Drinks With A Progressive Anti-Gun Democrat

So we have a group of friends, our kids are in school together, that gets together for weekend lunches/dinners on a somewhat regular basis.

Saturday afternoon was the end of summer before school starts blow out. It was held at the home and association beach lot of one of the couples, who are very nice, well educated, and progressive types to the core. I pretty much never discuss politics at these gatherings.

But, after the gathering at the beach lot had ended, I drove the man of the house back to his house and we chatted, our wives and kids had gone off and left the house to do some things with the kids, so we were sitting around chatting about dogs and such and he then produced a 1.5 liter bottle of Eagle Rare bourbon and asked if I wanted a drink. An offer of Eagle Rare cannot be turned down. He decided he liked the taste of it himself and one glass led to another and ooops, we started discussing politics. Ruh Roh.

Turns out he is very progressive and almost on the Bernie side of the spectrum, but, there is some common ground in terms of some basic things such as a dislike of corruption, ridiculous debt and the situation the country is in, but that's about it, and the proposed solutions we had for such were rather divergent. He still couldn't believe Trump won, had voted for Hillary even though he knew she was a terrible candidate. We at least kept this civil.

Then the talk turned to guns.

Oh boy. Not only did he think the NRA was a bunch of maniacs against gun safety, but it turns out Josh Sugarman and the Violence Policy Center's deliberate lies on the assault weapon issue did indeed work.

Assault weapons — just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms – are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.

Yep, my friend gleefully conflated "assault weapons", semi-automatic rifles, automatic rifles and everything else in a gleeful burst of anti-gun ignorance.

He stated that while he didn't want to ban guns he did want to ban assault weapons and stated everyone should just have a double-barrelled sawed-off shotgun for self defense - shades of Joe Biden, that. He eventually stated handguns and hunting rifles were ok but not these evil assault weapons that can shot through schools. Oy.

I respectfully pointed out that he was conflating so many things and I certainly would not agree with him, and that having an unregistered sawed-off shotgun is a 10 year felony and not exactly the best choise for home defense, and explained a bit of the differences and how he had conflated all these things and nicely pointed out he had no idea what he was talking about. I explained that had I told him with his knowledge of his profession to do x in a situation as I'd seen it on TV he'd think it was ridiculous as I had no idea what I was talking about, and it dawned on him that he had no real idea about firearms, only what the media and Democrat party line had given him. This caused some food for thought and it was an overall friendly conversation, but it was interesting to come across someone who had been fed and could regurgitate the party line so well and is otherwise a very bright guy indeed.

It ended up with my offering to take him to the range and he accepted so we'll be going sometime soon.

It also ended with over three quarters of the bottle gone in a few hours, rather tasty stuff, that, and with Tash texting asking what the heck I was doing. It also ended that I was in no shape to drive home -- at all, but impressively my spelling while texting was pretty much impeccable.

So Tash came and picked me up and we had dinner at home with one of their kids over for dinner with us, and so when the lady of the house came she took Tash with her so she could pickup my car. A good example for the kids of drinking and then not driving responsibly.

It turns out progressives have bigger hangovers than conservatives, and least in this sample, as when I took Abby over there to play with their daughter this afternoon after the Kayak experience, he was still the worse for wear. Heh.

Well, soon it will be "Take an anti to the range day". I plan to just take him out to have an enjoyable experience and keep the politics to an absolute minimum. Wish me luck.