Some notes toward a piece on talking with moderate antis
It's not exactly a secret that one of the things I do is self-defense evangelism, particularly around the issue of guns and carry permits. 

Some folks, of course, are beyond hope, and since I can't get in their face in person -- the whole "reluctant participant" thing, among others -- upon occasion, I'm more than a little mocking of them*.  Dealing with those folks is always frustrating, and unavoidable -- to the extent one has to deal with them.  Since few (well, none, as far as I know) of the folks who were all in a twist over the passage of the Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act have moved to largely carry-permit-free oases in the sea of crime (you know:  Washington DC, Chicago, NYC, etc.) out of their shock and horror that such a commonsense, mainstream law passed in Minnesota, they're going to be around.  (Quick sidenote:  I'm frequently surprised at how reckless some of these people are, even despite their history for recklessness.)

But I don't want to talk about the Anti True Believers.  They're not many in numbers, but they're hopeless.  I'd say that about the only thing that would persuade them that allowing law-abiding people to have ready access to the best tools for self-defense would be for them to be mugged, and badly beaten, but,

a:  that doesn't lead to a workable plan of action, for obvious reasons, and
b:  it probably won't happen, anyway.  True Believers of all stripes are immune, more or less, to experience. 

But there's a lot of folks out there who fall into the category of an occasional correspondent who I'll call Mary.  (That's not her name.  I'm going to fudge just a little on her information, here, for reasons I'm not going to go into.) 

Mary's one of a large number of folks:  she hadn't really thought a lot about the issues, doesn't have much of any background with firearms, but is a bit uncomfortable about them.  Nothing wrong with that. She's also like a lot of folks in this way:  she's perfectly capable of thinking about the issues, and coming to her own conclusions.  It's not that she's smart -- although she is -- it's that she's not stupid. 

We started a correspondence, some time ago, around the issue of posting.  Like many folks, she had been exposed to the now-abandoned "Campaign to Post" by the usual suspects, and hadn't either researched it, or thought about it much.  And I'm not being critical of that; the whole posting thing was a big deal to the tens of thousands of permit holders, and the corporal's guard of activists on the other side, but it really was a very small tempest in a tiny teapot, at most, to 'most everybody else.

In talking to her, I started from some first principles, that I think stand up, both as good advice for me, and maybe for some of you. 

Respect the other person.  Really.  That somebody hasn't paid a lot of attention to this issue doesn't mean that there's something wrong with them.  There's a whole universe of issues out there, and people not only get to, but have to, decide what they're going to learn about. 

Respect yourself.  I'll assume that you've come to being pro-self-defense and pro carry permits, for the purpose of this discussion, out of experience and reason.  That's certainly the way that both Felicia and I got there -- we were both raised in anti-gun homes, but learned better. 

Talk about facts more than feelings, and suggest that feelings should be based on facts.  Here's my quick elevator pitch for why not to worry about the MCPPA:  "Minnesota is one of thirty-eight states that issues handgun carry permits to grownups who want them.  None of those states have come close to repealing their carry permit laws, because they haven't been a problem." 

When you put forward a fact, source it, if at all possible.  It usually is.  Just to pick one example, about the only thing I like from Judge Randall's Appeals Court decision is this [emphasis mine]: 

To ensure that all readers of this opinion, legal and lay persons, have a common language, we have a commentary.  The PPA has been widely known, debated, and discussed, under a nickname—the “conceal and carry” bill.  Somehow, the nickname “conceal and carry” got on the bill and stuck like a porcupine’s quills in the nose of an overaggressive hunting dog.  To set the record straight, both sides agree there is not now, nor has there ever been, any “conceal” in the laws surrounding the regulation and application for a permit to carry a handgun on one’s person.  “Conceal” has never been a part of the PPA.  The PPA allows you, if you have the permit, to carry the handgun openly or to have it beneath some article of clothing where it does not show.  If you do not get the permit, it does not matter whether you wish to carry the handgun outside or inside your clothing.  You cannot do it without being criminally liable.  2003 Minn. Laws ch. 28, art. 2, § 4.  The same thing is true of the former handgun permit law, which the PPA supplanted.  Under the prior law, in effect since the start of Minnesota’s handgun permitting laws (1975 Minn. Laws ch. 378 § 4, codified at Minn. Stat. § 624.714 (1976)), if you had a permit to carry a handgun, it did not matter whether you displayed it openly or concealed it.  If you did not have a permit under the prior law to carry a handgun, it would also not matter whether you displayed it openly or concealed it.  You could not.  Thus, a more accurate short-term handle for the PPA at issue would be the “handgun carry” bill, nothing more.

When people talk about the "conceal and carry" law, I like to point them at that.  Of course, when it comes to KARE11 and Scott Goldberg, that doesn't do any good -- but we're talking about reasonable people here.  (And, of course, Judge Randall was being overly generous to Rebecca Thoman -- the physician specializing in the sexual dysfunction of women who runs the astroturf, checkbook activism group that calls itself "Citizens for a Safer Minnesota -- who insists on referring to the Personal Protection Act as "conceal and carry."  Rebecca doesn't learn real well.)

Don't be afraid to point out the obvious. What's obvious to somebody who spends a lot of time looking at and thinking about an issue isn't necessarily obvious to others.

I think it's about that simple.

Getting back to Mary, I recently got an email from her.  She noticed that England is now moving toward making long, pointy knives illegal, and finds that manifestly silly notion, well, manifestly silly.  She's also noted that the signs, where they exist, didn't make any difference. 

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* For whatever reason, Larry recently took down his rather, err, strange web page, and replaced it with this.  Fortunately for all who like a good joke, the wonderful wayback machine captured the previous versions.