Firearms
are loud and obvious, but they offer some important lessons to those
willing to learn. Some are gun lessons and some are life lessons. I
have used firearms one way or another for most of my life and learned
a few of those lessons. In this article I want to convey them to
you.
Changing People's Minds
Though
I had started using firearms at a young age, I was a strong proponent
of gun control through adolescence. It wasn't really a contradiction
– I believed in restrictions, not banning – but it brought me
into contact with people of a different perspective. People talked
and threw numbers, statistics, and scenarios at me, but I didn't
budge.
And
really, who does?
The
more I see of people the more I come to the conclusion that
explanations are assembled to support beliefs already held. It was
true in my case. We feel the need to pretend to be rational but will
only follow the reasoning so far as it appears to hew to the correct
conclusion. Facts and thinking are sincerely consulted only in those
cases where a belief has not already received emotional investment.
That's
not to say that argumentation has no value, but it is not valuable
for everything. Facts and thinking are valuable for shoring up the
faithful and swaying the genuinely undecided but have little or no
utility for convincing those who believe otherwise. That's just how
we are.
I
came around on the topic of gun control for three main reasons;
long-term relationships with people I respected, actual experience,
and the responsibility of adulthood.
Here
is the first lesson: long relationships with people who have earned
trust are a strong way of changing minds. Facts make a difference,
especially to those whose self-worth requires them to make a
good-faith effort to grapple with them, but there is no substitute
for trust and accountability with people who are safe to be
vulnerable with.
If
you want to change people's minds, build relationships. Have a ready
defense for your beliefs in order to raise questions and retain
respect, but the real changes happen over time. You may not even be
there to reap the harvest. That's all right.
Talk and Action
People
like to talk and talk, boasting about what they would do in
such-and-such a situation, how they would react under this or that
circumstance. You know what I'm saying; we all do it.
I
could for example brag about how I would handle an errant alligator.
I could give exact details and provide the necessary references,
providing a stunning representation of my own competence in a safely
theoretical scenario. My region is free of alligators so I can
expect to safely impress my friends (or at least myself) at a very
low price.
If
I lived in the Everglades the mental calculus would be different.
Saying what I will do with the very real alligator in the front room
carries more weight. I would be evaluated based on my actual, not
theoretical, performance.
So
it was for me when I brought home my first gun. I had handled
others' firearms for years by that point, but bringing home my own
gun, for which I was entirely and exclusively responsible, was
another matter.
I
laid the gun on my bed and thought about it. I had wanted the gun
and still did, but had not appreciated the full weight and
responsibility of owning it. Whatever the gun did, I did. No-one
was responsible for it but me. I had never before experienced that
in life.
Here
are the second and third lessons: the only part of you that counts,
that you can know to be true, is what you do; whatever you believe
about yourself that hasn't been tested is just a theory. Childhood
exists in the embrace of many unguessed mercies provided by those who
take on responsibilities you can't handle. Adulthood requires
identifying and replacing those buttresses you hadn't known existed.
Holding
an explicit instrument of death in your hand provides the opportunity
to learn what you really believe. I lost a share of bravado and
gained a bit of wisdom at this time.
To
be concluded in part 2.
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