Fun with Stereotypes
I love stereotypes. Kevin at The Smallest Minority posted a great quote posted by somebody who doesn't judge books by their cover:
(A)s soon as I learn that someone owns a gun, and is pro-gun ownership without heavy regulations, I totally judge them to be uneducated and conservative. Responsible or not, having a gun comes with a mentality of thinking it is ok to buy a killing device. I am happy to do that, because I have yet to meet an intelligent, well educated person who is pro-guns in real life.
The problem with stereotypes is that they suck for making accurate assessments of people. For example, I consider myself a dirty leftist liberal because, as an anarchist, I favor radical change. While I don't consider myself terribly educated my friends and acquaintances have described me as such. For the purpose of this post I will defer to their opinions since the topic at hand is how one individual judges other individuals. As other seem to believe I'm intelligent I effectively smash the stereotype held by the person quoted above.
As a gun owner I know many fellow gun owners. Most of them are very intelligent people. If I had to stereotype gun owners, which I'm only doing here for the sake of discussion, I would say that they tend to be very practical individuals. What I mean is that the gun owners I know tend to be very good with their hands. If need advice on building something or somebody to build me something I check with my gun owning friends first. Likewise, if I'm having trouble with an automobile, plumbing, wiring, and other practical matters I tend to ask my gun owner friends first. In addition to having a great deal of practical knowledge they usually have a great deal of historical and legal knowledge. I spend a great deal of time discussing history and legal matters with my gun owner friends as those are topics that tend to interest us.
The person quoted above claims that he has never met an intelligent pro-gun person. With his preconception of gun owners I can see why. In all likelihood he disassociates with anybody who is pro-gun in order to maintain his confirmation bias. Unless you're willing to associate with people who oppose your viewpoint you're probably never going to get to know them well enough to determine their level of education.