Interesting article. It is about time some one looked at those who are
against anyone owning a gun in this country.
Raging Against Self Defense
Permission is granted to distribute this article in its entirety, so
long as full copyright information and full contact information is
given for JPFO.
Copyright =A9 2000 Sarah Thompson, MD
Published by
Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Owner****p, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (262) 673-9745
www.jpfo.org
________________________________________
Raging Against Self Defense:
A Psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality
By Sarah Thompson, M.D.
righter@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"You don't need to have a gun; the police will protect you."
"If people carry guns, there will be murders over parking spaces and
neighborhood basketball games."
"I'm a pacifist. Enlightened, spiritually aware people shouldn't own
guns."
"I'd rather be raped than have some redneck militia type try to rescue
me."
How often have you heard these statements from misguided advocates of
victim disarmament, or even woefully uninformed relatives and
neighbors? Why do people cling so tightly to these beliefs, in the
face of incontrovertible evidence that they are wrong? Why do they get
so furiously angry when gun owners point out that their arguments are
factually and logically incorrect?
How can you communicate with these people who seem to be out of touch
with reality and rational thought?
One approach to help you deal with anti-gun people is to understand
their psychological processes. Once you understand why these people
behave so irrationally, you can communicate more effectively with
them.
Defense Mechanisms
Projection
About a year ago I received an e-mail from a member of a local Jewish
organization. The author, who chose to remain anonymous, insisted that
people have no right to carry firearms because he didn't want to be
murdered if one of his neighbors had a "bad day". (I don't know that
this person is a "he", but I'm assuming so for the sake of
simplicity.) I responded by asking him why he thought his neighbors
wanted to murder him, and, of course, got no response. The truth is
that he's statistically more likely to be murdered by a neighbor who
doesn't legally carry a firearm1 and more likely to be shot
accidentally by a law enforcement officer.1
How does my correspondent "know" that his neighbors would murder him
if they had guns? He doesn't. What he was really saying was that if he
had a gun, he might murder his neighbors if he had a bad day, or if
they took his parking space, or played their stereos too loud. This is
an example of what mental health professionals call projection -
unconsciously projecting one's own unacceptable feelings onto other
people, so that one doesn't have to own them.3 In some cases, the
intolerable feelings are projected not onto a person, but onto an
inanimate object, such as a gun,4 so that the projector believes the
gun itself will murder him.
Projection is a defense mechanism. Defense mechanisms are unconscious
psychological mechanisms that protect us from feelings that we cannot
consciously accept.5 They operate without our awareness, so that we
don't have to deal consciously with "forbidden" feelings and impulses.
Thus, if you asked my e-mail correspondent if he really wanted to
murder his neighbors, he would vehemently deny it, and insist that
other people want to kill him.
Projection is a particularly insidious defense mechanism, because it
not only prevents a person from dealing with his own feelings, it also
creates a world where he perceives everyone else as directing his own
hostile feelings back at him.6
All people have violent, and even homicidal, impulses. For example,
it's common to hear people say "I'd like to kill my boss", or "If you
do that one more time I'm going to kill you." They don't actually mean
that they're going to, or even would, kill anyone; they're simply
acknowledging anger and frustration. All of us suffer from fear and
feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. Most people can
acknowledge feelings of rage, fear, frustration, jealousy, etc.
without having to act on them in inappropriate and destructive ways.
Some people, however, are unable consciously to admit that they have
such "unacceptable" emotions. They may have higher than average levels
of rage, frustration, or fear. Perhaps they fear that if they
acknowledge the hostile feelings, they will lose control and really
will hurt someone. They may believe that "good people" never have such
feelings, when in fact all people have them.
This is especially true now that education "experts" commonly prohibit
children from expressing negative emotions or aggression. Instead of
learning that such emotions are normal, but that destructive behavior
needs to be controlled, children now learn that feelings of anger are
evil, dangerous and subject to severe punishment.7To protect
themselves from "being bad", they are forced to use defense mechanisms
to avoid owning their own normal emotions. Unfortunately, using such
defense mechanisms inappropriately can endanger their mental health;
children need to learn how to deal appropriately with reality, not how
to avoid it.8
(This discussion of psychological mechanisms applies to the average
person who is uninformed, or misinformed, about firearms and self-
defense. It does not apply to the anti- gun ideologue. Fanatics like
Charles Schumer know the facts about firearms, and advocate victim
disarmament consciously and willfully in order to gain political
power. This psychological analysis does not apply to them.)
Denial
Another defense mechanism commonly utilized by sup****ters of gun
control is denial. Denial is simply refusing to accept the reality of
a given situation.9 For example, consider a woman whose husband starts
coming home late, has strange perfume on his clothes, and starts
charging flowers and jewelry on his credit card. She may get extremely
angry at a well-meaning friend who suggests that her husband is having
an affair. The reality is obvious, but the wronged wife is so
threatened by her husband's infidelity that she is unable to accept
it, and so denies its existence.
Anti-gun people do the same thing. It's obvious that we live in a
dangerous society, where criminals attack innocent people. Just about
everyone has been, or knows someone who has been, victimized. It's
equally obvious that law enforcement can't protect everyone everywhere
24 hours a day. Extensive scholarly research demonstrates that the
police have no legal duty to protect you10 and that firearm owner****p
is the most effective way to protect yourself and your family.11 There
is irrefutable evidence that victim disarmament nearly always precedes
genocide.12 Nonetheless, the anti-gun folks insist, despite all
evidence to the contrary, that "the police will protect you", "this is
a safe neighborhood" and "it can't happen here", where "it" is
everything from mugging to mass murder.
Anti-gun people who refuse to accept the reality of the proven and
very serious dangers of civilian disarmament are using denial to
protect themselves from the anxiety of feeling helpless and
vulnerable. Likewise, gun owners who insist that "the government will
never confiscate my guns" are also using denial to protect themselves
from the anxiety of contemplating being forcibly disarmed and rendered
helpless and vulnerable.
Reaction Formation
Reaction formation is yet another defense mechanism common among the
anti-gun folks. Reaction formation occurs when a person's mind turns
an unacceptable feeling or desire into its complete opposite.13 For
example, a child who is jealous of a sibling may exhibit excessive
love and devotion for the hated brother or sister.
Likewise, a person who harbors murderous rage toward his fellow humans
may claim to be a devoted pacifist and refuse to eat meat or even kill
a cockroach.14 Often such people take refuge in various spiritual
disciplines and believe that they are "superior" to "less civilized"
folks who engage in "violent behavior" such as hunting, or even target
shooting. They may devote themselves to "animal welfare" organizations
that proclaim that the rights of animals take precedence over the
rights of people.15 This not only allows the angry person to avoid
dealing with his rage, it allows him actually to harm the people he
hates without having to know he hates them.
This is not meant to disparage the many wonderful people who are
pacifists, spiritually inclined, vegetarian, or who sup****t animal
welfare. The key issue is not the belief itself, but rather the way in
which the person experiences and lives his beliefs. Sincere
practitioners seek to improve themselves, or to be helpful in a
gentle, respectful fa****on. They work to persuade others peacefully by
setting an example of what they believe to be correct behavior.
Sincere pacifists generally exhibit good will towards others, even
towards persons with whom they might disagree on various issues.
Contrast the sincere pacifist or animal lover with the strident, angry
person who wants to ban meat and who believes murdering hunters is
justified in order to "save the animals" - or the person who wants to
outlaw self- defense and believes innocent people have the obligation
to be raped and murdered for the good of society. For example, noted
feminist Betty Friedan said "that lethal violence even in self defense
only engenders more violence."16 The truly spiritual, pacifist person
refrains from forcing others to do what he believes, and is generally
driven by positive emotions, while the angry person finds "socially
acceptable" ways to harm, abuse, or even kill, his fellow man.
In the case of anti-gun people, reaction formation keeps any knowledge
of their hatred for their fellow humans out of consciousness, while
allowing them to feel superior to "violent gun owners". At the same
time, it also allows them to cause serious harm, and even loss of
life, to others by denying them the tools necessary to defend
themselves. This makes reaction formation very attractive from a
psychological point of view, and therefore very difficult to
counteract.
Defense mechanisms are normal. All of us use them to some extent, and
their use does not imply mental illness. Advocates of victim
disarmament may be misguided or uninformed, they may be stupid, or
they may be consciously intent on evil, but that doesn't necessarily
mean they are "mentally ill".
Some defense mechanisms, however, are healthier than others. A safe
general rule is that a defense is healthy if it helps you to function
better in your personal and professional life, and unhealthy if it
interferes with your life, your relation****ps, or the well-being of
others. Young children utilize projection and denial much more
commonly than do healthy adults. On the other hand, "if projection is
used as a defense mechanism to a very great extent in adult life, the
user's perception of external reality will be seriously distorted."17
Defense mechanisms are also frequently combined, so that an anti-gun
person may use several defense mechanisms simultaneously. For example,
my unfortunate correspondent uses projection to create a world in
which all his neighbors want to murder him. As a result, he becomes
more angry and fearful, and needs to employ even more defense
mechanisms to cope. So he uses projection to attribute his own rage to
others, he uses denial that there is any danger to protect himself
from a world where he believes he is helpless and everyone wants to
murder him, and he uses reaction formation to try to control everyone
else's life because his own is so horribly out of control.
Also, it's im****tant to remember that not all anti-gun beliefs are the
result of defense mechanisms. Some people suffer from gun phobia18, an
excessive and completely irrational fear of firearms, usually caused
by the anti-gun conditioning they've been subjected to by the media,
politicians, so-called "educators," and others. In some cases, gun
phobia is caused by an authentic bad experience associated with a
firearm. But with all due respect to Col. Jeff Cooper, who coined the
term "hoplophobia" to describe anti-gun people, most anti-gun people
do not have true phobias. Interestingly, a person with a true phobia
of guns realizes his fear is excessive or unreasonable,19 something
most anti-gun folks will never admit.
Defense mechanisms distort reality
Because defense mechanisms distort reality in order to avoid
unpleasant emotions, the person who uses them has an impaired ability
to recognize and accept reality. This explains why my e-mail
correspondent and many other anti-gun people persist in believing that
their neighbors and co- workers will become mass murderers if allowed
to own firearms.
People who legally carry concealed firearms are actually less violent
and less prone to criminal activity of all kinds than is the general
population.20 A person who has a clean record, has passed an FBI
background check, undergone firearms training, and spent several
hundred dollars to get a permit and a firearm, is highly unlikely to
choose to murder a neighbor. Doing so would result in his facing a
police manhunt, a trial, prison, possibly capital punishment, and the
destruction of his family, job, and reputation. Obviously it would
make no sense for such a person to shoot a neighbor - except in self-
defense. Equally obviously, the anti-gun person who believes that
malicious shootings by ordinary gun owners are likely to occur is not
in touch with reality.21
The Common Thread: Rage
In my experience, the common thread in anti-gun people is rage. Either
anti-gun people harbor more rage than others, or they're less able to
cope with it appropriately. Because they can't handle their own
feelings of rage, they are forced to use defense mechanisms in an
unhealthy manner. Because they wrongly perceive others as seeking to
harm them, they advocate the disarmament of ordinary people who have
no desire to harm anyone. So why do anti-gun people have so much rage
and why are they unable to deal with it in appropriate ways? Consider
for a moment that the largest and most hysterical anti-gun groups
include dispro****tionately large numbers of women, African- Americans
and Jews. And virtually all of the organizations that claim to speak
for these "oppressed people" are stridently anti-gun. Not
coincidentally, among Jews, Blacks and women there are many
"professional victims" who have little sense of identity outside of
their
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