I've never had a thread locked before that last one, so lets keep this one civil.  If you want to flame, take it else where.

I brought this thread back to life, because I think is is a very good one, and a very important issue.

For those of you who have loved ones who didn't like to shoot, or are slightly anti-gun, how did you change their attitudes?

I made her move to the middle of New Mexico with me for six months.  I let her see what it's like to drive an hour to a large city and to have no police stations along the way.  I let her see snakes and hear coyotes in the night.  Then I took her shooting.  ;)

Before I married her, my wife had negative views toward firearms.  Initially, she wouldn't handle guns and refused to go to the range with me. When we were dating, I used to bring her back to my house for a home cooked meal and a good 'ol gun cleaning session.  We'd rent a movie and I'd break out a few guns and clean them in front of her.

Eventually she became intrigued by the guns and asked to touch some of 'em.  (she loved my colt python for some weird reason)

Finally I got her out to the range with the help of one of my best friends, DCAR, who is a LEO. (she felt "safer" in the presence of a cop for some reason -- I think I had her quite scared...)   [:D]


We only went shooting a few times before we got married.  The truth of the matter is that I love her to death and she is my best friend, but I would have never married her if she wouldn't let me keep my guns or wouldn't take up the sport herself.

We were busy for the following year building a new house and didn't get to the range much...  Finally , we started going and she really began to enjoy shooting !  Unfortunately, right after that, I injured myself and underwent spine surgery which kept me fairly laid up until very recently.

We've been trying to get over to the local range every few days for a short bit of practice...  This past week we invited my rabidly anti-gun and extremely liberal sister-in-law.  (an artsy fartsy x-generation type)

After getting over the initial "shock" of touching a firearm, she did extremely well and actually seemed to be enjoying herself !
(this is the future wife of Imbroglio if I can ever get them together)  [;)]

Well...  after we were done, we went out to the front of the range and took a look at some guns.  I told her that my wife and I would like to give her the gift of her first gun and to pick something out.  She almost dropped over at the sight of the pricing.  She somehow thought that the gun she was shooting with, my wife's  Glock 19, would be "around 50 bucks or so".  

Well, to cut a long story short, she wanted to take it home with her.  I spent the next hour explaining the PRNJ gun laws to her and she was s little disturbed that she would have to wait 6-9 months for her paperwork (FID card and pistol purchase permit) to be completed.

Somehow she was under the assumption that one could simply walk into a hardware store and walk out with fully automatic weapons and tanks, etc...   (she spent years listening to leftist wackos and the liberal media)

She is coming with us again this Saturday and wants to come over today and pillage my gun safes to find interesting things to shoot !

I have converted TWO gals !!!  

(AND..  my mother and sister want to go next -- at this rate, I'll be broke in a short amount of time)  
[BD]

Just take it nice and slow.  Gals seem to be naturally adept at shooting and like the power of "equalization" that it gives them.

(i'll sneak my digital camera into the range on Saturday to get a shot of my sister-in-law for Imbroglio to review)

My wife had several friends that were LEOs before wwe meet. None thought women should shoot. I took her out and she would not give me back my 1911. I had to buy her a HiPower.
I have taken several women out to shot, they all enjoyed it but at the last count if there was no guy in their lives shooting, they stopped.

When I got married, my wife knew that I would have firearms in our home. She states that she doesn't like them, but she did shoot a little in the military. I'll be looking for other's ideas on how they converted someone. My daughter though has always been taught that "guns are NOT bad". Contrary to some of the Disney, et.al. movies that come out for children. I like to show her some of the old films I used to watch that have true and reasonable displays of firearms in them. I am starting her out on airguns shooting at paper targets. I think she'll be a shooter. I also got the Eddie Eagle stuff and she's seen it, and I've taken it to her school and persuaded the teachers to show it to their kids. We should all think of the next generations too. I wish Hollywood could swing back towards the old style films (40's,50's,60's) that depicted firearms in a more acceptable way. I'm personally sick and tired of the blast'm movies that are out now.

My wife was not anti gun just wasn't ready for my collection.  Her folks have a few guns but take them out hunting once a year.  She always resisted shooting with me, even though she had hunted in high school.  I started taking my Daisy 880 with us to the cabin.  She finally asked to shoot it; it has a scope and is sighted in for 25yds.  Now we have competitions and she actually wins most of the time.  But, she still wouldn't even touch a .22.  I bought a cute little nickle plated .32SWL Hopkins and Allen  Safety Police at an auction, I later regretted it and said I was going to sell it.  She stated that it was cut(never before had she shown any interest in any gun I had), so I said ok it's yours.  I got her to fire it, once.  It kicked a little too much for her, but she decided to try my Single Six .22lr.  Now she shoots it when we go out for a family shoot.  It's going slowly.
My advice is to start with a BB gun.

Just as a side not of what not to do.  A friend is trying to get his son interested in hunting.  The son drew a antelope permit in a hard to draw area.  My friend got so excited(he had never shot an antelope) he kept telling his son this was a chance of a lifetime.  He took his son out to shoot(had never fired a big game rifle), put in a full house 30-06 load and watched his son give himself a scope eye.  I had offered to let him use one of my .270's but He said "no".  The son was done shooting.  When they finally went out to hunt, they found a large buck, after passing up several respectable bucks.  The son was so nervous about missing the buck and disappointing his dad, as well as getting another scope eye, he said he didn't want to shoot because he would miss.  My "friend" shot the antelope, then told everyone his son shot it, making his son feel even worse I'll bet.   I don't have any respect for him anymore.  I know I should have turned him in when he told me the story, but his wife baby sits my kids.   Not a good spot to be in.
guns762

Good post RBAD, that is EXACTLY how I feel.  Obviously you understand the predicament I am in.

I have been working on this slowly.  At first you would say "I don't want guns in my house when we are married and have kids."  I was totally honest and told her that this would be unexceptable.  I went on to explain the safety measures that I (and any gun owner must) undergo to ensure that my firearms do not fall into the wrong hands.  After explaining safes and safe storage techniques, her nervousness was eased a bit.

The harder part minght be the 'evil' black guns and C3 stuff.  As Guns762 mentioned, she doesn't understand about the 'collection'.  Her father hunted, so having a shotgun or deer rifle around the house is not unusual, but having ARs and HKs around is.  But I believe that once I take her shooting with something small, if she doesn't hate it, I can slowly move up.  Then she may catch the bug.



ROTLMAO!!!  I tried a little match making myself (I also taught my sister how to shoot), but when Imbrog|io found out my sister was a lawyer, he got cold feet.  Damn, he was going to trade me a box of .38s and a brick of .22lr for a date!

Ya know the funny thing is, even though my father in law only pulls out one of his guns to hunt, he has been sucked in to my collecting world.  My first love has always been WWI and WWII guns and this has caught on to him as well as my dad.  Both are now collecting these same rifles, because of me always showing them one of my new found trophies.  My wife even buys them for me for Christmas and birthday presents.  She has decided that kind of collection is neat because of the History.  Now to try to talk to her about "Current Events" collections.
guns762

It is interesting to see how people are different.  ARlady learned on a 6"  GP-100 shooting .38 specials.  Might has well been a .22.  But she was shooting full house magnum rounds the first day.  The only gun she doesn't like to shoot now is my 8mm Mauser.  As soon as we can find a nice Swedish Masuer in 6.5X55 it's hers.

I think she was mentally into it though, and knew she wanted to do it.

My mom, who is a VERY petite woman learned on a 9mm.  The first shot, was shocking, but after a couple of rounds, "give me another" (mag) became about all she would say.  Unfortunately my mom has not stayed with it very much, she finds it hard to spend the money on ammo.  Even though they have about 1K rounds of 9mm I reloaded for them.

My dad is very into it though, I think it the John Wayne factor, but he like large caliber wheel guns.  

My brother took to it like a duck to water, in fact, I have to limit the amount of ammo I give him at a time so he doesn't just burn it all up.  He is currently under seige in San Franscisco, so when he gets back to America and can touch a gun again, it rains brass for as long as their are cartriges within his reach.  In fact the last time I took him shooting, he whipped through a 30 round AK mag as fast as he could, looked at me, and said"Okay, I feel better now!"

hell i was just casuly talking to a friend of mine and somehow we got to talking about guns.
and he goes im always wanted to go shooting so i say lets go someday. as soon as he gets back from his trip im taking him to the range

Here ya go:  


Wife w/ AR15 in our den:

[img]mcuzi.com/rbad/006.jpg[/img]


Wife at range:

[img]mcuzi.com/rbad/003.jpg[/img]


Liberal (in the process of conversion by us) Sister-in-Law:

[img]mcuzi.com/rbad/001.jpg[/img]


[img]mcuzi.com/rbad/002.jpg[/img]


[img]mcuzi.com/rbad/004.jpg[/img]

How the heck do ya get a woman to begin with?

Hmmmm...

[img]http://mcuzi.com/rbad/006.jpg[/img]

VS.

[img]http://www.auburn.edu/~littlcb/gunpose.jpg[/img]

I dost declare, RBAD, that thy setup looks quite similar to mine.  COPYCAT!!! [:D]

[brown]Evil Jewbroni~[/brown]

My GF bought me a glock 22 and mossberg 590 for my b-day/xmas,but never had the time to go shooting w/me.On the 4th I suggested that we take a quick run up to the local range,we took along the glock and an ak.I explained the basic safety and handling of the weapons and one of the RO's helped out as well.We started w/the glock and then we moved up to the ak,i even took some pictures of her holding the weapons,she proudly showed them off later in the day as we bar and b.b.q. hopped across town.[heavy]

My wife's family was very active in the shooting sports. Mostly bullseye pistol. Heavy military history (grandfather was a marine colnel etc.etc.) Guns werent an issue.

Pisses me off though. I bring her to my gun club's yearly BBQ. She dont shoot all year, and any time she goes to shoot at the BBQ it's a bullseye, or on the silhouette, a head shot!!

She still amazes me after 14+ years!

That's a good looking woman. Hope you could change her views. You said an arts student? Got your work cut out for you.
Eric

Hmmm..  maybe a 90% match??   I don't have a bipod installed on that one.  It's a cheesy Sure-Fire 6p in a clamp-on mount.  (all of the rest of mine have the 500b lights)

Good eye though!

How do you broach the subject when your wife is a member of MMM ?

my first wife and I were having a conversation, and I asked if she would like to learn how to shoot especially since we had firearms in the home. She replied, "I can take care of myself." Oh, ok, no big deal.
"Come here, let me show you something," I said.
She followed me into the backyard where I swept her feet out from under her, and gently guided her to the ground. At that point, I took both of her wrists in one hand and proceeded to tickle her with the other.
"Still think you can take care of yourself?"
It turned into one of our very first wedded arguements (something about making her eat dirt), but she started taking lessons from a Special Forces aquaintance of mine the very next week. Been divorced for a while, but she still carries the little snub-Smith.Luckily, wife #2 took to shooting without the "lesson."