By: Kayleigh Hamilton
A diehard anti-gun liberal has finally seen the light.
He discovered a mind-blowing truth that changed his mind on guns.
And now he has announced himself as a full-blown supporter of gun rights.
College campuses are very insulated environments, where most people share the same views as each other on a variety of issues.
One of those issues, of course, is guns. College students and professors are known for being very anti-gun, and it can be hard to fit in on campus if you don’t agree with their views.
David Yamane, a sociology professor at Wake Forest, was just a typical member of the campus community who had liberal views and did not like guns.
He grew up in California and his views on guns were shaped there, since California is a state with very low gun ownership.
But as he explored the community in his adopted home state of North Carolina, he realized that gun owners were nothing like he expected them to be.
And he realized that his previous views on gun control were formed out of ignorance, and that there is a lot of benefit to having gun rights.
According to a Bearing Arms review of his new book, “Yamane’s book is probably best described as a memoir, but there’s plenty of hard data included as well. In fact, Yamane says Gun Curious was originally going to be much more academic in nature, but the scope of the book took a turn during the writing process.”
“Yamane does have an interesting story to tell; from growing up in in Half Moon Bay, California, where gun owners were pretty few and far between, to his academic journey that eventually led him to the decidedly gun-friendly confines of North Carolina. It was there where Yamane had his first inkling that maybe gun ownership wasn’t just for other people, but for him as well.”
The fact that Yamane turned out to be so open-minded is admirable, and it led him to reject the prejudices that were instilled in him growing up.
The article continues, “Yamane doesn’t describe a single moment where a lightbulb went off and the scales fell from his eyes. Instead, becoming a gun owner was a process informed by multiple events, including an encounter with a stranger that could have turned violent as well as discovering the joys of History Channel’s Top Shot. Yamane says he also realized that a lot of people he was spending time with were already gun owners.”
Now, Yamane is hoping to open the eyes of many of his fellow liberals to help them see that their understanding of guns is wrong.
If he can successfully bridge the gap between left and right in America, he will have done a great service.
But even if he can’t do that on a broad scale, if he can help even a few people see how their prejudices have affected their views, it will be a small step towards a better future for our country.