Starting from zero: what I wish someone had told me about unlearning anti-gun stuff first

@convert.20201mo agoSee in graph →

I'm going to sound naive here and that's okay — but I think there's something nobody talks about when you're teaching someone who grew up the way I did. It's not just about stance or grip or trigger control. It's the mental part.

When I took my first class last year, I was carrying so much baggage in through that door. I was afraid of the gun itself in a way that had nothing to do with actual safety and everything to do with 20 years of "guns are bad and gun owners are crazy." My instructor was patient, but I don't think she realized how much I was fighting my own head the whole time.

So here's what I think matters if you're teaching someone from a household like mine:

Don't skip the "why" part. I needed to understand the actual mechanics of why we hold it this way, why we grip with these fingers, why the stance is stable — not just "do it this way." When you make the logic clear, you're not just teaching shooting; you're proving that gun owners aren't reckless. They're precise and methodical. That matters more than you'd think when someone's been told their whole life otherwise.

Expect them to be over-cautious about rules, and that's actually fine. I was terrified of making a mistake with safety rules. That sounds good, right? But it also meant I was tense, and tension is what actually creates bad habits with grip and trigger control. A good instructor will help them relax INTO the rules, not white-knuckle through them.

Let them ask dumb questions. I mean really stupid ones. I spent three minutes asking my instructor whether the gun would "know" if I wasn't paying attention and just go off. She didn't laugh. She explained how the trigger and firing pin work. That one answer unlocked something in my head.

Honestly — and I'm still figuring this out myself — the hardest part isn't learning to shoot. It's learning to trust that gun owners as a community actually do take this seriously. That took longer than learning my stance.

Anyone else teaching someone from a similar background? I'm curious what actually worked.

Stance Home Defense Grip

3 replies

@gulfcoast_ops15d ago
Let me break this apart, because you're onto something real—but I want to separate what's actually a training problem from what's a personal-identity problem.
**What's the training issue here?** You describe tension, white-knuckling through rules, grip problems tied to anxiety. That's textbook. New shooters with *any* background show up tense. Some because they're afraid of the gun. Some because they're afraid of looking stupid. Some because they haven't held anything heavier than a coffee cup. The fix is the same: structure, repetition, permission to be clumsy in a safe environment.
**What's NOT a training problem?** The 20 years of messaging about gun owners and guns themselves. That's identity work, not shooting instruction. And here's what I'd push back on: your instructor's job is to teach you to shoot safely and competently. It's not to reprogram your entire political socialization. Those are different projects.
That said—the "why" thing? Absolutely keep that. Any instructor worth their time explains the *mechanics*, not just the ritual. That's basic competence, not deprogramming.
**Here's my concrete rec:** Find a structured beginner course, not a casual session. Four hours minimum, small group or one-on-one. Make sure the instructor walks through the mechanical *why* (how a trigger works, why grip angle matters for recoil control). Then do dry-fire practice at home—lots of it—before your next live-fire session. Repetition under low stakes kills the anxiety faster than anything else.
The identity stuff? That's on you and time, not on the instructor.
@dems.with.guns8d ago
Gulf makes a fair split between training and identity work—and I think that's where people get stuck. Here's what I'd add: the identity navigation *is* real, and it doesn't resolve in four hours.
I grew up in a union household where guns meant hunting, period. Nothing weird about it. But I absorbed a lot of downstream messaging about who *owns* guns politically, what that says about you, whether it makes you complicit in something. That's different from being afraid the gun will go off on its own.
What actually helped me wasn't an instructor telling me gun owners are serious (they don't need to; I could see that in the range). It was finding other people who owned guns *and* held my values. Turns out there are a lot of us. We talk about rights and responsibility in ways that don't feel like I'm betraying anything I believe in.
So yeah, OP—get the structured class. Do the dry-fire reps. But also: look for a community that makes sense to you. That might be a local gun club with mixed politics, or online spaces, or just one or two people you know personally. The reassurance that gun ownership isn't monolithic, that you don't have to *become* a certain type of person to do this—that's where the real unlearning happens.
The tension in your grip will ease once you stop tensing about what it means that you're there.
@partner.worries4d ago
I think you're both right, and I also think there's something else that matters—at least it did for us.
My partner brought a gun into our home for home defense, and I... wasn't ready. Not because I was afraid it would go off randomly, but because suddenly there was a lethal object in our bedroom, and I hadn't signed up for that level of responsibility. I needed to understand it not just mechanically, but *in context*. Does that make sense?
What actually shifted for me wasn't a class (though my partner did take one, and yes, the structured approach helped him). It was sitting down together and asking: What are we actually protecting? Who has access? Where does it live? What's our rule if something happens? I needed to feel like we made that choice *together*, not like he made it and I had to live with it.
So here's my question for you, OP—and I'm genuinely curious, not skeptical—are you thinking about this just for yourself, or is there a household piece? Because if there is, I think the identity work *and* the training *and* the community stuff all matter less if the people you live with aren't on the same page about what the gun is for and where it lives and who decides those things.
Maybe that's not your situation. But if it is, I'd say: get the class, yes. Find your people, yes. But also make sure the people in your actual home understand why you're doing this and what it means for them too.