My fiancee's sister thinks I should be a criminal.

[Mxyzptlk]

During a rather heated debate about guns here in my living room over teh weekend, I brought out my AR (which has only seen 20 rounds of .223, and is set up for .22 target shooting) and said "There are people in the country who think I should be in jail for even trying to own one of these."

Her response? "You should. Only the military should have guns like that."

I asked her why, without giving her any more insight on it, and she told me "Because it's obviously for killing people."

Then I explained its setup, showed her the .22 and .223 ammo side by side, explained that this is a target shooting gun, not a BABY KILLAH, and asked her if that changed her opinion any.

Nope. It still looks like a military weapon, it should be banned.

(Then I showed her my riced out 10/22, which is also all black, big scope, etc. Same question of "Should civilians own this?" "No, it looks dangerous." Same with every other 'black' gun I own.)

It makes me sad that this girl who grew up with parents who both own guns, hunt, etc., a sister marrying a huge gun nut, a litlte sister who bow hunts, from an area huge on hunting with half the student body out of class on opening day for every season has such a negative outlook on anything that goes bang.

What happens in people's minds to cause them to feel this way? She wasn't like this before she went off to college in Boulder, CO., as a linguistics major planning on getting into some government job (right before she came home for spring break she changed her major to pre-med, to match the guys she usually sleeps around with) and now all of a sudden if you're not a vegan PETA member you're scum in her eyes.

I want my old friend back


Sorry, I just had to talk a bit. I "grew up" with this girl (I've known her since 9th grade; she introduced me to her sister, my future wife) and not once did we ever even argue in the past until she went to college. it's frustrating.

[sjl127]

You'd feel the same way if someone tried you to get into anal sex.

[billamj]

UC Boulder? Seems to me that this is the school that has the professor who called the folks inside the world trade center on 9/11, the victims of the attacks, "little Eichmans" and said that they deserved to die. If that doesn't explain the mindset at that school to you I don't know what will.

[normanvin]

Some people can not think with their own mind. they go along with the crowd thats fashionable at the moment. she went to school got new friends that have changed her mind set.

[SteveXD]

I've found that you can't argue with people like that. They won't listen to facts... only opinions.

[arrrrgh15]

During a rather heated debate about guns here in my living room over teh weekend, I brought out my AR (which has only seen 20 rounds of .223, and is set up for .22 target shooting) and said "There are people in the country who think I should be in jail for even trying to own one of these."

What happens in people's minds to cause them to feel this way? She wasn't like this before she went off to college in Boulder, CO., as a linguistics major planning on getting into some government job (right before she came home for spring break she changed her major to pre-med, to match the guys she usually sleeps around with) and now all of a sudden if you're not a vegan PETA member you're scum in her eyes.

I want my old friend back

You answered your own question.

It's almost as if College = Liberal.

Is it because there aren't any conservative or pro-gun, pro-green-house-gasses, pro-war-in-iraq people at colleges? No. They're there, but I think for the most part they keep their mouths shut and go on with life. No need to climb to the top of the dorm room and shout it out or sit barefoot in a circle on the lawn banging on bongo drums.

But for some reason, hippies and activists come crawling out of the woodwork at colleges like zombies. Rather than eating your brain, they just wanna mush it up with a bunch of "feel-good" rhetoric to justify their existance and mommy and daddies expediture of college fund money.

In the immortal words of Eric Cartman "Hippies, they say they want to save the planet but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad."

PS. Arrrrgh15 does not like hippies

[sjl127]

Ask her if she were about to be raped, would she then like to have the gun?

[arrrrgh15]

Ask her if she were about to be raped, would she then like to have the gun?

That won't work. She'll just come back with, "The police will come save me! People don't need guns because the police are here to protect us."......(like the kids at virgina tech ).

Worry that she won't infect her sister with this same garbage. Take your fiancee shooting....often.

[LittleRedToyota]

I asked her why, without giving her any more insight on it, and she told me "Because it's obviously for killing people."

my answer would have been along the lines of:

yep, it's for killing people...people who would break into your house and rape you...people would come in the middle of the night and haul you away to a secret jail because of your political views...people who would torture and execute you because of the color of your skin...people who would execute you because of your religion or lack thereof...people who would sodomize others because of their sexual orientation...people who rape little children in front of their parents--and then kill the parents in front of the children...

yep, it's for killing people alright. and, thankfully, it is a quite effective tool for killing people.

too bad the african villagers in darfur don't have such effective people killing tools, isn't it?

too bad german gun control laws instituted shortly before the rise of hitler disarmed all the jews in germany leaving them without any effective people killing tools, wasn't it?

too bad people in england and australia aren't allowed to keep and bear effective people killing tools, isn't it? if they were, maybe their violent crime rates wouldn't be so much higher than ours.

[jsb889]

Sorry to hear about that. I have some good friends that I don't really get along with anymore either, partly due to guns as well.

I find most people aren't very receptive to other's opinions...unless they follow their own. Her friends in college probably think guns should be banned...so she does too. No amount of reason seems to work...they believe what they feel, wrong or not.