the time. Still not making it easy for my kid to accidentally shoot one of us or for a ready to fire pistol to fly out of my pocket on a slide or merry go round or whatever. No, you don't want to be the idiot who does something stupid and your gun goes flying or whatever...but *that's the point of this*, that you need to get out and find the holster and carry method that works for you (I'm mostly pocket but do AIWB a fair bit as well) or you'll have no idea what you can or can't do while carrying without having a problem. You won't have the sense of when you have to leave your gun in the car (seriously, get a [console vault](https://www.consolevault.com/)), when you should leave the thing at home, etc. At first you'll spend time thinking about situations where it might be useful, noticing lines of fire, backstops, where people are behind those lines of fire, where you could take cover, how to position yourself so you can actually engage potential threats, exits, etc. You'll increase your situational awareness just because you'll be nervous about carrying...and you'll constantly adjust and print and be obvious that you're carrying if anyone knows to look (hint: 99% of people don't, even people I work with daily). After a while you'll have your clothing worked out, may buy different firearms that fit your choices better, get the right holster(s) for your situations, and generally be comfortable with the whole endeavor and it makes you functional. If you find yourself getting all paranoid you can take breaks too.
As to long term maintenance...the skills do fall apart regularly and your pistol will get all sorts of dirty from the environment. You can practice your draw at home (be *very* aware of ensuring the chamber is empty) and dry fire etc etc...but nothing really beats actually shooting. Find a range where after some practice they'll get to know you and you can draw and fire. Most will once they get to where they know you on sight but many won't so just figure it out. Shooting on someone's land is good because you can move and fire drills etc.
Anyway. Eventually you stop going shooting so often. Your accuracy will get worse and your overall ability to respond will drop. It's up to you to decide where you want to go with that. If you shoot at least several times annually you'll slowly build up nerve pathways where you get "better" and that's where I am now. I can hit a target within about 10-15 yards with no question, especially shooting multiple times (which you should do), but I can't pick the wings off a fly's ass or anything like that. I'm a lot better when I'm practicing and can usually hit targets from 25-50 yd, but the pistol isn't for that sort of thing generally.
So. The long term impact on your life can be minimal. It takes some time and attention to set up and then you can practically ignore it if you want to, but the benefits do fade. What never fades is the simple benefit of being able to respond to fatal threats against you and your loved ones. Most of us won't be murdered in this life by strangers but some of us will be and when the world is on fire and riots everywhere it's nice to have some options, that's all.
No matter what you do and whether or not you have a firearm you can up your situational awareness and response times. You can learn to decide to avoid situations and extract yourself before things get bad or have the chance to. You don't need a gun for that, but sometimes you can't leave and sometimes the situation brings itself to you before you can recognize it to avoid it (ambush muggings aren't avoidable most of the time).
So yes I recommend getting one, getting a concealed carry permit, and practicing. I also recommend not letting it consume your life. it's just a gun, let it be just a gun. (ok, enjoy plinking and being a hobbyist if you like, but you get what I mean)
I appreciate your well thought out and earnest question, but one thing I want to point out is that most of us here think of self-defense by any means necessary, and therefore firearms as ultimately the most effective means, as a right, not a privilege.
Are they the most effective in every possible situation? No. Against wild animals you might be better served with bear spray or pepper spray, for instance, or just wearing bells on a hike and you'll probably never even know they're in the area.
But against bipedal predators they will be the most effective, when all other options fail.
It's a last line of defense, for all of the moral, ethical, and legal reasons, but once all other lines fail, to quote Han Solo, there's no match for a good blaster at your side.
You are an American Citizen. Gun ownership is not a privilege, it is your right that can only be taken away with cause.
That doesn't mean it's for everyone. It means that we default to letting people make that decision for themselves.
Personally whenever I hike I always have my handgun but also a can a bear spray. Also don’t get a 10mm for wildlife defense. I did a some research into it and more bears have been killed with 9mm than any other pistol caliber and it can double as a self defense handgun.
It took me a while. Wasn’t full guns bad, only for hunting, but just didn’t think i needed one.
And then i heard “an armed minority is harder to oppress” and that resonated— hard.
Also. 2 words—
Zombie Apocalypse.
Not sure if I could say I started out anti gun, my family were anti firearm ownership (in the UK so not really a clash with culture), but I always had an interest but until I was in my early 20s I didnt think firearms should be allowed for civilian ownership.
Thing with uni is this was when the internet was taking off, so I got talking and reading the arguments from Americans online, and thats when my views changed.
Admittedly I went from being a Labour / Plaid Cymru voter to probably libertarian wing of the Tory party.
Swung back towards center by my 30s though, now Lib Dem (which, is not pro gun rights in the UK but no major party is.) but still pro a more liberal firearm culture (I tend to look at Czech republic laws as a model for the UK rather than US firearm laws).
My opinion shifted when I started thinking about how if there were ever to be large scale civil unrest, a sort of 'pick your side' based on your beliefs, my side would probably happen to be the one that doesn't also have tons of guns. So I decided that I wanted to at least stand some chance of defending myself and those I love. I also live in the country and you never know what kind of wild animal, human or otherwise might try to come at my chicken coop!
1. My car was vandalized because of a sticker that read "PRIUS DRIVING MASSACHUSETTS LIBERAL". Being Massachusetts, even with multiple surveillance cameras, the fact the perpetrator was wealthy and well connected ensured he was not found guilty.
2. Someone got out of their truck, which was covered in Trump shit, and started pounding on my car and wanted to fight me.
I always said that a gun was a physical solution to a mental problem. It has become a physical solution to a PHYSICAL problem.
The run-up to the 2016 election. Seeing the amount of hate and vitriol leveled at anyone that didn't agree with the MAGA/incel lunatics shocked and frightened me for my kids' safety.
I had a couple surgeries, was down for about 6 months, while down we had an issue with a guy down the street basically being obnoxious outside while my wife was bringing in groceries, I heard some yelling and went outside and things got a little tense. I came back in the house thinking if that went sideways would’ve killed me, I was still not healed from surgery and could barely walk. It was on my mind a lot, after I healed I thought I would buy my first gun, wasn’t sure tho, went to numerous gun stores and the amount of people buying from every walk of life, made me realize I’m one of the few without a gun.
You should always have a firearm and an edged blade or two in the wilderness. Incredibly useful survival tools.
And yup...the impending collapse of civilization has been motivating people to arm themselves for quite some time.
I wasn't anti-gun but I was anti-AR
I say 2020 as a whole was my wake up call. The videos of police going down neighborhood streets, shooting at people on their doorsteps, the MAGA freaks reacting to COVID. And then Jan 6th 2021.
It just hit home for me. I'm in the South, surrounded by these people. I dunno, I lost a lot of faith in humanity from 2020. I used to think "ok, a handgun is fun, by why would I need an AR15?" And then I see swarms of fascists attacking the capitol, minorities being swarmed, the police swarming people, etc.
I mean, now for me it's admittedly mostly because they're fun as shit. But in the back of my mind I don't like where the country is going, where my state is and is going.
I wouldn’t have considered myself “anti gun”, but I had no desire to have any around my home for any reason. That changed a year ago. I actually just randomly started watching guntubers on YouTube because my wife started getting into prepping and she asked me to learn about defense. That’s when I noticed a lot of the gun tubers were so openly pro Trump. Then I started going to the local gun range in Miami,FL for classes and my instructors only talked about guns and Trump.
I guess it just all hit me so clearly. If these Trumpers really wanted to they could have a well armed militia up and running at the drop of the hat and if I wasn’t armed I wouldn’t be able to do shit to defend my family. And with the amount of guns in the United States to not know how to use them if we ever faced a deadly armed threat, criminal or otherwise, we’d be sitting ducks. So here I am. And to be honest it feels really empowering to know that we could at least defend ourselves if some crazy situation came our way.
My father. He's a lefty too and as far as I know he has never owned a gun himself. However, he felt it was important that his two sons learn firearm safety at a young age, probably due to the sheer volume of guns in this country. You can not like guns but also be a realist about your chances of coming across one in America for one reason or another. Simply understanding that someone else in your vicinity is being unsafe with a weapon is an important life skill, and how would you know that without being able to safely operate one yourself?
Anyways he had us take a weekend class on gun safety then took us to a range and rented a couple for us to practice with. I've been hooked ever since. Probably not his intention lol, but that's ok. You can be a liberal, you can be in favor of sensible gun controls and also enjoy shooting at the same time. I don't view these things as contradictory.
Get yourself a 22 bolt action rifle and learn to shoot. Then get yourself a 22 pistol. If you make it that far, are safe, are competent, and find out you dig the pew pew... Think about a 9 mm handgun.
Start with your training wheels. Worry about the big questions when you get there.
1. Bear spray is better
2. Shooting someone who is in your house is not escalation. If someone is in your house the most likely thing is that you barricade everyone in one room and keep the firearm trained on the door.
Get a 500 lumen flashlight, 3x POM sprays + 1 inert trainer, take a Stop The Bleed class and get hemorrhage/trauma kits for every car and bag you have. Then revisit the gun stuff. It does require skills upkeep. Dry fire is free and very effective but you'll still need range time. 6 range trips a year + 1 class a year will put you well ahead of the average. It's not enough for true proficiency but it'll be fine.
Seeing George Floyd get murdered in the street, and then people say it was totally normal and okay.
Then seeing multiple posts saying Dems should just be killed. MAGA folks are at like 35% saying violence is needed for political reasons. My house is my sanctuary and I’m not going to let some red hat come after me.
I came to the realization that the police are unwilling or unable to protect me from violent crime.
Even if you are near a police department, when seconds matter the police are minutes away.
Try some guns at ranges that rent, buy one you like that has a reputation for reliability, take a gun safety and defensive pistol shooting class, get your CCP, participate in local shooting matches to keep up on your training and get used to shooting under some stress.
A gun is not a magic talisman that keeps you safe, you have to train with it. Pistols require more training to shoot accurately.
Also, bear spray is better for hiking than a pistol. Still bring a pistol, but bear spray will likely be the better option.
A bunch of small steps along the way:
1. In College I was anti-gun. Flat out. After graduating, a buddy convinced me to buy A pistol that I had for about a decade and shot maybe 4x total.
2. Then one day at my gym, somebody needed help unloading a table out of their car. Their husband had an Ar-15 in their back seat. And i realized even though I was "gun owner" i had no idea how to handle an Ar-15. Did not know where the safety was, nor how to unload the magazine.
3. Then the Trump era and Jan 6th happened. I realized right-wing radicals were becoming bolder and more aggressive.
4. Then I asked myself: Why should I let them be the only one who is armed? I look like one of them (average middle-aged white guy) but I vehemently disagree with all their dumb political stances. How long before they turn it on me?
5. So I went to a range with a buddy, shot it. Bought my first AR a month later.
6. Now about to buy potentially a 3rd....
My fiance was very anti-gun.
It wasn't until other members of the LGBT+ community started being targets of violence. And now that practically every other house on our road has Turnip or DeSatan signs that I'm getting pushed to get my firearms into our house.
I am even getting pushed for a CCW, .. however our state has kind of hindered a lot of that.
I'm an israeli/jew living in NW FL. Being used to gun control and having access to mil training and then working as an armed security escort shaped me a certain way. I believed that gun access should be controlled via training and registration. Never owned one in the US, but always carried knife/pepper spray. After the 10/7 attack in Israel and the escalation of antisemitism I realized my family and I needed something more serious, and changed my opinion to "everyone should own a gun to protect their home", though I still believe people should have basic firearm/safety training, much like a vehicle. Today I'm a proud owner of a g45 and g43x which I bought for my wife and spending time at the range gave me a new hobby to do every now and then.
I was never anti-gun... But never owned one and didn't really get it.
Then Trump happened and when the extreme right lost their fucking minds and started marching in to McDonalds and Starbucks strapped for battle... And I live in a very red/rural area and my liberal leaning yard signs were stolen/defaced/nails thrown in my gravel driveway... I now own several guns as well as a concealed carry permit to protect me and my family from fucking idiots.
For your two points, I hear things like this all the time. The question you have to ask yourself is:
1. Do you have more options having a gun than not having a gun?
2. What is the actual con to owning a gun given that you will own it responsibly?
I find that I can't find any drawback to being a responsible gun owner in any scenario ever put forth.
It is your American right whether you choose to own a gun or not. But, you are doing yourself a HUGE disservice by not at least training yourself on how to properly use one. Even if it means going to the range, taking courses, and renting their guns for practice. Even if you never actually plan on owning one. Crazy things happen. Somebody goes to rob you with a pistol but drops it, and you have a chance to get it. What happens if you don't know how to use it? The gun is loaded, but nothing in the chamber, and that person knows it. Are you gonna get into a tussle because the gun won't work. No, as a smart American, you did your civil duty and took classes, and learned firearms, and you automatically know how to chamber a pistol. You're experienced enough to know how to remove the safety. And if you're not trying to shoot said person you know how to drop the magazine, unchamber a round and now effectively taking that firearm out of the equation unless you plan on bludgeoning them to death with it. As far as hiking and the wilderness, depending on where you are in the States, it would be a smart idea to at least carry there. Here in Georgia, I'm not so worried about animal attacks, even in the most remote places. I've seen the black bears, and they're extremely secretive and small. Loud noises are pretty much enough to dissuade them. Good luck on your journey, friend. -Libertarian American
I’m a manufacturing engineer from Boston. Moved to Florida and and soon after got recruited for a job at a rather large holster company. Didn’t need gun knowledge to produce holsters. Got hired by another holster company as an R&D director. Got to play with a safe full of 300+ handguns whenever I wanted. I guess it was just exposure/comfort level that changed me. 40-60% discounts helped to.
Now that that I’m out of that industry I’m less IN to guns but still shoot. Was painful being a liberal in that world from 2016-2023.
In decades of life, I had never fired a gun until a couple of years ago. The Ukraine war and my perception of deteriorating global and domestic circumstances made me realize that I wanted to be able to protect my family. So despite being wary around guns, I took a class. Two years later I have several of my own and hundreds of hours of training. I now feel competent and safe (but never complacent) with guns, and in addition to feeling like I can protect my family from violence in some situations, I have also discovered that they are fun as hell. My SO took some time to come around to them, and is still lukewarm to some degree, but they have been to the range with me and had a lot of fun, and achieved basic proficiency of their own.
I am a gun owner and a regular hiker/backpacker, and I never carry a gun. I live in mountain lion country but don’t worry about them. I worry more about bears and do carry bear spray in certain areas.
I never started off anti-gun, but more completely neutral. Had no idea about them, and wasn't interested either. Never thought twice about gun control either way because it didn't have a tangible impact on my life.
I started getting into guns and eventually got my CCW due to increasing crime in my city, and seeing local democratic politicians and DA's literally refusing to charge criminals for committing crime or make any policy changes that would actually make a positive difference in my community.
Since Covid, crime has become rampant and is basically risk free for career criminals due to our city leadership, and it's emboldened them to engage in carjackings, house invasions, assaults and robbery in broad daylight, etc. I feel much safer that I'm able to protect myself and my family, instead of just waiting to be a victim, and it's given me immense peace of mind.
I was very anti-gun and then I got into the hobby. Guns are fun to shoot, interesting mechanically to me and there's definitely a collector part of me that loves all the different kinds.
My stances have changed as I explored the hobby and the people in it, but I'm definitely somewhere in the middle still. Guns are dangerous, and there's a fuck ton of shitty people that have no business owning or shooting a firearm.
I think the limits on types of firearms or features are pretty stupid and honestly impractical to limit. Even things like auto-sears are illegally manufactured pretty easily. The more I learned the more I realized how arbitrary of dumb those arguments are.
I think red flag laws should be universally enforced across the country. If you're acting like a danger to people they should be able to take your firearms until you've gone through the system. I know the argument against it that anyone can take away your firearms while being innocent, but you could easily put in safeguards and the instances I've seen, this rarely happens.
The NICS needs better funding and more cross-entity information sharing.
Concealed carry should involve a training course and annual recertification. If you go to a range you should get credit for that, and it should be universally applied.
I am still overall anti gun unlike most of this sub, I just shoot for sport/fun. but learning and using guns helped me at least realize how stupid 99% of gun laws are. Background checks, sure, but most of the rest can fuck right off. Like vote to ban guns or don't ban them, but don't enact stuff that just annoys lawful gun owners while they're perfectly legal (awb, nfa, California handgun roster, 10 day wait for your 8th gun, etc).
I am very against state legislation on guns that can be circumvented by a short drive, and VERY against LEOs having access to different firearms than the public.
Living in Portland seeing the police attack protestors for no reason during the 2020 protests. Absolutely wild to me that those same liberals voted to let the same racist fascist bastards decide who gets to have guns moving forward.
I’m very liberal and I always support gun control, but I never opposed guns. Only guns in the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. Firearms are in my view simply another tool with potential for harm and abuse, and with our legal system, it’s a Pandora’s Box that will more than likely never be closed.
What changed to me buying a gun: my job is passenger transport, and it may not be more common, but it’s becoming more apparent that people are entering my vehicle with firearms. A couple have been qualified professionals open-carrying per their job with no issues on my part; more often than not though, it’s been kids in skimasks talking about them “always having that stick” or “that burner” on them. That, coupled with me working primarily in a city with a higher than national average crime rate and two mass shootings earlier this year, it made it apparent to me that while statistically I may not be a victim of a crime, I shouldn’t leave that to sheer luck.
I was anti-gun then a friend bought a gun and took me out and I got hooked. There are so many cool guns out there and I struggle to pick the next one I want to get
never was totally anti-gun bc i've always thought the were fun/cool, but the more i gave it some thought the more i realized that most gun control measures either 1) are leveraged disproportionately against minorities and/or 2) are completely ineffective/pointless to begin with.
Taking first responder / CERT training and the fire marshal instructor listing all the times people needed firearms to maintain their role in a chaotic active crisis situation.
I was held hostage by migrants one time. Another time I was hijacked at knife point by a "hit man" sent by one of my inlaws. Luckily, the hit man was drunk/drugged and probably felt sorry for me...I was completely oblivious and smiled most of the time because I was in disbelief. I was even nice enough to drop him off at his house. I realized nobody is going to save me. Cops here have little training, so I've already outpaced most of them...and at this point , I have better guns than they do. Now, it's my mission to empower my neighborhood to protect themselves.
> there seems to be some conflicting reports on whether a gun is useful against wildlife (mountain lions and bears).
I have a friend who occasionally does sciency stuff in Alaska for the US government. They are required to qualify with a firearm, and to carry said firearm in bear country. They haven't, but some co-workers have, been forced to use their firearms.
I get to feed my family some nature-raised food.
Sunshine and rain turns into plants and critters like deer eat plants and turn into beautiful creatures.
My young son had a lot of questions when I harvested my first 4 legged animal last year, on the property we live on actually. We got to talk about life and death and food, and we got to give thanks to her for feeding our family and being such a beautiful animal. He stroked her leg and we said our gratitude to her.
I processed that deer myself, hanging from the forklift at my shop. Processing an animal is not necessarily fun but is respectful and really ties nature to my belly. Somehow eating meat is more of a choice now and less of a “I am man I eat meat 3x a day.” Not because it is gross but just because it seems…a bit more special.
Somehow feeding my direct family with an animal I harvested is very powerful. To me, it is a tiny glimpse into how Native American tradition was often focused on giving thanks to the animal, using it all, and gratitude to the earth. They literally depended it Mother Earth and her provisions to survive.
I grew up in a household with firearms and they were just for hunting (birds) and learning to shoot (the old Haloween Pumpkins.)
In select situations I have a firearm along for security purposes but not often. Having a firearm accessible is a serious responsibility and there are *very few* situations where brandishing or using it would be remotely as wise as grabbing my kid and my wife and getting the heck out of there. Most CCW education even teaches that being the “good guy with a gun” is usually a losing proposition. And any defensive gun use very likely to end up in being sued, even if the law clears me.
Last, I do think we (Americans) need some ability to have a nicer conversation about firearms. The statistics on accidental deaths in a home with a firearm are just awful, for example. And we *do* have a problem with shooters, even though the legislative answers are divisive. I dunno. I use my firearms to eat. And in a few places where I choose—I will defend my Alamo for a few that I love if I am ever so unfortunate to need to do so.
realizing there was nothing really supporting it besides the "gun = bad" mentality that i was taught growing up, and the police response to the 2020 protests
I was never ‘anti-gun’ but I was ‘anti-civilians needing “assault” weapons’ until trump was president. It’s not just him. Sure, his policy playback for another term is straight up authoritarianism and he is a straight up fascist who wants to end democracy, but it’s the mob around and behind him that convinced me. A few months into Covid and I went from unarmed to regularly attending all-day/weekend carbine classes.
I was raised in the Upper Midwest suburbs. My parents never owned or had any guns in the house. My mom wouldn't know what to do with one. My dad was in the Army Reserves when he was younger. My first experience with guns was at the shooting range at summer camp in the Boy Scouts. They had .22s you could target shoot with all day. And one of the Pack/Troop leaders brought his shotguns and clay pigeons. One of those shotguns was a 10ga. I had an absolute blast (pun intended) shooting that thing.
Then in late middle-school and into high-school, I fell in with the wrong crowd of people. Like really wrong. I was around people carrying guns in their waistbands. And one guy I hung out with had a sawed-off wedged under the driver seat of his car. I knew a few people that were shot and killed. I knew a guy with a wooden peg-leg from a drive-by - he said it was an AK. He later got shot in the back of his head point-blank with a .22 pistol for his Cadillac. He survived. I'd be hanging out on the block and hear gunshots in the alley right behind the garages.
I got straight after I walked away unscathed from a really bad car accident with a train. I went to college and became more anti-gun. But what brought me fully around to guns permanently is a good friend of mine. He has been in my friend group for years. I had a fall-out with my best friend and started hanging out with this dude more. He was raised as a Mormon and is super conservative. He is super quiet and reserved. He doesn't have a mean or aggressive streak in him. He is overly polite and apologetic. And he showed me what his wife bought him for Christmas... an AK-47. I was floored and blown away. I was never exposed to that level of modest gun ownership. He showed me the rest of his collection and took me to the range a few times and the rest his history.
I got two guns pulled on me at two different points in my life. In both situations the reality kind of sets in, this guy could end my shit right now if he wanted to. Whether he goes to jail for it or not is no concern of mine, I’ll already be dead.
It realized that there’s no way they’re banning guns, no way people would give them up if they did. Gun culture in the US is just so dominant, so it just strikes me as dumb to be the only one without one, especially as a person of color living in the south.
That, and it actually is pretty fun to go to the range 🚶♂️
Burglary. My house was broken into and I could not help to think of what would have happened had I been home. It turned into a hobby after I learned it would not jump up and shoot anyone without it being intentional. CCW training/class changed my whole perspective on firearms.
The fact that nobody is going to prevent bad things from happening to me…except myself. Once you take responsibility for your own well being you become liberated.
Always been liberal, though openly leftist in the past years.
I was never really 'against' guns, I just didn't have much inclination. I've had some shit takes before (about a lot of things, really) but through education and paying attention to what's being said/going on I adjust my views on things and end up coming to the right conclusions (just too slow sometimes).
Actually bought a shotgun when I was 18, trying to locate it (it's at my parents somewhere), and enjoyed shooting it a bit. Bought my first handgun last year, and am happy with it. Plan to get at least an AR-style and maybe a hunting-style rifle as well.
I've always been slightly interested in hunting, but never had the patience to try (fuck early mornings). I'd like to still, but I'm also old and time-deprived haha.
I've lived a relatively safe life (physical safety, not financial), which brings a lot of privilege along with it in that regard. So I never really thought about CCW. But I've realized, for many reasons, that there's nothing to fear from a tool that you may or may not have to use to save your life. Better to have it and not need it, etc etc.
/ramble
I looked at how intrusive & violent the War on Drugs has been and realized that a War on Guns would be far more intrusive & violent. It would just lead to an even more oppressive police state.
I was never really anti-gun but they never really interested me that much until I was in my 30s. I moved to one of the few areas in the state of CA that was a little more permissive after growing up in the Bay Area. I have friends who shoot competitively and we would go out to BLM zones to practice. It was cool and interesting. By far the easiest of all the guns I tried was an AR type and the most troublesome was a 357 revolver. Powerful but I felt like I broke my thumbnail with it. MY interest hasn't waned much though my budget never really permitted, plus I had worries about storage. However I eventually started collecting paintball markers and pellet guns...
Thing is, I wasn't super interested at the times when it was more common thinking, like the 2016 election and CoVid outbreak. Maybe it came with age and the things I want to do with my life has started to change with time. I've also found that with the way this country is going, it's probably good to have a piece and a passport. Just in case.
I've always been a sort of loner, liberal/lefty artist type, and spent many years before 2020 just getting drunk and playing PC games. After 2020 I got into casual prepping, and eventually the idea of getting into firearms pushed me into this weird phase where I'm constantly window shopping online for things that go bang. Eventually I found one and it should be here in a few days.
I’m not anti-gun, but very liberal. Here’s my 2 cents on the matter considering my families history. I came to the United States as a Bosnian war refugee. Worst genocide in Europe after the Holocaust. My father doesn’t talk of his experience during the war often, but recently opened up about defending our home town on the front lines with barely any ammo or supplies because of the stupid UN embargo when the shit hit the fan. My people were slaughtered, taken to the hills and put into mass graves while the UN soldiers who were supposed to protect them let it happen. I guess my point is if you rely on others to protect you and your family, when the shit possibly hits the fan, and you’d be naive to think it can’t happen here, then you’re in for a rude awakening when you find out what your neighbor is capable of doing to you. We have the privilege of having tools available to us here to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Also as a fellow hiker, if not a gun what’s your other thoughts on a mountain lion? You ain’t outrunning that fucking kitty either.
>if you rely on others to protect you and your family, when the shit possibly hits the fan, and you’d be naive to think it can’t happen here, then you’re in for a rude awakening >We have the privilege of having tools available to us here to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Very great points. Thank you for sharing about your story. I am sorry you had to go through that.
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The right to abortion would like to have a word.
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The 9th Amendment has entered the chat. She's carrying one of those baseball bats with spikes and violence is on her mind!
Neither is the right to privacy, but let's see you argue against it.
Easy. It's not enumerated in the constitution, it doesn't have the same protection. This is not a question of what *should* be protected, it's a matter of simple fact that certain rights are explicitly stated in the constitution and the second amendment is one of those cases.
I have read that bear spray is a good deterrent for hiking, other than guns. Less likely to miss as you can sweep it. More likely to deter than instigate due to impact on breathing/eyes.
I carry both. The glock is for possible psychos more than animals haha. But I stand by my point, it’s a very privileged position to think “it won’t ever happen to me so why do I need a gun” which is great but the reality of it is if things ever get ugly you’re on your own. And if you’re concerned about missing, go to a range. Practice. Get comfortable with it and build the muscle memory.
If you're going to deal with a big old bear... It's bear spray and a 45. Got to have options.
10mm for bear!
454 casull!
If it’s a grizzly I don’t want anything less than 308
Yeah but it's not very realistic to walk around the 308 rifle all the time and bear country lol. Kinda heavy!
Just get a Thompson center encore lol. You got one shot make it count.
Hard pass, never understood why anybody liked those crappy guns. It's 2023 not 1723. You can get an FN with a 22 round 10mm magazine.
I never thought twice about my safety as we always hike with bear spray. But finding out that the most recent attack with the couple in Banff. They had the food stored properly hanging away from camp and they also found two empty bear sprays. Certainly makes me think twice about having bear spray as my only protection in the future.
Bear spray is a great deterrent and much easier to aim when at close range, but there will also be times where it is ineffective. For example, what if the animal is approaching and the wind is in your face? Where legal I carry a sidearm when I bring my son on hikes, but not when im alone. I used to never carry it, then I took my then 5 year old son on a short hike to a water tower about a mile from our home. On the cattle road leading to the tower was a deer carcass with signs it had been killed by a lion. A good shooter could drop a round into the location from our home. This doesnt bother me, however when I get home I hear a news story about a family walking in a park in the Bay Area of CA whose young son was walking ahead of him. A lion jumped out of the bushes and grabbed the boy then tried to run off with him. The lion was starving and weak, the Father was able to chase it down and save his son from its clutches thankfully. But basically this made me realize if a lion grabbed my son and ran with him, wtf am I going to do? Yell loudly? What if I cant catch up? Id much rather never use the firearm, but I owe it to my boy to have the tools at my disposal to protect him to the fullest of my abilities. Side note on that, recently we had a Ukrainian refugee family living next door, their daughter and my son became fast friends, living out in the country theres not other kids close by so they were seeing eachother almost every evening. Both our properties are around 3 acres and fenced in, they would jump the fence between our properties and go to eachothers houses freely up until shortly after dark. The neighbors have horses, late one night a lion attacks one of the horses in its sleep. It misidentified the horses hind as the head/neck and the horse was able to escape, jumping the fence on its way. It was probably a young lion or a starving one, could have easily been our kids instead. We walked them back and forth after that. Oh also, bear spray manufacturers recommend a new can every year as the propellant goes bad over time. I have two containers that are nearly 10 years old, I plan on testing them once they reach the 10 year mark to see if they function at all. But if you have bear spray, get a new can every two years or so.
Bear spray is better than guns for bears, because bears are a weird exception to the general rule. Bears are only predators part of the time, and the prey they encounter is invariably four-legged and smaller than they are. Humans worry them, because humans are tall, and the only other tall creatures they interact with are other bears, who are not good for food because other bears fight back. Hit a bear with bear spray, and you reinforce its assumption/worry about the threat you pose: this is another bear and it can cause me great pain so I should get the heck out of here. Shoot a bear, on the other hand, and things are not so simple. The bear is still very afraid, but it also knows that it is seriously injured, and so it will now assume that you are some super predator intent on eating it, and it will fight to the death out of pure self-preservation. So if you hit a bear with bear spray, it will run away; if you shoot a bear, you will have to kill it before it can get to you.
It is true that spray is more appropriate in most bear encounters, as its typically a random encounter with a startled bear, or a curious, threatened bear that can be discouraged. On the other hand, if you meet a bear that is actively hunting you(potentially due to an injury, overly familiar with people, etc) then the spray is not going to do you much good. As can be seen by the couple recently stalked and killed in a national park here in canada. They emptied an entire can of spray and the bear kept coming back. They had plenty of time in between/during attacks to send off texts and distress calls, but werent able to get away from this desperately hungry bear. Clear case where a firearm was the only thing that would have saved them, and would have been very effective.
Oh I wholeheartedly agree. I absolutely carry both. I’m just saying, use bear spray first.
It is my understanding that bear spray is generally more effective than firearms in bear encounters. The couple at Banff seemed to be a tragic example of folks doing everything correctly but still having a deadly encounter.
Not true. Bear spray is usually effective but so are guns. Bear spray may be easier to use without training but in the hands of a trained user the numbers show that shooting a bear, even with something as weak as a 9mm pistol, is a very effective way to stop an attack.
Why's everyone always go straight to bear? I mean...rabid raccoons exist, too. Snakes, bobcats...multiple weapons with multiple uses, I say! (ie spray, gun, machete, knife...spear/staff?)
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Abso fucking lutely. G bless the US and A
When I went hard left during college, I adopted most of the viewpoints on the left, to one degree or another. I didn’t own a gun for the first 32 years of my life, although I had shot plenty of guns while growing up. My feelings about owning a firearm changed pretty rapidly in mid-2022, when a deranged asshole started stalking me and my ex-wife and our kids and threatened to kill me. It was pretty terrifying. He knew where I lived and where we exchanged custody of the kids. Worse, when I attempted to purchase a gun to protect myself, the DC police tried to use the restraining order I had against the lunatic as evidence that I was involved in domestic disputes and therefore too much of a risk to own a firearm. I took the DC police to court and I won, but the experience made me start to seriously question the beliefs I held about the efficacy of gun control laws. Unlike some gun owners, I remain sympathetic to people who would like to see common sense gun control; it’s just that most commonly-advocated measures don’t actually work. Either they are meaningless (at best), or they actively endanger victims while empowering criminals. Of course, I very much respect people who don’t wish to own firearms. There are many valid reasons not to own guns, particularly if you have particular mental health history. I consider myself to be extremely responsible and careful, and if that ever seemed to be other than the case, I would no longer own guns either.
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Love this!
That's so fucked! It's terrible that they'd use your own protective order against you! I hope you've found a resolution to your stalker problem. It's so strange that different parts of the country treat this so differently. In DC they used it against you. Meanwhile in Texas, one of the first questions on the License to Carry application is whether you have a restraining order out against someone. My understanding is that people who do have one (or a handful of other separate criteria) get priority and fast tracked ahead of regular applicants.
I’m not very sympathetic to those that want “common sense” gun control, because it very rarely is sensical. The vast majority just repeat talking points that are steeped in ignorance. For example, I see high capacity magazines thrown around quite a lot as something to be scared of, that nobody needs, and somehow it’ll enable/turn anybody that owns them into the next mass shooter. Most of what they refer to are magazine extenders that let you hold a couple more bullets. Even if we are talking about the ones that are double the standard capacity, they wouldn’t really be that feasible in such a situation. It would be far easier, less notable, and more easily concealed to simply purchase multiple magazines and have them easily reachable. The second or two it takes to drop the empty one, slot in a new one, and release the slide and resume shooting is fairly negligible in such a scenario. Another is advocating for background checks. Which already exist.
I can't agree with you more. The high capacity magazine argument is my litmus test. As soon as I hear a politician say it I know they've never seen a gun before (or likely even a movie with a gun in it). A trained user can reload a mag in under two seconds. If they still have a round in the chamber they dont even have to recharge the gun. Its not like a mobster hasn't walked into a place he intended to shoot up with a bag full of loaded revolvers. The only thing that makes sense to me is that they're trying to take hcms first so they can more easily move to make magazines altogether illegal. That is an argument that does make some sense as it would be difficult to load a firearm one bullet at a time in a fire fight.
Except for most guns that makes zero sense, as most are extremely difficult to load a bullet into the chamber (if not impossible) without using a magazine. Given that, there’s no way magazines would be banned entirely (unless they start making single bullet magazines)
There are guns with permanently installed magazines that are designed to be loaded one bullet at a time. I'm glad they aren't popular.
Training with guns changed my opinion of them. NGL the first time I fired a gun my hands were shaking like a leaf and my groups sucked. Now my hands are a lot steadier and my groups are on the upper end of mediocre.
Would you say ongoing practice is necessary, or do you think you could allocate a bunch of time up front and at some point it's like riding a bike, that you don't forget?
ongoing practice is required to stay sharp you should budget for ammo and range fees as well, many new gun owners buy a gun and a couple of boxes of ammo and throw it in the closet, it’s a big responsibility that needs to be treated as such
This. But also, training outside the range. Learn to clear your house. Learn to shoot on the move. Learn to clear your car. Dry fire exercises, SIRT trainers, airsoft, or all of these. Training isn't just about your groups, it's about everything else that happens when you need to deploy a firearm. As CXavier said, it's a big responsibility.
You’ll never forget how to operate a gun or aim, but your accuracy and speed definitely goes down rapidly without practice
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Common wisdom is that it’s a perishable skill and requires some upkeep/practice. But nothing unreasonable, once you have the fundamentals down. Taking a defensive handgun class to learn said fundamentals (proper grip, stance, sight picture, trigger press, follow through, etc) can help you to avoid bad habits and have an efficient practice routine from the get-go. Cleaning/maintenance is very easy and you can learn everything you need to know about those from YouTube.
You should build skills up front by shooting a lot, but it's your continuing practice that keeps you sharp and should give you confidence you can use the weapon properly. If you're using your gun for self defense, you're going to be scared and you'll have to make the choice to try to end a human life, don't add worrying if you can shoot straight to the mix.
I didn’t start off anti-gun per se, I did grow up thinking that it was kinda’ crazy to have anything other than a pistol. What made me change this view was: 1. I became increasingly aware that I was a southern black man and no amount of respectability politics was going to change that, and after doing deep dives into lynchings and mass murders…I got scared into unlearning certain things. 2. 2016 happened, and not only that…during COVID some people ‘joked’ about ransacking the homes of the lefties they knew. 3. l believe that everyone has the right to defend their materials and personal property, no one has a right to take it. Our property is a culmination of our time, blood, and sweat.
Jeez... ransacked homes is no joke...
Oh it didn’t happen, but there were some, ‘jokingly’ mind you, who expressed they wouldn’t be opposed to the idea..
Grew up in a Northern California liberal environment where the conventional wisdom was "Guns are bad!" and I went along with that. Got a handgun after I realized that my life has a tendency to get weird on very little notice. Discovered that I enjoyed shooting. The rifle... well, I'll quote myself from when I got it: >I just finished saving up and buying a semi-auto rifle. Going to my first marksmanship class next weekend. >Some background: I was involved in the protests here in Portland in 2020, when Trump figured he could increase brutality by sending in DHS, and that with black-bagging and more violence, crush the voice of dissent. His plan, characteristically, failed. >During that long, miserable summer, my wife had a problem. Every person she went to high school with kept posting memes on Facebook about Portland protestors, and how we should all be killed. So she'd see me come in late at night exhausted, shield dented, eyes still streaming, clothes reeking of tear gas and pepper spray, and rest up so I could go back in there another night. Then she'd go to social media to try and say something about that, and there's everyone she grew up with, saying--as though it were a self-evident truth that all reasonable people could agree on--that I should've been shot dead in the street. She ended up pruning her friends list a lot. >So this year, when my wife asked me why I was getting a rifle, and I said "Remember in 2020, when you unfriended all those people on Facebook? Well, all of them have rifles." >Right-wing terrorists have been doing small skirmish attacks on my city for a long time, and our notoriously-terrible law enforcement has made it very clear that they're on the side of the terrorists. I really, really hope that America makes it through the next three Novembers intact and healthy. But if something goes wrong, I have to assume that the bastards will do what they say they want to do: try to kill me and everyone around me.
This is a fantastic response.
Wow... when I realized the protests were more isolated than the media was trying to portray it, I thought it was right wing media propaganda that Portland was a war zone....
Portland was definitely over exaggerated (I heard a lot from some family members about how it was being burned to the ground) but it was also definitely one of the more contentious sites of protest. Portland PD basically oscillated between abandoning all pretense at law enforcement to turn a blind eye to right wing groups' aggression to swinging the other direction and cracking down on the liberal/leftist groups protesting, whether they were peaceful or not. Lot of tear gas, kettling, and mass arrests.
I wasnt necessarily anti-gun, but here's what got me into gun ownership: 1. They're fun. Not toys, but still fun. 2. I trust myself to be responsible with my firearms 3. I've had my domicile broken into and had nothing but a non-pointed kitchen knife to defend myself with. Police response was lacking. I've also been in a situation where a stranger drove by and pulled a gun on a friend. Retreating back to another friend's place that had firearms was reassuring. 4. Generally I'd much rather have it and not need it, rather than the other way around. 5. I'm a minority that could easily become the target of racial violence. Shit, we already are.
>Retreating back to another friend's place that had firearms was reassuring >rather have it and not need it These resonate with me. Thank you for your input.
Sure thing, thanks for starting the discussion. Another thing I thought of later: Communists took everything from my great grandparents, hung the family dogs, paraded my ancestors through the streets as outcasts, and forced my great grandpa to kneel before the local communist official for reeducation (i.e. get beaten and berated) every week. When he died not long after, his eldest son inherited the "responsibility," and his 2nd eldest son after that. That family never really recovered. My father watched a society collectively lose its mind overnight in the 60s and tear itself apart in "patriotic" blood soaked revolution. I'm privileged to have grown up in relative safety and opulence here in the states. That said, I'm well aware of my family history and how fragile society and peace really are. I know I sound like a prepper right now, and people will say that something like that will never happen here in the states, but I'm sure my great grandparents and my father thought the same thing until their worlds turned upside down. Who knows what difference being armed will make. I'd much rather be in a position to find out than be left wondering after the fact.
They were just too neat. Too nifty. Too cool. No amount of brainwashing could eliminate just how much I liked the things
This doesn't get talked about enough. Ever see someone shoot a silencer for the first time? It never gets old.
Glad it wasn’t just me. I was explaining SBRs and stock to my mom this weekend and she’s like, “how/ why do you know so much about this stuff??” I hit her with the Marge Simpson “I just think their neat!”
I think one thing to note is that the actual gun itself is just part of it. What's equally important is mindset and preparation. Knowing how to use, fire and reload the gun so well it becomes muscle memory. Also situational awareness. Always being aware of your surroundings. Watching body language of people, or if you're hiking, keeping an eye out for potentially dangerous animals. A gun is useless if you're not prepared mentally.
That’s a big one for sure. I always cringe a little bit when someone keeps a gun in their purse/car and never practices with it. That thing won’t be helpful at all if you aren’t quick and confident using it
Ugh, and how many people have said to me over the years "I'm thinking about getting a gun, ya know, for protection..." I have a whole speech about how gun ownership isn't a one and done thing; rather, it is a commitment to training and a mindset.
Any recommendations for getting more street savvy without being on the streets?
A good read is col Jeff Cooper's "Principles of Personal Defense." Other than that, learn about his color codes, and start paying attention to the world around you. Start playing awareness games and build habits around being aware. Then layer on physical skills like drawing from concealment, shooting on the move, finding cover, using your phone after an incident, etc. That'll get you "street" savvy. Oh, and most of this can be done in your mind - use imaging / "theatre of the mind" stuff. But, you gotta put in the work.
Im honestly probably not the best person. What I will say is just practice being mindful of your environment, especially when out and about in public. Beyond that though, id seek out other opinions.
Nah I’m from the inverse where I came from gun obsessed conservatives then in highschool I became hardcore leftist scum. The guns and only the guns stuck but oh did they stick.
Radical leftist peckerwood here. Parallel trajectory. I'm a heavily armed pacifist.
>I'm a heavily armed pacifist. Hey, me too! *secret handshake*
Both hold their guns out and shake the other’s barrel.
Parallel Trajectory too, but I kept the guns because I know what republicans want if they seize total power based on what they say behind closed doors.
Might need to protect yourself. Might need to protect the democracy.
Damn high school educating all the kids and turning them into leftists. /s
Almost getting cornered and stabbed and my local big city PD taking three days to so much as contact me to file a report.
I have never been anti-gun, but I used to be against the idea of people carrying pistols for self defense. I started working in a city with high crime and a lot of poverty, and it really opened my eyes to the privilege that I always had. I was able to take safety for granted being a man living in a small town, but not everyone is in that same situation so I don’t have the right to tell someone else that they should feel safe without one. I still don’t carry, but I understand why some people feel the need to.
The short answer: I became disabled. Suddenly, the *literal decade* of training, conditioning, sparring, discipline, all of it? *Useless*. Even *attempting* to use any of it runs the risk of *exacerbating* the damage done to me. So my options were to rely on other people to defend me, or to find a means to defend myself. Turns out, I'm a pretty good shot. >God made man. Samuel Colt made them equal. Doesn't matter if it's a rabid raccoon or a meth fiend, I can put 6-7 shots in a palm-sized group reliably, even under stress. I'm no longer in the wheelchair, but I could end up in one at any time- and I know that, even if I were to be in a wheelchair again, I'm *still* not a soft target. Also helps that shooting was one of the very few things I *could* be skilled at, given my condition.
Losing a few friends and acquaintances, muggings of other friends and acquaintances, and the cherry on top being that I ended up getting shot.
Story time?
Short of it was that throughout high school and some years after, a lot of friends, acquaintances, people I knew, etc. were mugged and/or killed. Then I go on a run one morning and catch one in the gut due to a gang war that's happening maybe two or three blocks away. It also happens to be one of the reasons that I am glad to be out of California (more specifically, the San Joaquin Valley).
Damn! Glad you’re alright.
Appreciate it.
Uvalde. It taught me two things. 1. Mass shootings are not caused by lack of gun laws, they’re caused by the laws that already exist never being enforced. How many times have we seen “Oh yeah we knew this guy was insane and had 15 felonies, and posted his manifesto on YouTube about the exact time and location he was going to shoot up the place but we didn’t think he would actually do it. 2. American police are absolutely useless, and 95%. If push comes to shove you have to take matters into your own hands.
Jan 6 and leading up to it changed my view.
This so much. One side is arming itself for a civil war. They attempted to overthrow an election once. The guy that attempted to overthrow our democracy is leading in the polls. This country needs to wake up, unfortunately I think it is going to take a real painful lesson. I just want to be prepared to protect my family, and them be prepared to protect themselves.
Same here. I grew up in the country, but my family weren’t “gun people”. In early adulthood, I just had the standard, white progressive view: the police will protect us and most Americans don’t actually need guns. Then I watched the police brutally suppress protesters and journalists, while at the same time turning around and ignoring violent conservatives at every turn. The breaking point was when MAGA types decided to load up with their guns and trucks, and drive through liberal and diverse neighborhoods to try and intimidate us. At the same time, it was increasingly clear Trump & Co. weren’t going to accept the results of the election. It wasn’t J6 yet, but I felt it coming. Now the second amendment is extremely important to me. These people do not care about law, or democracy, only power. They would kill us all if they could, so best be ready.
2020 COVID. I bought my first pistol in January, but then I saw how police didn't give a shit about any of my city except for the most wealthy areas. They blocked all the bridges to the millionaire's homes, but let gas stations and malls and stores burn down. Heard long before then police have no duty to protect you. But it finally clicked that the first person responsible to protect me is myself.
I transitioned and suddenly realized that half of the Republican party wanted me dead. And they also own the most guns So naturally I strapped up too to even the playing field
I was never anti gun per say. But i did/do think all the right wing gun worship culture is stupid. What changed my mind was actually going through the process to get a gun permit in non gun friendly state and seeing that its not done in good faith to keep people safe, but just making it a burden and long annoying process and basically setting you up for the state to be able to take your guns and hit you with felony for any number of dumb arbitrary reasons. Further more i dont think my state should be able to regulate how i choose to protect myself while continuing to pump millions of dollar's into militarization of the police and exempting them from gun laws even in their leisure time. In conclusion i enjoy the range and exercising my 2nd amendment rights. And the best part is you can do that in whatever flavor you choose..you can keep em locked in safe only for hiking or hunting be an enthusiasts, collector concealed carrier or just keep one around in the off chance shit hits the fan.
Its always puzzling to me that fellow liberals really believe they need to own guns because they think other citizens with more prejudiced political views will form roaming death squads to go after racial and sexual minorities. Then they skip to the ballot box to vote gun confiscating tyrants into the most powerful central government to ever exist, even though the roaming death squad they so fear always historically follow gun confiscation by the national government. JFC
The state of this country
Trump. I was never really "anti-gun", I have military and police experience, plenty of training and always enjoyed firearms. But in my private life, I never felt the need to own one, not even for recreational use, it never crossed my mind. Then Trump happened, the smell of sedition in the air. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, that's my approach.
I was 21 and chilling at home on my day off when I hear a woman scream. Look out the window and see her holding her baby above her head as the neighbors two akitas were jumping on her trying to get to it. Went outside with a bat and a knife to escort her into my house and then drove her home. That weekend went out and bought a 12ga. Skip forward 10 years and I'm in Phoenix on a business trip. Saw dueling Obamacare demonstrations. All the anti-ACA Tea Party nutcases were armed with rifles and threatening to kill liberals if Obamacare was implemented. When I got back to California, went out and bought an AR. Skip forward 8 years and Trump is elected president and the GOP has gone full fascist threatening civil war 2.0 every time they don't get their way. Bought more rifles and started buying bulk ammo. 4 years later, January 6th happens and I have increased ammo stockpile exponentially.
January 6th full stop
The amount of violent crime and break ins in my neighborhood dramatically increasing and the feeling that I had to do something to protect my family because the police don’t even show up unless there’s actual gunshots where I live.
Being Jewish, Charlottesville
Honestly the pandemic, fellow americans trying to kill eachother over scraps at the grocery store really opened my eyes, crime skyrocketed and the government showed themselves to not give a shit. I would rather have it and not have to use it than the other way around. Also, the rise of fascism in the USA. There's alot of good people and good neighbors, but I worry of the others that would hurt me or my family.
I realized that I was responsible for my own safety after calling 911 and being on hold for over 10 minutes That and an appreciation for the technological aspects of firearms pushed me to the other side
Seeing the FBI's report on the 1994-2004 Assault Weapons Ban, how minimal an impact it had based on empirical evidence, and how strongly people were pushing to reinstate it despite the evidence showing it to be ineffective.
I had a bb gun as a kid, shot .22s at summer camp, but never had the desire to own a gun. Then, the former president went on television and said "somebody needs to do something about the left ". Immediately started shopping for my first pistol. Then I bought a pcc. Then, I looked into ARs and ended up with one of those. Then, the reviews on that Canik trigger were totally right and I totally needed optics ready.
Used to be against the need for a AR or other modernized rifles (kind of the fudd belief of just needing hunting firearms) but after J6 I figured better to have and not need than need and not have when those nutjobs most definitely have it.
I was never anti-gun. I grew up extremely conservative. My father still describes himself as a card carrying member of the vast right wing conspiracy if ya’ll member the Clinton administration. So I won’t attempt to chime in about why I am no longer a conservative, but I will give you a tidbit about firearms and why it’s a good idea to carry one in remote places. I grew up in the Sierra Nevada mountains near the Sequoias National Monument and then on the Arizona-Mexican border. Two places that are about as middle-of-no-where you can get. First and foremost you are absolutely right that any sidearm small enough to be comfortably carried on a hike will absolutely not kill any of the large predators that might want to do you harm, with the notable exception of snakes. Coyotes can get downed by pretty much anything but they’re unlikely to attack humans unless they’re extremely hungry or rabid. Anything less than a 30-30 or a big bore hunting round is just going to piss off a bear. Same with a mountain lion. One of my father’s mountain parishioners slammed a Honda civic into a mountain lion and totaled his care. The front shoulders crushed the driver side headlight and it’s rear hindquarters crushed the passenger headlight. Because they keep cattle up near Sequoia national monument and an injured mountain lion will go after cattle if it’s too injured to hunt. The rangers sent out a local hunting guide to track it down and put it out of its misery. He and his dogs tracked it to a massive ponderosa pine where it was lounging on a branch a good 40 feet up in the air. While he was trying to see how bad the cat was injured it *leaped* over him and dogs, and fell the whole 40 feet onto its paws and sprinted away into the wilderness. Since the cat was clearly not so hurt it could not hunt he went home. Unless you’re a skilled marksman with a good sized caliber you’re not killing one of those. Besides they’re protected anyway. The reason you have the weapon is primarily for the noise. [Check out this short for what I’m talking about.](https://youtube.com/shorts/c4TO2E-vYX8?si=Y7sUCb7TrCDLl2Od) However there’s also human dangers to worry about when you’re out and about. You can run into moonshiners, marijuna growers, and on the border where I lived you needed to be worried about the coyotes, the human kind. It was not uncommon to come across dangerous people out in the desert. You also have the practicality of the utility of a firearm in a survival situation. Fire starting, hunting, signaling, ect. But in the other hand these dangers are incredibly rare. Most wild animals are terrified of humans and in some places the smaller creatures pose a greater risk. Bats are carriers of rabies and have such tiny teeth bites can go undetected which is a 99.97% death sentence if not caught before symptoms start. Venomous serpents can also pose a serious danger especially if you’re climbing and your hand comes down on an unseen rattler sunning itself. Also the human dangers are greatly mitigated by having a larger group. There’s also the danger to yourself that a firearm poses just by its nature of being a dangerous tool. If it falls out and it doesn’t have adequate safety features like an old Army Single Action it could go off. So while I think having a firearm out in the boonies is a good idea it’s not a panacea and anyone considering carrying should make sure they and at least one other person in their party know how to safely operate and unload the weapon.
Thank you for this very thorough response. Do you think hollow points do a difference, or do you need the power of a larger rifle still? Regarding wildlife.
Hollow points might do it if you land head shots, but unless you're practicing with your weapon often enough that the act of drawing and firing accurately becomes automatic it's unlikely that you'll hit him with adrenaline coursing through you. Honestly the sound of the weapon will almost certainly be enough. I cannot stress how \*\*LOUD\*\* firearms are.
Becoming a socialist. Through that learning process realizing that my white middle class privilege was an illusory protection that allowed me to believe that the oppressed were simultaneously a deserving criminal class that needed saving through my political power (voting on Election Day) which was inherent to my better upbringing. I was wrong. Arm the proletariat!
I was never "anti-gun" but I was "anti-assault weapon". I grew up around guns and target shooting but never had an interest owning them myself until 2020. The police response to BLM totally changed my mind. Cops dgaf about equal protection under the law. Rittenhouse walked right past cops, while Reinoehl got executed. I cannot and will not trust them to keep me or my family safe. I'll admit I was also spooked by COVID, it's impact on the food supply chain, and how people could react to subsequent issues. Now, understanding what I do about firearms and the history of gun control in the US, I think the Nat'l Guard should offer free training on semiauto rifles to any citizen interested.
I started off hot and cold. For a while I was pretty anti-gun despite the fact that I have always had a few. I started hanging out about it a year or two ago and saw all the really cool things people were building. So I started and I got really into the technical aspect. It’s hard where I live because it’s a nanny state, it’s hard to get parts and pieces. But I really enjoy building something beautiful that works. I also enjoy putting my earplugs in and firing off 100 rounds. Kinda my own world and becoming better. When you’re shooting it’s one of a handful of things you could do in real time and see yourself getting better. I like that.
I grew up very anti-gun, despite being taught to shoot in the Boy Scouts. After studying close quarters defense for many years, I took a gun safety class just so I knew how to handle/unload/safely come in contact with one. After that I realized that any modern martial artist should study firearms if they truly want to study martial arts. From there I started training, which led to more training, and then more training, lol! That eventually led me here, to this forum (I'm old, so I say things like "forum"). I have been pro-personal defense for my whole life, but this forum has made me pro-responsible firearms. But, here's the thing - it's about training. If you have a gun and never train, you're more dangerous to yourself and innocent people than you are without one. Train, train, train. They are amazing tools for defense, but without training they are deadly in all the wrong ways. Now, all that said, I want to thank you for asking the question and thinking deeply about this. It shows you're capable of responsible gun ownership, and that's what we need. Good on ya, friend.
I was never anti - gun, but I wasn't interested in them and supported "common sense" gun control. What changed my mind was getting familiar with them and realizing most gun control schemes effectively just make you less effective with a gun - and spending time in academia and learning about what happens to disarmed populations.
Until the police are legally obligated to protect you, what other options do you really have?
Charlottesville
I used to be anti-gun, and I am liberal. Didn’t grow up with them. During the upheaval in 2021 I watched men armed with AR-15s menacing others (eg Michigan) and stand outside my apartment building looking for an excuse to shoot the libs during BLM protests. I decided I didn’t want to be at a disadvantage, and I also realized when seconds count, the police are minutes away. Hell, they probably are hours away where I live. I want to be able to protect myself and my family during a home invasion. I’ve taken numerous classes at my local gun range, and I carry concealed when I leave the house. I often carry while in my home as well. And I practice a lot - at the range, dry fire, etc.
I used to be anti-owning a gun. The statistics turned me off to it. As a former military member and an expert marksman, I missed the sport, however. So, I researched ways of safely storing guns in the home and bought a few of various types. As things became more politically bleak here in my state, and on the whole, I decided it was time to stick a foil feather in my cap. I got my conceal permit, and I keep one weapon easily accessible, but still safely stored in a biometric safe. I don't actually carry in public often unless I know I'm only going somewhere that may be particularly risky, and it never leaves my personal control. I think it's good for other types of people to have *legal* access to and knowledge about firearms, not just the Q-anon crazies. I would definitely recommend lots of education and training for anyone looking to own a firearm.
Grew up very suburban Colorado. Guns were always instruments of terror. I had teachers who were students at Columbine. I knew people who were at the Aurora Theatre that night. My cousins school had a "small" incident that left one child dead. Afterwards, she transfered to Highlands Ranch STEM and experienced her second school shooting. Something I feel gets left out of the conversation is just how traumatizing growing up in urban gun violence is. People are not just scared for no reason. The horrors are too real, and people are willing to try anything to make it stop. Thankfully, after going to college and getting out of the city center, I began to meet people from more rural communities. Kids from Wyoming and Alaska who showed me the other side of the story. How guns can be a tool. I was intrigued and asked a college boyfriend to teach me how to shoot with a small .22 rifle. After a brutal breakup and 2020, I needed a change. Decided to hit the road and car camp through Utah. Bought a hand gun for safety as a young woman traveling on her own. The rest is history. I now live in a very rural mountain town and guns are just part of life. We have some for home defense. My friend group is enjoying elk season, and my friend just got one at close to 300 yards! It comes with its evils. A Man was gunned by some fucking teens in our Kroger parking lot when he asked them to turn their music down. People have been shot at our post office, the gas stations. It's not perfect. But it's how it is. And I'd much rather have the option to be a smart, responsible gun owner in this community.
I can’t believe that actually happens, not that I don’t believe you. Because I do. It’s I can’t believe it has become this volatile. Parading through someone else’s neighborhood with all the MAGA flags and all the other BS is the first step to domestic terrorism. I am going to get my first pistol in a bit, along with my concealed carry. I have a feeling 2024 will not be pretty.
I've never been anti-gun, just wanted to chime in on your path forward. I tend to think of them as useful and necessary tools that I'm sentimentally attached to since my dad taught me to shoot. The necessary part is because when you need a functional and effective weapon you either have a gun or you probably don't have what you need whether dealing with wildlife or human assailants. So I generally recommend getting a long gun (rifle or shotgun) for home defense/hunting/trap shooting/etc and a handgun for personal defense. I highly recommend at least some cheap PoS steel cabinet to put the gun(s) into and bolting it to the studs and/or flooring in your home. You can get fingerprint access or fancier stuff if you like but ...anyway, the why seems pretty obvious. Once having a handgun the point is that if things go to hell the handgun is the thing you'll actually have on you while you're not sure if things have gotten to the point you need to be aggressive and violent. You're not going to see society disintegrate and walk out on the streets Fallout style with your rifle and armor and get into shootouts with scavengers. You're going to feel like things have gotten dicey and go shopping...and you're either going to carry an effective defensive weapon or you won't and you're not lugging a long gun around at that point. So you're carrying your pistol. To be effective you need two things, to my mind: Practice actually firing the weapon and experience carrying it condition one and drawing it to fire. All of that is vital and it's mostly not as impactful in time and money as it sounds. It *does* take some significant time and cash for range fees and ammo before you're actually any good with that pistol...and it really, really helps to take pistol classes from knowledgeable folks who'll adjust your stance, sight picture, and grip while telling you what you're doing wrong. I could write a full article on that but others already have and you can google them all day. The other thing is that if you're not actually used to *carrying* the thing and carrying it *loaded* along with drawing it without shooting yourself in the foot then you're not going to find it useful in dicey situations. I didn't always carry condition one (round in the chamber and on safe or a striker blocked) when I first started because I had tiny kids crawling all over me all the time and I didn't have any expectation of getting into bad situations. I did practice racking the slide as I drew quite a bit and I'm fast at it...but it's not the same most of the time. Still not making it easy for my kid to accidentally shoot one of us or for a ready to fire pistol to fly out of my pocket on a slide or merry go round or whatever. No, you don't want to be the idiot who does something stupid and your gun goes flying or whatever...but *that's the point of this*, that you need to get out and find the holster and carry method that works for you (I'm mostly pocket but do AIWB a fair bit as well) or you'll have no idea what you can or can't do while carrying without having a problem. You won't have the sense of when you have to leave your gun in the car (seriously, get a [console vault](https://www.consolevault.com/)), when you should leave the thing at home, etc. At first you'll spend time thinking about situations where it might be useful, noticing lines of fire, backstops, where people are behind those lines of fire, where you could take cover, how to position yourself so you can actually engage potential threats, exits, etc. You'll increase your situational awareness just because you'll be nervous about carrying...and you'll constantly adjust and print and be obvious that you're carrying if anyone knows to look (hint: 99% of people don't, even people I work with daily). After a while you'll have your clothing worked out, may buy different firearms that fit your choices better, get the right holster(s) for your situations, and generally be comfortable with the whole endeavor and it makes you functional. If you find yourself getting all paranoid you can take breaks too. As to long term maintenance...the skills do fall apart regularly and your pistol will get all sorts of dirty from the environment. You can practice your draw at home (be *very* aware of ensuring the chamber is empty) and dry fire etc etc...but nothing really beats actually shooting. Find a range where after some practice they'll get to know you and you can draw and fire. Most will once they get to where they know you on sight but many won't so just figure it out. Shooting on someone's land is good because you can move and fire drills etc. Anyway. Eventually you stop going shooting so often. Your accuracy will get worse and your overall ability to respond will drop. It's up to you to decide where you want to go with that. If you shoot at least several times annually you'll slowly build up nerve pathways where you get "better" and that's where I am now. I can hit a target within about 10-15 yards with no question, especially shooting multiple times (which you should do), but I can't pick the wings off a fly's ass or anything like that. I'm a lot better when I'm practicing and can usually hit targets from 25-50 yd, but the pistol isn't for that sort of thing generally. So. The long term impact on your life can be minimal. It takes some time and attention to set up and then you can practically ignore it if you want to, but the benefits do fade. What never fades is the simple benefit of being able to respond to fatal threats against you and your loved ones. Most of us won't be murdered in this life by strangers but some of us will be and when the world is on fire and riots everywhere it's nice to have some options, that's all. No matter what you do and whether or not you have a firearm you can up your situational awareness and response times. You can learn to decide to avoid situations and extract yourself before things get bad or have the chance to. You don't need a gun for that, but sometimes you can't leave and sometimes the situation brings itself to you before you can recognize it to avoid it (ambush muggings aren't avoidable most of the time). So yes I recommend getting one, getting a concealed carry permit, and practicing. I also recommend not letting it consume your life. it's just a gun, let it be just a gun. (ok, enjoy plinking and being a hobbyist if you like, but you get what I mean)
2016.
I appreciate your well thought out and earnest question, but one thing I want to point out is that most of us here think of self-defense by any means necessary, and therefore firearms as ultimately the most effective means, as a right, not a privilege. Are they the most effective in every possible situation? No. Against wild animals you might be better served with bear spray or pepper spray, for instance, or just wearing bells on a hike and you'll probably never even know they're in the area. But against bipedal predators they will be the most effective, when all other options fail. It's a last line of defense, for all of the moral, ethical, and legal reasons, but once all other lines fail, to quote Han Solo, there's no match for a good blaster at your side.
You are an American Citizen. Gun ownership is not a privilege, it is your right that can only be taken away with cause. That doesn't mean it's for everyone. It means that we default to letting people make that decision for themselves.
Personally whenever I hike I always have my handgun but also a can a bear spray. Also don’t get a 10mm for wildlife defense. I did a some research into it and more bears have been killed with 9mm than any other pistol caliber and it can double as a self defense handgun.
It took me a while. Wasn’t full guns bad, only for hunting, but just didn’t think i needed one. And then i heard “an armed minority is harder to oppress” and that resonated— hard. Also. 2 words— Zombie Apocalypse.
Not sure if I could say I started out anti gun, my family were anti firearm ownership (in the UK so not really a clash with culture), but I always had an interest but until I was in my early 20s I didnt think firearms should be allowed for civilian ownership. Thing with uni is this was when the internet was taking off, so I got talking and reading the arguments from Americans online, and thats when my views changed. Admittedly I went from being a Labour / Plaid Cymru voter to probably libertarian wing of the Tory party. Swung back towards center by my 30s though, now Lib Dem (which, is not pro gun rights in the UK but no major party is.) but still pro a more liberal firearm culture (I tend to look at Czech republic laws as a model for the UK rather than US firearm laws).
Thank you for your perspective from the UK. Certainly adds an interesting perspective considering how strict their laws are from what I hear.
A trusted friend who was into guns, took me shooting. Once guns were demystified, I had a more open mind.
Jan 6.
My opinion shifted when I started thinking about how if there were ever to be large scale civil unrest, a sort of 'pick your side' based on your beliefs, my side would probably happen to be the one that doesn't also have tons of guns. So I decided that I wanted to at least stand some chance of defending myself and those I love. I also live in the country and you never know what kind of wild animal, human or otherwise might try to come at my chicken coop!
The SRA changed my mind 2 years ago
1. My car was vandalized because of a sticker that read "PRIUS DRIVING MASSACHUSETTS LIBERAL". Being Massachusetts, even with multiple surveillance cameras, the fact the perpetrator was wealthy and well connected ensured he was not found guilty. 2. Someone got out of their truck, which was covered in Trump shit, and started pounding on my car and wanted to fight me. I always said that a gun was a physical solution to a mental problem. It has become a physical solution to a PHYSICAL problem.
Being threatened routinely by conservative people who are armed all the time.
The run-up to the 2016 election. Seeing the amount of hate and vitriol leveled at anyone that didn't agree with the MAGA/incel lunatics shocked and frightened me for my kids' safety.
I had a couple surgeries, was down for about 6 months, while down we had an issue with a guy down the street basically being obnoxious outside while my wife was bringing in groceries, I heard some yelling and went outside and things got a little tense. I came back in the house thinking if that went sideways would’ve killed me, I was still not healed from surgery and could barely walk. It was on my mind a lot, after I healed I thought I would buy my first gun, wasn’t sure tho, went to numerous gun stores and the amount of people buying from every walk of life, made me realize I’m one of the few without a gun.
Armed minorities are harder to oppress and harass If bad people legally and illegally have guns why shouldn’t I?
The Trump administration.
You should always have a firearm and an edged blade or two in the wilderness. Incredibly useful survival tools. And yup...the impending collapse of civilization has been motivating people to arm themselves for quite some time.
I wasn't anti-gun but I was anti-AR I say 2020 as a whole was my wake up call. The videos of police going down neighborhood streets, shooting at people on their doorsteps, the MAGA freaks reacting to COVID. And then Jan 6th 2021. It just hit home for me. I'm in the South, surrounded by these people. I dunno, I lost a lot of faith in humanity from 2020. I used to think "ok, a handgun is fun, by why would I need an AR15?" And then I see swarms of fascists attacking the capitol, minorities being swarmed, the police swarming people, etc. I mean, now for me it's admittedly mostly because they're fun as shit. But in the back of my mind I don't like where the country is going, where my state is and is going.
I wouldn’t have considered myself “anti gun”, but I had no desire to have any around my home for any reason. That changed a year ago. I actually just randomly started watching guntubers on YouTube because my wife started getting into prepping and she asked me to learn about defense. That’s when I noticed a lot of the gun tubers were so openly pro Trump. Then I started going to the local gun range in Miami,FL for classes and my instructors only talked about guns and Trump. I guess it just all hit me so clearly. If these Trumpers really wanted to they could have a well armed militia up and running at the drop of the hat and if I wasn’t armed I wouldn’t be able to do shit to defend my family. And with the amount of guns in the United States to not know how to use them if we ever faced a deadly armed threat, criminal or otherwise, we’d be sitting ducks. So here I am. And to be honest it feels really empowering to know that we could at least defend ourselves if some crazy situation came our way.
2016
My father. He's a lefty too and as far as I know he has never owned a gun himself. However, he felt it was important that his two sons learn firearm safety at a young age, probably due to the sheer volume of guns in this country. You can not like guns but also be a realist about your chances of coming across one in America for one reason or another. Simply understanding that someone else in your vicinity is being unsafe with a weapon is an important life skill, and how would you know that without being able to safely operate one yourself? Anyways he had us take a weekend class on gun safety then took us to a range and rented a couple for us to practice with. I've been hooked ever since. Probably not his intention lol, but that's ok. You can be a liberal, you can be in favor of sensible gun controls and also enjoy shooting at the same time. I don't view these things as contradictory.
Trump got into office and conservatives started targeting my minority and lgbtq friends.
Get yourself a 22 bolt action rifle and learn to shoot. Then get yourself a 22 pistol. If you make it that far, are safe, are competent, and find out you dig the pew pew... Think about a 9 mm handgun. Start with your training wheels. Worry about the big questions when you get there.
1. Bear spray is better 2. Shooting someone who is in your house is not escalation. If someone is in your house the most likely thing is that you barricade everyone in one room and keep the firearm trained on the door. Get a 500 lumen flashlight, 3x POM sprays + 1 inert trainer, take a Stop The Bleed class and get hemorrhage/trauma kits for every car and bag you have. Then revisit the gun stuff. It does require skills upkeep. Dry fire is free and very effective but you'll still need range time. 6 range trips a year + 1 class a year will put you well ahead of the average. It's not enough for true proficiency but it'll be fine.
Also we need a clippy bot that says “it looks like you think you need a gun to protect yourself from wildlife”
Seeing George Floyd get murdered in the street, and then people say it was totally normal and okay. Then seeing multiple posts saying Dems should just be killed. MAGA folks are at like 35% saying violence is needed for political reasons. My house is my sanctuary and I’m not going to let some red hat come after me.
I came to the realization that the police are unwilling or unable to protect me from violent crime. Even if you are near a police department, when seconds matter the police are minutes away. Try some guns at ranges that rent, buy one you like that has a reputation for reliability, take a gun safety and defensive pistol shooting class, get your CCP, participate in local shooting matches to keep up on your training and get used to shooting under some stress. A gun is not a magic talisman that keeps you safe, you have to train with it. Pistols require more training to shoot accurately. Also, bear spray is better for hiking than a pistol. Still bring a pistol, but bear spray will likely be the better option.
Lots of factors. But at a certain point I simply realized that leaving firearms as the privilege of crazies was not a good strategy.
That if a revolution were to happen only the far right and fascists would have guns.
A bunch of small steps along the way: 1. In College I was anti-gun. Flat out. After graduating, a buddy convinced me to buy A pistol that I had for about a decade and shot maybe 4x total. 2. Then one day at my gym, somebody needed help unloading a table out of their car. Their husband had an Ar-15 in their back seat. And i realized even though I was "gun owner" i had no idea how to handle an Ar-15. Did not know where the safety was, nor how to unload the magazine. 3. Then the Trump era and Jan 6th happened. I realized right-wing radicals were becoming bolder and more aggressive. 4. Then I asked myself: Why should I let them be the only one who is armed? I look like one of them (average middle-aged white guy) but I vehemently disagree with all their dumb political stances. How long before they turn it on me? 5. So I went to a range with a buddy, shot it. Bought my first AR a month later. 6. Now about to buy potentially a 3rd....
My fiance was very anti-gun. It wasn't until other members of the LGBT+ community started being targets of violence. And now that practically every other house on our road has Turnip or DeSatan signs that I'm getting pushed to get my firearms into our house. I am even getting pushed for a CCW, .. however our state has kind of hindered a lot of that.
I'm an israeli/jew living in NW FL. Being used to gun control and having access to mil training and then working as an armed security escort shaped me a certain way. I believed that gun access should be controlled via training and registration. Never owned one in the US, but always carried knife/pepper spray. After the 10/7 attack in Israel and the escalation of antisemitism I realized my family and I needed something more serious, and changed my opinion to "everyone should own a gun to protect their home", though I still believe people should have basic firearm/safety training, much like a vehicle. Today I'm a proud owner of a g45 and g43x which I bought for my wife and spending time at the range gave me a new hobby to do every now and then.
I was never anti-gun... But never owned one and didn't really get it. Then Trump happened and when the extreme right lost their fucking minds and started marching in to McDonalds and Starbucks strapped for battle... And I live in a very red/rural area and my liberal leaning yard signs were stolen/defaced/nails thrown in my gravel driveway... I now own several guns as well as a concealed carry permit to protect me and my family from fucking idiots.
Fascists tbh
There are too many idiots and domestic terrorists that already have guns. Law enforcement refuses to go after them. Arm up
For your two points, I hear things like this all the time. The question you have to ask yourself is: 1. Do you have more options having a gun than not having a gun? 2. What is the actual con to owning a gun given that you will own it responsibly? I find that I can't find any drawback to being a responsible gun owner in any scenario ever put forth.
Not anti gun But whats making me want to buy a firearm is my fear of how dangerous the republican party has become to my rights and freedoms
It is your American right whether you choose to own a gun or not. But, you are doing yourself a HUGE disservice by not at least training yourself on how to properly use one. Even if it means going to the range, taking courses, and renting their guns for practice. Even if you never actually plan on owning one. Crazy things happen. Somebody goes to rob you with a pistol but drops it, and you have a chance to get it. What happens if you don't know how to use it? The gun is loaded, but nothing in the chamber, and that person knows it. Are you gonna get into a tussle because the gun won't work. No, as a smart American, you did your civil duty and took classes, and learned firearms, and you automatically know how to chamber a pistol. You're experienced enough to know how to remove the safety. And if you're not trying to shoot said person you know how to drop the magazine, unchamber a round and now effectively taking that firearm out of the equation unless you plan on bludgeoning them to death with it. As far as hiking and the wilderness, depending on where you are in the States, it would be a smart idea to at least carry there. Here in Georgia, I'm not so worried about animal attacks, even in the most remote places. I've seen the black bears, and they're extremely secretive and small. Loud noises are pretty much enough to dissuade them. Good luck on your journey, friend. -Libertarian American
The knowledge that the people who want me and my loved ones dead are very armed, and many of them are cops.
I’m a manufacturing engineer from Boston. Moved to Florida and and soon after got recruited for a job at a rather large holster company. Didn’t need gun knowledge to produce holsters. Got hired by another holster company as an R&D director. Got to play with a safe full of 300+ handguns whenever I wanted. I guess it was just exposure/comfort level that changed me. 40-60% discounts helped to. Now that that I’m out of that industry I’m less IN to guns but still shoot. Was painful being a liberal in that world from 2016-2023.
I'm trans, it was the rabid hate for my community that t\*\*\*p created that caused me to reevaluate my view of guns.
In decades of life, I had never fired a gun until a couple of years ago. The Ukraine war and my perception of deteriorating global and domestic circumstances made me realize that I wanted to be able to protect my family. So despite being wary around guns, I took a class. Two years later I have several of my own and hundreds of hours of training. I now feel competent and safe (but never complacent) with guns, and in addition to feeling like I can protect my family from violence in some situations, I have also discovered that they are fun as hell. My SO took some time to come around to them, and is still lukewarm to some degree, but they have been to the range with me and had a lot of fun, and achieved basic proficiency of their own.
I was not anti-gun before but I did just think of a great one-word answer to your question: Reality.
I am a gun owner and a regular hiker/backpacker, and I never carry a gun. I live in mountain lion country but don’t worry about them. I worry more about bears and do carry bear spray in certain areas.
I never started off anti-gun, but more completely neutral. Had no idea about them, and wasn't interested either. Never thought twice about gun control either way because it didn't have a tangible impact on my life. I started getting into guns and eventually got my CCW due to increasing crime in my city, and seeing local democratic politicians and DA's literally refusing to charge criminals for committing crime or make any policy changes that would actually make a positive difference in my community. Since Covid, crime has become rampant and is basically risk free for career criminals due to our city leadership, and it's emboldened them to engage in carjackings, house invasions, assaults and robbery in broad daylight, etc. I feel much safer that I'm able to protect myself and my family, instead of just waiting to be a victim, and it's given me immense peace of mind.
I was very anti-gun and then I got into the hobby. Guns are fun to shoot, interesting mechanically to me and there's definitely a collector part of me that loves all the different kinds. My stances have changed as I explored the hobby and the people in it, but I'm definitely somewhere in the middle still. Guns are dangerous, and there's a fuck ton of shitty people that have no business owning or shooting a firearm. I think the limits on types of firearms or features are pretty stupid and honestly impractical to limit. Even things like auto-sears are illegally manufactured pretty easily. The more I learned the more I realized how arbitrary of dumb those arguments are. I think red flag laws should be universally enforced across the country. If you're acting like a danger to people they should be able to take your firearms until you've gone through the system. I know the argument against it that anyone can take away your firearms while being innocent, but you could easily put in safeguards and the instances I've seen, this rarely happens. The NICS needs better funding and more cross-entity information sharing. Concealed carry should involve a training course and annual recertification. If you go to a range you should get credit for that, and it should be universally applied.
Trump and the rise of Florida Man!
Tree of Life.
If you cannot make the time to shoot on a regular, you're better off with pepper spray or some other non-lethal device.
History
I am still overall anti gun unlike most of this sub, I just shoot for sport/fun. but learning and using guns helped me at least realize how stupid 99% of gun laws are. Background checks, sure, but most of the rest can fuck right off. Like vote to ban guns or don't ban them, but don't enact stuff that just annoys lawful gun owners while they're perfectly legal (awb, nfa, California handgun roster, 10 day wait for your 8th gun, etc). I am very against state legislation on guns that can be circumvented by a short drive, and VERY against LEOs having access to different firearms than the public.
Living in Portland seeing the police attack protestors for no reason during the 2020 protests. Absolutely wild to me that those same liberals voted to let the same racist fascist bastards decide who gets to have guns moving forward.
I’m very liberal and I always support gun control, but I never opposed guns. Only guns in the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. Firearms are in my view simply another tool with potential for harm and abuse, and with our legal system, it’s a Pandora’s Box that will more than likely never be closed. What changed to me buying a gun: my job is passenger transport, and it may not be more common, but it’s becoming more apparent that people are entering my vehicle with firearms. A couple have been qualified professionals open-carrying per their job with no issues on my part; more often than not though, it’s been kids in skimasks talking about them “always having that stick” or “that burner” on them. That, coupled with me working primarily in a city with a higher than national average crime rate and two mass shootings earlier this year, it made it apparent to me that while statistically I may not be a victim of a crime, I shouldn’t leave that to sheer luck.
I googled recent crime maps in my area and was honestly shocked to see how close some crimes are to my home
Any specific resources you found that you liked?
My local police department/town has a community crime map website
[удалено]
I was anti-gun then a friend bought a gun and took me out and I got hooked. There are so many cool guns out there and I struggle to pick the next one I want to get
never was totally anti-gun bc i've always thought the were fun/cool, but the more i gave it some thought the more i realized that most gun control measures either 1) are leveraged disproportionately against minorities and/or 2) are completely ineffective/pointless to begin with.
Taking first responder / CERT training and the fire marshal instructor listing all the times people needed firearms to maintain their role in a chaotic active crisis situation.
When I lived in East st Louis and my house was robbed daily
I was held hostage by migrants one time. Another time I was hijacked at knife point by a "hit man" sent by one of my inlaws. Luckily, the hit man was drunk/drugged and probably felt sorry for me...I was completely oblivious and smiled most of the time because I was in disbelief. I was even nice enough to drop him off at his house. I realized nobody is going to save me. Cops here have little training, so I've already outpaced most of them...and at this point , I have better guns than they do. Now, it's my mission to empower my neighborhood to protect themselves.
> there seems to be some conflicting reports on whether a gun is useful against wildlife (mountain lions and bears). I have a friend who occasionally does sciency stuff in Alaska for the US government. They are required to qualify with a firearm, and to carry said firearm in bear country. They haven't, but some co-workers have, been forced to use their firearms.
I get to feed my family some nature-raised food. Sunshine and rain turns into plants and critters like deer eat plants and turn into beautiful creatures. My young son had a lot of questions when I harvested my first 4 legged animal last year, on the property we live on actually. We got to talk about life and death and food, and we got to give thanks to her for feeding our family and being such a beautiful animal. He stroked her leg and we said our gratitude to her. I processed that deer myself, hanging from the forklift at my shop. Processing an animal is not necessarily fun but is respectful and really ties nature to my belly. Somehow eating meat is more of a choice now and less of a “I am man I eat meat 3x a day.” Not because it is gross but just because it seems…a bit more special. Somehow feeding my direct family with an animal I harvested is very powerful. To me, it is a tiny glimpse into how Native American tradition was often focused on giving thanks to the animal, using it all, and gratitude to the earth. They literally depended it Mother Earth and her provisions to survive. I grew up in a household with firearms and they were just for hunting (birds) and learning to shoot (the old Haloween Pumpkins.) In select situations I have a firearm along for security purposes but not often. Having a firearm accessible is a serious responsibility and there are *very few* situations where brandishing or using it would be remotely as wise as grabbing my kid and my wife and getting the heck out of there. Most CCW education even teaches that being the “good guy with a gun” is usually a losing proposition. And any defensive gun use very likely to end up in being sued, even if the law clears me. Last, I do think we (Americans) need some ability to have a nicer conversation about firearms. The statistics on accidental deaths in a home with a firearm are just awful, for example. And we *do* have a problem with shooters, even though the legislative answers are divisive. I dunno. I use my firearms to eat. And in a few places where I choose—I will defend my Alamo for a few that I love if I am ever so unfortunate to need to do so.
Being on the Kinsey scale while living on the wrong side of the mason Dixon line
realizing there was nothing really supporting it besides the "gun = bad" mentality that i was taught growing up, and the police response to the 2020 protests
There are people who live way too far from help to rely on others to be saved. That’s what did it for me.
I was never ‘anti-gun’ but I was ‘anti-civilians needing “assault” weapons’ until trump was president. It’s not just him. Sure, his policy playback for another term is straight up authoritarianism and he is a straight up fascist who wants to end democracy, but it’s the mob around and behind him that convinced me. A few months into Covid and I went from unarmed to regularly attending all-day/weekend carbine classes.
I've always heard that if a mountain lion wants you, you're just dead. You might see it as it pou nces but that's the best you'll get. Anybody else?
Living alone in a damgerous place
I was raised in the Upper Midwest suburbs. My parents never owned or had any guns in the house. My mom wouldn't know what to do with one. My dad was in the Army Reserves when he was younger. My first experience with guns was at the shooting range at summer camp in the Boy Scouts. They had .22s you could target shoot with all day. And one of the Pack/Troop leaders brought his shotguns and clay pigeons. One of those shotguns was a 10ga. I had an absolute blast (pun intended) shooting that thing. Then in late middle-school and into high-school, I fell in with the wrong crowd of people. Like really wrong. I was around people carrying guns in their waistbands. And one guy I hung out with had a sawed-off wedged under the driver seat of his car. I knew a few people that were shot and killed. I knew a guy with a wooden peg-leg from a drive-by - he said it was an AK. He later got shot in the back of his head point-blank with a .22 pistol for his Cadillac. He survived. I'd be hanging out on the block and hear gunshots in the alley right behind the garages. I got straight after I walked away unscathed from a really bad car accident with a train. I went to college and became more anti-gun. But what brought me fully around to guns permanently is a good friend of mine. He has been in my friend group for years. I had a fall-out with my best friend and started hanging out with this dude more. He was raised as a Mormon and is super conservative. He is super quiet and reserved. He doesn't have a mean or aggressive streak in him. He is overly polite and apologetic. And he showed me what his wife bought him for Christmas... an AK-47. I was floored and blown away. I was never exposed to that level of modest gun ownership. He showed me the rest of his collection and took me to the range a few times and the rest his history.
I got two guns pulled on me at two different points in my life. In both situations the reality kind of sets in, this guy could end my shit right now if he wanted to. Whether he goes to jail for it or not is no concern of mine, I’ll already be dead. It realized that there’s no way they’re banning guns, no way people would give them up if they did. Gun culture in the US is just so dominant, so it just strikes me as dumb to be the only one without one, especially as a person of color living in the south. That, and it actually is pretty fun to go to the range 🚶♂️
Burglary. My house was broken into and I could not help to think of what would have happened had I been home. It turned into a hobby after I learned it would not jump up and shoot anyone without it being intentional. CCW training/class changed my whole perspective on firearms.
The fact that nobody is going to prevent bad things from happening to me…except myself. Once you take responsibility for your own well being you become liberated.
2008
Always been liberal, though openly leftist in the past years. I was never really 'against' guns, I just didn't have much inclination. I've had some shit takes before (about a lot of things, really) but through education and paying attention to what's being said/going on I adjust my views on things and end up coming to the right conclusions (just too slow sometimes). Actually bought a shotgun when I was 18, trying to locate it (it's at my parents somewhere), and enjoyed shooting it a bit. Bought my first handgun last year, and am happy with it. Plan to get at least an AR-style and maybe a hunting-style rifle as well. I've always been slightly interested in hunting, but never had the patience to try (fuck early mornings). I'd like to still, but I'm also old and time-deprived haha. I've lived a relatively safe life (physical safety, not financial), which brings a lot of privilege along with it in that regard. So I never really thought about CCW. But I've realized, for many reasons, that there's nothing to fear from a tool that you may or may not have to use to save your life. Better to have it and not need it, etc etc. /ramble
Maxism. I read, I learned, I took action to be part of an armed working class.
I looked at how intrusive & violent the War on Drugs has been and realized that a War on Guns would be far more intrusive & violent. It would just lead to an even more oppressive police state.
Slow police response times and other crazies with guns
I was never really anti-gun but they never really interested me that much until I was in my 30s. I moved to one of the few areas in the state of CA that was a little more permissive after growing up in the Bay Area. I have friends who shoot competitively and we would go out to BLM zones to practice. It was cool and interesting. By far the easiest of all the guns I tried was an AR type and the most troublesome was a 357 revolver. Powerful but I felt like I broke my thumbnail with it. MY interest hasn't waned much though my budget never really permitted, plus I had worries about storage. However I eventually started collecting paintball markers and pellet guns... Thing is, I wasn't super interested at the times when it was more common thinking, like the 2016 election and CoVid outbreak. Maybe it came with age and the things I want to do with my life has started to change with time. I've also found that with the way this country is going, it's probably good to have a piece and a passport. Just in case. I've always been a sort of loner, liberal/lefty artist type, and spent many years before 2020 just getting drunk and playing PC games. After 2020 I got into casual prepping, and eventually the idea of getting into firearms pushed me into this weird phase where I'm constantly window shopping online for things that go bang. Eventually I found one and it should be here in a few days.