The Warped Psychology of Gun Control Advocates

A fundamental symptom of many mental disorders is the tendency to perceive controversies as black or white, with no middle ground. Our national leadership is being color blind on Gun Control . No sane person given the simple choice of “yes” or “no” would vote against gun control on these terms.

Yet, if the issue is looked at in the full spectrum of possibilities no sane person would vote for gun control. Doing anything else would be the beginning of the end of the Bill of Rights, if not our entire democratic way of life.

The Right to Bear Arms

The “right to bear arms” was a strong statement made in a violent world by brave men. They were determined to preserve the principles they had fought very hard to gain from an autocratic, authoritarian regime. That regime remains to this day, and by most standards the world is more violent than ever before. There is no reason why the right to bear arms would be any less important now than it was two hundred years ago.

The Constitution gives the American people a very simple way to change the law, by Amendment. Any other legislation concerning gun control sets a very dangerous precedent that could easily be invoked to revoke all of our other Constitutional rights. Thus, if guns are to be banned, they must be banned utterly and completely and for all time, everywhere. That is the only issue that can be considered in this context. Understood?

The Right to Have Fun

There are peaceable uses for guns – in sports such as target or trap shooting, or just shooting at tin cans on a fence. There are several Olympic events using pistols or rifles, and they demand a high level of unique skills of the participants. Pure sport hunting of wildlife cannot be condoned at any level, but it can be regulated so to maintain population levels. In a wilderness that modern civilization has deprived of most natural predators, to do anything less for the passive creatures remaining would be cruel and wrong.

If guns were banned, these wildlife populations would still need to be controlled.

Would you vote to pay federal or state employees to sport hunt as their job title? That is exactly would your vote for gun control would do. If our government cannot control wild fires, would they do any better with the far more pervasive and costly task of controlling wild life?

The Right to Live Dangerously

An integral aspect of gun control is the technology itself. There have for many years been easy ways to make guns safe from accidental discharge or use by minors. There are trigger guards, breech locks, and barrel locks. These extremely simple devices are easy to use and completely effective.

Guns have always been dangerous, and have been the cause of much crime in recent years. Why haven’t manufacturers been using these safety devices for 20 or 30 years now? Why don’t they as good corporate citizens install them on all weapons they sell now? Alas, why aren’t rubber bullets available to the public for handguns – for that matter, why do manufacturers make any other kind of ammunition for handguns than rubber bullets?

The Right to Manufacture Legal Weapons

We don’t need gun control laws, we need manufacturer control laws. Look at Firestone. They knew for several years that one in ten of their Explorer tires would fail. Yet, they mass produced the tires anyway, endangering thousands of lives and millions of good jobs. We shouldn’t be debating handgun concealment laws but “proof of conscience” labeling for all engineered products. Made in the U.S.A. used to be a guarantee of quality and longevity. Now it is a sign of deceit, corruption, and rank greed.

Just because a law does not exist does not mean manufacturers cannot do something conscionable. Or have profits become the driving force behind all modern corporate entities? A fifty cent breech lock would not look good on the bottom line; the stockholders would panic and sell all their holdings. They must not realize that if the current sentiments on gun control continue they will not have any profits at all, or even a corporation to invest in. They seem to have become so gun shy they don’t even want to remain in business, but are just having this “midnight special” going out of business hoopla.

The Right to Terrorize the Mentally Disadvantagged

Gun control advocates should visualize life without any guns at all. Those who are mentally disabled, for example, cannot by law own any firearm.

What they would see is a world with too few police to protect too many citizens from too many armed perpetrators. They would see widespread homelessness, drug abuse, and abject poverty driving more and more people to perform violent acts with guns against the weakest elements of society. Banning guns wouldn’t keep these miscreants from getting weapons – but it damn sure would keep honest people from getting them.

We may ban guns in America, but they’ll continue to be made everywhere else. If we can’t stop drugs or illegal immigrants from crossing the borders virtually unrestrained, how so with guns? Good intentions are meaningless without the means.

The Right to be Stupid if You Want To

Every large city in America has a rotten core of chronically poor people compromised to live in substandard housing. Their children go to high school, and graduate not knowing how to read or write. Our society is willing and anxious to help these people, but who in their right mind would venture into such a place of random violence and chaos without protection? Do we as a nation want to just forget about these inner city neighborhoods, and not give teachers, architects, and businessmen who are willing to brave that wretched environment a fighting chance to make a difference?

Indeed, we have become such a selfish, fearful populace that good, honest citizens in grave danger are totally ignored. Violent acts are routinely done in broad daylight on major highways, say, with thousands of cars passing by. Nobody is willing to get out and help; or even to make a phone call to the police. Being a good Samaritan against the Sons of Sams of this world is not the politically correct thing to do; not when you can be in the pursuit of commercialism at Sam’s Warehouse.

The Right to Protect Yourself Against Roadkill Lawyers

Being good is a ticket to a major lawsuit and as much trouble at the hands of the law as the victim received at the hands of felons. If no one is willing to risk helping such victims of mindless violence then people need the right to protect themselves. Or is it the criminals who have the Constitutional right to wreak havoc as they wish?

These and many, many other issues of gun control can only be understood and solved once guns are taken out of the equation – not literally, but figuratively. To assume gun control will solve all these complex problems is just the kind of myopic tunnel vision that our entire democratic tradition has been devised to stop. That we as a nation are so very near to banning guns stands as mute testament to just how far we have strayed from the honest and free path set forth by those who gave us the right in the first place.