Front Sight, Press

It was a search term that brought someone to my blog on the page, “How to teach your girlfriend to hate guns.” It got me thinking. This is a problem that many of us face: our significant other didn’t grow up with guns and is either hostile or afraid of them. How do you change their minds? Everyone is different, and what works for me may not work for you, but I’ll do the best that I can.

I grew up deep, deep in the gun culture. The women I have dated and the one I married did not. I had to do some conversion. I succeeded with three women including my wife, and what follows are thoughts distilled from my own experience.

Go Slow

If you bring up guns and she doesn’t react well, don’t get into a fight about it and try to force her to accept your point of view. I will confess to a bit of totalitarianism on this score – “Love me, love my guns,” but it is not a persuasive tactic, and may actually harden her opposition to firearms. Acknowledge the anxieties and listen to them, and let it be for a while. Our ideas on various issues do in fact evolve over time. When we were first married, my wife scarcely knew from which end of a gun the bullet emerged, and she was afraid of them. Now she has her own and is pretty good with them.

Establish Confidence

When traveling in unknown territory, it is comforting to have a guide who knows the way. You don’t have to be macho man gun god, and in fact, that will backfire, but if you are familiar, confident and safe with your guns, you will communicate that non-verbally to those around you. Much of what we’re dealing with here is fear of the unknown. Part of establishing confidence is in being calm, considerate and thoughtful in your dealings with your significant other. If you are emotionally volatile, angry, confrontational, etc, they definitely will not want to see you with a gun in your hand. Use some common sense. Personal trust is crucial in this process.

Don’t Use Scare Tactics

Avoid the “If you don’t learn to use this gun, someone is going to break in and rape you.” Just don’t go there. Women have been coping with male sexual aggression since time immemorial and there is nothing you can tell her about it that she doesn’t already know. I really don’t understand how they cope with it or what they do with it in their own minds. I’m not a woman and I really can’t know that. What I do know is that if she has not armed herself against that possibility before now, she has developed other ways of dealing with that threat, and she will not embrace guns just because you raise the specter of a sexual assault. It isn’t a productive argument. Self-defense is implicit with firearms; you don’t need to spell that out. She knows that already.

The Appeal to Safety

This is a rational appeal and it has been important to two of the people I have initiated. Guns are part of our world. Ignoring them will not make them go away. Everyone is safer when they are familiar with the operation of guns and safe gun handling techniques. This is more about avoiding accidents than self defense, but you cannot defend yourself with a gun if you don’t know how to handle it. Knowing how to use a gun for hunting or self defense is a vital survival skill in extreme situations such a Hurricane Katrina. My wife made the decision when our kids were young, that if there were going to be guns around, she and the boys should know how to safely handle guns in case they encountered them either in our home or somewhere else.

Emphasize the Fun

Shooting is fun. It’s exciting. It’s a rush. It is something you can do together that can be very enjoyable and educational. Do spell out that this is an important part of your life that you want to share with her.

The Lure of the Taboo

In our contemporary mass-media poisoned society, guns are culturally taboo. Instead of being apologetic, use that to your advantage. There are a lot of folks who have just enough of a subversive streak that challenging a taboo is a thrill. Initially, they may give you the culturally conditioned responses, “Guns are dangerous; guns are bad,” but that may just be what they have been taught to say, and there may also be that fascination with the forbidden lurking just under the surface of their facade. I initiated one woman who had grown up in Chicago and she had been told all of her life that guns were forbidden and evil. Once she got to Kentucky, she was intrigued just to find out what it was all about.

Make it Fun

This brings us back to “How to teach your girlfriend to hate guns.” Don’t do what the chuckle-head in the video did. Instead, invite her to go shooting with you. Leave the video camera and your ego at home. If possible, select a range where there aren’t hundreds of other shooters all setting off their personal hand cannons at the same time. That can be terrifying to a newbie. Actually, it scares me just a bit. A private range with no one else around is ideal. If that is not available, go to a public range during working hours so that it will not be at all crowded. Use firearms that are appropriate to the shooter’s level of skill and familiarity. .22’s are excellent starter guns, both pistols and rifles. They are “real guns,” make noise, send a real bullet downrange, but they are not punishing to fire. My .22’s remain among my favorites for target shooting and “plinking.” The new shooter will intuitively realize that the .22 is not what this is really about, and will in time want to try larger caliber guns. Move them up to moderately powered centerfire guns. In pistols, full-sized revolvers in .38 Special and autos in 9mm are excellent. Avoid compact carry guns, such as lightweight snubbies and pocket 9mm’s, because their recoil and muzzle flip can be unpleasant. In rifles, the .223 and .243 are excellent for new shooters. I wouldn’t put a 30-06 in the hands of someone who had never fired a rifle before. For shotguns, I really like the 20 gauge. Take time to show the new shooter how the gun operates. Teach them how to load and unload it. Show them the safeties and how to use them. Don’t just load a gun, hand it to them and tell them to fire it. They need to know what they are doing. If they miss the target, don’t laugh and ridicule, and don’t use the occasion as a venue to display your superior marksmanship. This is about them, not you. In other words, make the experience safe, fun and affirming for the new shooter.

If All Else Fails… Agree to Disagree

If after your best efforts, the significant other still says that she doesn’t like guns, let it rest. If you try to force her to accept your point of view, it just won’t work. It will become a fight thing and you don’t want that. Time and life experiences may help her move to a different point of view. If you remain calm and confident of your position, you may win her over yet.