I took a basic pistol defense class yesterday. I grew up in NY and it has taken me a long while to get over my fear of guns after 24 years being completely propagandized that somehow guns just randomly kill people all the time.
Even though I was completely rationally as pro second amendment as someone could be and as far from a leftist tool as you could be--it is very hard to reduce this irrational fear that is instilled in you from years of brainwashing.
My point, though, is the instructor and I were talking yesterday and I was kind of explaining to her that getting comfortable around guns has been a long road for me.
She told me she has women come in from the Northeast and someone they know had been robbed or maybe their house was robbed so they have decided to arm themselves.
She said they come in with multiple locks on the gun case, locks on the ammo case...petrified. She said often times she just has to start the class by making them sit and hold the gun while she talks to try and just get them beyond the hysterical level of fear they are at.
If someone has that much fear of a gun, I sure wouldn’t want to put a loaded one in their hands until they were over it.
I grew up in California and never shot a gun until 5 years ago when my son took me out to New River to shoot when I turned 55. I was terrified of handguns until then. Since then, we’ve acquired 2 handguns, a shotgun, and a rifle, which we unfortunately lost in a “tragic boating accident” recently. My point is....with education and exposure, this irrational fear can be overcome.
I forgot to mention that I’m a woman....aka Mrs. Prince of Space. My husband was pretty much a gun neophyte as well though, since he was a lifelong Californian too. We’d never leave Arizona to move back to California, however, mainly because of their draconian gun laws.