I suppose this feeling could simply be a natural part of being a knuckle-dragging, narrow-minded Neanderthal of a gun-owning ignoramus. However, as a scientist with experience as an educator, I think there is more to it, and I would like to pass along my observations for your consideration.

But why bother with such theoretical analysis? Well, it IS philosophically comforting to confirm our suspicions. Much more importantly, the ugly fact is that our gun rights will ultimately be determined by the attitudes of the populace. If enough people become firmly anti-gun, then nothing we can do will preserve our rights and we will lose them. Period.

As such, it is extremely important for us to understand this “difference in wavelength” because it can make us better teachers. If we can understand EXACTLY how people get fooled by anti-gun propaganda - and why our words often seem to fall on deaf ears - we stand a better chance of un-fooling them.

To see what is behind this difference in wavelength, we must examine a few basics of the thought process itself. So please bear with me - the punch-line is worth the effort.

Now, some aspects of the human experience are objective in nature and others are subjective. Objective beliefs are associated with matters of fact and can be proven true or false. Subjective beliefs involve matters of opinion and words like “true” and “false” really do not even strictly apply.

People continually make unconscious distinctions between the objective and subjective. This is what allows a person to tell the difference between a statement like “I think gasoline is flammable” and one like “I think pepperoni pizza tastes good”.

Because these distinctions are usually unconscious, most people never bother to think them through. This can result in things getting “mislabeled” mentally, and the consequences can be devastating. Without a speck of conscious thought, beliefs based purely on subjective opinion can be accepted as objective fact and the best objective factual argument can get written off as nothing more than subjective opinion.

Does that sound familiar? It sounds to me like exactly what happens when people get fooled by anti-gun propaganda!

As one example of the danger posed by this confusion, consider the poor soul who somehow gets the subjective opinion that “guns are bad” filed in the “objective fact” part of his brain. Obviously, a person is free to believe “guns are bad” in the same way that I am free to believe that artichokes fried in cod liver oil makes a good meal. The difference is that I understand my belief to be a subjective opinion and I do not try to impose it on others.

But suppose that I did regard my belief as objective fact and demanded that you agree with it. How in the heck do you convince me otherwise? You really cannot “disprove” my belief because it is not a point of fact in the first place! It can be darn hard to dislodge something that should never have been filed as a fact to start with.

This sort of mental error is very subtle, but both its danger and its importance to the gun issue cannot be understated. And to see what this has to do with us being on a different wavelength, try a two-part experiment:

1. With this concept of the objective and subjective firmly in mind, observe the non-gunners’ world for a while. Listen to your friends and neighbors, watch the TV, listen to the radio, and read the newspapers. Once you start looking, you will see endless situations where people make “errors and omissions” in distinguishing the objective from the subjective.

2. Now look through your “Guns” and “American Handgunner” magazines while keeping an eye out for these same distinctions. You will find, in contrast, that the pages are literally dripping with them!

Regardless of the specific topic at hand, gun people take great pains to say what so many people miss or even try to hide: “here are the facts (objective) and here is my opinion (subjective), PLEASE make sure you understand which is which”.

The simple fact is that guns illustrate, teach and demand proper intellectual distinctions in a way that few other things do. Learning about guns develops profound and universally applicable skills of reasoning that influence our entire thought process. In other words, guns tune our “wavelength” in a way that goes far beyond the guns themselves.

In contrast – and this is the really striking thing to realize – a lot of folks have nothing in the realm of their experience that provides for this sort of mental workout. In fact, many live in an intellectual environment that serves to erode, rather than encourage, this kind of reasoning.

So how do we apply these ideas to the practical matter of better reaching non-gunners?

Here is one simple suggestion: When you talk to non-gunners, drag this whole objective/subjective idea out into light of day and make them think about it consciously.

The thing to recognize is that people understand this concept, they just don’t think about it. In practical everyday matters - like understanding the difference between a checkbook balance and a favorite color – they generally get it right. It is when things get controversial, unfamiliar, or abstract that the lack of conscious reflection can lead to errors.

And for non-gunners, guns are controversial, unfamiliar AND abstract! The lack of conscious distinction leaves them wide open for an agenda-peddler to walk in and sell them a bill of goods. Their unconscious barometer fails them and they start accepting subjective opinions as objective facts.

It is depressing but useful to note that we are especially vulnerable here because the anti-gunners’ subjective opinions usually seem “nicer” than our objective facts. After all, who could be in favor of dead children, except for crazy gun nuts? Who could like grannies if they caused airplane crashes? The fact that they DON’T is irrelevant to a person who is convinced that they DO.

Making people consciously aware of these distinctions will make it harder for them to accept the anti-gunners’ propaganda without wondering if it is actually fact or simply opinion. This nagging headache of honest doubt has a nasty way of turning into honest inquiry which – horror of horrors – can lead to truth!

In closing, I must ask you a favor. Please do not conclude from what we have discussed that the magic thing about guns is that they teach critical thinking. Don’t get me wrong. They most certainly do! But that is only one side of the coin . . .

Published courtesy of www.americanhandgunner.com.