From gun hater to gun lover
One of my friends—I'll call her Jenny—stayed with me for a few days because she needed more encouragement that she had The Right Stuff to become a doctor, which she doubted. She is now a professor at the medical school I attended and chair of her department at a hospital in the Detroit Medical Center, so I was correct: Jenny did have what it takes, as did another friend who also doubted herself. She became a neuroradiologist, med school professor, and president of a prestigious medical organization.
Just as I changed the misconceptions of my friends (and others) who didn't think they were doctor material, I changed Jenny's misconceptions about guns. When she pulled into my driveway, she hated them, but when she left, she loved them.
What happened? I took her to a shooting range. After a bit of initial hesitancy and fear (understandable), she quickly realized that target shooting was fun—so fun that she didn't want to stop.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
Reference: Imagining dialogue can boost critical thinking: Excerpt: “Examining an issue as a debate or dialogue between two sides helps people apply deeper, more sophisticated reasoning …”