Some scattered thoughts. First, at the object level:
> Wife is super against having one in the house because of small kids
I would hazard a guess that "small kids" is the excuse, not the reason. This is important and significant because, if OP were to attempt to reason with his wife and address all of the legitimate child safety concerns, what would most likely happen is something like the following:
* The wife is still against it
* She either doesn't really know why, or doesn't want to say why
* She for whatever reason can't just man up and say "I just don't like them, can't you respect my feelings?"
* So she's still against it but can't or won't give any sensible reason why
* The husband becomes increasingly frustrated and upset at what he (correctly, from his point of view) sees as his wife being unreasonable: she said she was concerned about X, I addressed X, she's still upset.
* Nobody gets to have guns, and their relationship frays a bit
I don't have a solution to this beyond 'pick better partners', but the rest of this blog post seems like a good starting point
----
Second thought, story time, Eidein's first shooting range
First time I ever went shooting, I was 22, just moved to California, and started at this company. As a teambuilding thing, some of the guys wanted to go to a gun range, and being a Canadian in the US, I was excited to experience guns up close.
I hated every minute of it. Nobody really explained anything about how guns work. I didn't get a safety briefing, just "always point it downrange and never take it out of the gun bay". The guy who organized it only had revolvers for some reason (I assume the reason is "California"), and the whole "the chamber isn't fully sealed in the back so watch out for the gas backblast" thing came as an extremely shocking surprise to me that nobody bothered to warn me about.
My glasses broke the seal on my earpro and I had tinnitus for days afterwards. And then the worst part: for some insane reason, a jackass unloaded his shotgun in the indoor pistol range, and that was so loud I _felt it in my chest_.
I ended up leaving early, and the experience was so unpleasant that I didn't even try to shoot guns again until 5 years later, when at a different startup we did a teambuilding week in Vegas and took the remote European devs to shoot machine guns. Even there, I was very hesitant, I didn't really want to go. I didn't know what I was doing, it was still loud. I didn't realize how hot guns get, and the moment my hand slipped off the wood framing of the AK, the Range Officer had to step in and grab it from me because I instinctively threw it down to avoid a worse burn. It was not fun at all.
A year after that, I came to visit Austin for the first time, as an online friend was trying to talk me into moving here. He was an army officer for 8 years and has an entire arsenal at his house, and he talked me into going to the range with him. He fully explained everything there was to know about guns, how they work mechanically, how to use them. He made me disassemble and clean all of his guns for him before we went, claiming it was to familiarize me but probably it was because he hates having to clean them. He did the full on safety briefing, periodically drilling me the day before about the four rules of gun safety. We went to an outdoor range with private tactical bays, so no jackass with a shotgun surprising us, and he was in full officer mode shouting orders to keep everyone safe and organized. He had all the right PPE I needed, and even had the foresight to identify things like "you probably want to take your glasses off or the earpro won't work too well".
It was a night and day difference, and I've been on Team Pew Pew ever since. A bad first time can leave a lasting impression, but a good first time will change hearts and minds better than any argument, debate, or legislation ever will. And as a hilarious twist, that I've never thought about until right now: years later, my first ever firearm was the el cheapo rifle he gave me for free after he bought a better one, and that was the same rifle he took me out to the range with on my "first" real gun range day. History's cool like that
My wife had never seen a gun that wasn't on a cop's hip when we met. She moved to NC from NYC and was fairly open-minded but had a ton of misled beliefs. After a few range trips with .22lr only, I moved up to centerfire, and she's never really embraced it. But that's okay, she's never going to conceal carry or anything like that so I let her do what she enjoys when we go to the range together. I even got her a tricked out Ruger coated to match her KitchenAid appliances: https://i.redd.it/ibpcm4r4jpoc1.jpeg <-worth a click; it turned out really nice
Since then, I have brought many of her friends shooting for their first times. And I always start with 22s, and oftentimes that's as far as it goes. In the 10 years we've been together I have converted 5 people to gun owners, and a dozen more at least had fun shooting. I almost feel it's a must as a gun owner to invite people to shoot who never would otherwise.
I'm a fan of reactive targets. Steel plates won't always fall from a 22, but at least there's a "ping" to know that they made a hit. If in the woods with a safe backstop, it's hard to beat the tennis ball trick. My Dad would take tennis balls and put monofilament line-tied fishing hooks through it, then toss it over a branch and tie if off at the right height when I was a kid. Outdoor places where it's legal to shoot and not bother anybody are few and far between in my parts these days, but that's always a hit if you can find the right place.
For the guy who wrote the original post that starts this Substack letter, he needs to know someone like me with a lot of 22s! It's going to be a long road as a non-gun owner to convince her on his own...
> In the 10 years we've been together I have converted 5 people to gun owners, and a dozen more at least had fun shooting. I almost feel it's a must as a gun owner to invite people to shoot who never would otherwise.
Some scattered thoughts. First, at the object level:
> Wife is super against having one in the house because of small kids
I would hazard a guess that "small kids" is the excuse, not the reason. This is important and significant because, if OP were to attempt to reason with his wife and address all of the legitimate child safety concerns, what would most likely happen is something like the following:
* The wife is still against it
* She either doesn't really know why, or doesn't want to say why
* She for whatever reason can't just man up and say "I just don't like them, can't you respect my feelings?"
* So she's still against it but can't or won't give any sensible reason why
* The husband becomes increasingly frustrated and upset at what he (correctly, from his point of view) sees as his wife being unreasonable: she said she was concerned about X, I addressed X, she's still upset.
* Nobody gets to have guns, and their relationship frays a bit
I don't have a solution to this beyond 'pick better partners', but the rest of this blog post seems like a good starting point
----
Second thought, story time, Eidein's first shooting range
First time I ever went shooting, I was 22, just moved to California, and started at this company. As a teambuilding thing, some of the guys wanted to go to a gun range, and being a Canadian in the US, I was excited to experience guns up close.
I hated every minute of it. Nobody really explained anything about how guns work. I didn't get a safety briefing, just "always point it downrange and never take it out of the gun bay". The guy who organized it only had revolvers for some reason (I assume the reason is "California"), and the whole "the chamber isn't fully sealed in the back so watch out for the gas backblast" thing came as an extremely shocking surprise to me that nobody bothered to warn me about.
My glasses broke the seal on my earpro and I had tinnitus for days afterwards. And then the worst part: for some insane reason, a jackass unloaded his shotgun in the indoor pistol range, and that was so loud I _felt it in my chest_.
I ended up leaving early, and the experience was so unpleasant that I didn't even try to shoot guns again until 5 years later, when at a different startup we did a teambuilding week in Vegas and took the remote European devs to shoot machine guns. Even there, I was very hesitant, I didn't really want to go. I didn't know what I was doing, it was still loud. I didn't realize how hot guns get, and the moment my hand slipped off the wood framing of the AK, the Range Officer had to step in and grab it from me because I instinctively threw it down to avoid a worse burn. It was not fun at all.
A year after that, I came to visit Austin for the first time, as an online friend was trying to talk me into moving here. He was an army officer for 8 years and has an entire arsenal at his house, and he talked me into going to the range with him. He fully explained everything there was to know about guns, how they work mechanically, how to use them. He made me disassemble and clean all of his guns for him before we went, claiming it was to familiarize me but probably it was because he hates having to clean them. He did the full on safety briefing, periodically drilling me the day before about the four rules of gun safety. We went to an outdoor range with private tactical bays, so no jackass with a shotgun surprising us, and he was in full officer mode shouting orders to keep everyone safe and organized. He had all the right PPE I needed, and even had the foresight to identify things like "you probably want to take your glasses off or the earpro won't work too well".
It was a night and day difference, and I've been on Team Pew Pew ever since. A bad first time can leave a lasting impression, but a good first time will change hearts and minds better than any argument, debate, or legislation ever will. And as a hilarious twist, that I've never thought about until right now: years later, my first ever firearm was the el cheapo rifle he gave me for free after he bought a better one, and that was the same rifle he took me out to the range with on my "first" real gun range day. History's cool like that
Cool that you've seen it from just about every perspective. Well said. And agreed that Austin is the best place to shoot guns :)
I mean, technically it was Liberty Hill but RIP Best Of The West. :'(
I also still have a sneaking suspicion that you might have been one of the people there. Wink twice if you're who I think you are 🤣
My wife had never seen a gun that wasn't on a cop's hip when we met. She moved to NC from NYC and was fairly open-minded but had a ton of misled beliefs. After a few range trips with .22lr only, I moved up to centerfire, and she's never really embraced it. But that's okay, she's never going to conceal carry or anything like that so I let her do what she enjoys when we go to the range together. I even got her a tricked out Ruger coated to match her KitchenAid appliances: https://i.redd.it/ibpcm4r4jpoc1.jpeg <-worth a click; it turned out really nice
Since then, I have brought many of her friends shooting for their first times. And I always start with 22s, and oftentimes that's as far as it goes. In the 10 years we've been together I have converted 5 people to gun owners, and a dozen more at least had fun shooting. I almost feel it's a must as a gun owner to invite people to shoot who never would otherwise.
I'm a fan of reactive targets. Steel plates won't always fall from a 22, but at least there's a "ping" to know that they made a hit. If in the woods with a safe backstop, it's hard to beat the tennis ball trick. My Dad would take tennis balls and put monofilament line-tied fishing hooks through it, then toss it over a branch and tie if off at the right height when I was a kid. Outdoor places where it's legal to shoot and not bother anybody are few and far between in my parts these days, but that's always a hit if you can find the right place.
For the guy who wrote the original post that starts this Substack letter, he needs to know someone like me with a lot of 22s! It's going to be a long road as a non-gun owner to convince her on his own...
> In the 10 years we've been together I have converted 5 people to gun owners, and a dozen more at least had fun shooting. I almost feel it's a must as a gun owner to invite people to shoot who never would otherwise.
Awesome! And agreed.
The very first thing is to take a class with a qualified instructor, preferably separately, who will do all the things in the article.
There are too many dynamics in play for a spouse to try to teach their spouse.
I see way too many problems come from this even if the couple take the class together.
Seen bad instructors, too. Really depends on who the instructor is and who the spouse is.