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RAGING AGAINST SELF DEFENSE: A PSYCHIATRIST EXAMINES THE ANTI-GUN
MENTALITY

           Friday, February 24, 2006

           By Sarah Thompson, M.D.

             "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 supporters 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 ownership 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 support 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 fashion. 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 Not Mental Illnesses

           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 relationships, 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 important 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 disproportionately 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
victimhood.

           Identity as Victim

           If I were to summarize this article in three sentences, they
would be:

             (1) People who identify themselves as "victims" harbor
excessive amounts of rage at other people, whom they perceive as "not
victims."
             (2) In order psychologically to deal with this rage, these
"victims" utilize defense mechanisms that enable them to harm others in
socially acceptable ways, without accepting responsibility or suffering
guilt, and without having to give up their status as "victims."

             (3) Gun owners are frequently the targets of professional
victims because gun owners are willing and able to prevent their own
victimization.

           Thus the concept of "identity as victim" is essential. How and
why do members of some groups choose to identify themselves as victims and
teach their children to do the same? While it's true that women, Jews, and
African- Americans have historically been victimized, they now participate
in American society on an equal basis. And other groups, most notably
Asian-Americans, have been equally victimized, and yet have transcended the
"eternal victim" mentality.

           Why, for example, would a 6'10" NBA player who makes $10 million
a year see himself as a "victim"? Why would a successful, respected,
wealthy, Jewish physician regard himself as a "victim"? Conversely, why
might a wheelchair bound woman who lives on government disability NOT regard
herself as a victim?

           I would argue it's because the basketball player and the
physician believe that their identities are dependent on being victims - not
because they have actually been victimized, but because they're members of
groups that claim victim status. Conversely, the disabled woman was probably
raised to believe that she is responsible for her own success or failure.

           In fact, many people who have been victims of actual violent
crime, or who have survived war or civil strife, support the right of
self-defense. The old saying is often correct: "a conservative is a liberal
who has been mugged."

           Special Treatment and Misleading Leaders

           Two reasons for these groups to insist on "victim" status seem
likely. First, by claiming victim status, members of these groups can demand
(and get) special treatment through quotas, affirmative action, reparations,
and other preferential treatment programs.

           Second, these people have been indoctrinated to believe that
there is no alternative to remaining a victim forever. Their leaders remind
them constantly that they are mistreated in every imaginable way (most of
them imaginary!), attribute every one of life's misfortunes to "racism" or
"sexism" or "hate crimes", and dream up ever more complex schemes for
special treatment and favors.22 These leaders are the ones who preach that
the entire Black experience is slavery and racism, or that Jewish history
before and after the Holocaust is irrelevant,23 or that happily married
women are really victims of sexual slavery.24

           Likewise, the NAACP is suing firearms manufacturers to put them
out of business,25 and is especially opposed to the inexpensive pistols that
enable the poor to defend themselves in gang-ridden inner cities. The
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed evicting anyone
who dares to keep a tool of self-defense in any of its crime-infested
housing projects. Jewish leaders, especially those in the politically
correct "Reform" branch, preach that gun control is "a solemn religious
obligation",26 contrary to the teachings of their sacred scriptures and
their own history.27 Law enforcement agencies falsely teach women that they
are safest if they don't resist rapists and robbers,28 while women's
organizations advocate gun control, thus rendering women and their children
defenseless.

           Victimhood is good business for organizations that foster victim
status. As victims, the members depend upon the organization to protect
them, and the organization in turn relies on members for funding and
political power. In the interest of self-preservation, these organizations
work hard at preserving hatred and bigotry and at keeping their members
defenseless - and therefore dependent.

           Anti-gun groups love victims!

           From my observations, pro-victimhood is a feature of all of the
anti-gun special interest groups, not just the ones mentioned here. Every
organization that supports gun control apparently wants its members to be
helpless, terrified and totally dependent on someone else to control every
aspect of their lives. It doesn't matter whether it's a religious, racial,
ethnic, political, social, or charitable group. From Handgun Control, Inc.
to the Anti- Defamation League to the Million Mom March, they all want you
to live in fear. In this scheme, soccer moms are "victims" just as much as
are inner-city minorities.

           If these organizations truly cared about the people for whom
they claim to speak, they would encourage safe and responsible firearms
ownership. They would help people to learn how to defend themselves and
their families so that they wouldn't have to live in fear. They would tell
everyone that one of the wonderful things about being an American is that
you have the right to keep and bear arms, the right to defend yourself, and
how these rights preserve the right to be free.

           The psychological price of being a victim

           In our current society, victimhood has many perceived benefits,
but there are some serious drawbacks. Victims tend to see the world as a
scary and threatening place. They believe that others treat them
differently, unfairly, and even maliciously - and that they are helpless to
do anything about it. This belief, that they are being mistreated and are
helpless to resist, generates tremendous rage, and often, serious
depression.

           But for victims to show rage openly can be dangerous, if not
outright suicidal. For example, a battered woman who screams at or hits her
attacker may provoke worse beatings or even her own murder. And a person who
successfully defends himself loses his status as "victim." For someone whose
entire identity is dependent on being a victim, the loss of victim status is
just as threatening as loss of life.

           So, unable psychologically to cope with such rage, people who
view themselves as victims: (1) use defense mechanisms to displace it into
irrational beliefs about neighbors killing each other, and the infallibility
of police protection, and (2) attempt to regain control by controlling gun
owners, whom they wrongly perceive as "the enemy".

           Say NO to being a victim!

           But no one needs to be a victim! Quite simply, it's not very
easy to victimize a person who owns and knows how to use a firearm. If most
women owned and carried firearms, rapes and beating would decrease.29 Thugs
who target the elderly and disabled would find honest work once they
realized they were likely to be looking down the barrel of a pistol or
shotgun. It's nearly impossible to enslave, or herd into concentration
camps, large numbers of armed people.

           Notes

           1 Lott, John R., Jr. 1998. More Guns, Less Crime. University of
Chicago Press. Pp. 11-12; Proposition B: More Security Or Greater Danger?,
St. Louis Post-Dispatch. March 21, 1999.

           2 Lott 1998, Pp. 1-2.

           3 Kaplan, Harold M. and Sadock, Benjamin J. 1990. Pocket
Handbook of Clinical Psychiatry. Williams & Wilkins. P. 20.

           4Brenner, Charles. 1973. An Elementary Textbook of
Psychoanalysis (rev. ed.). Anchor Books. Pp. 91-93; Lefton, Lester A. 1994.
Psychology (5th edition). Allyn & Bacon. Pp. 432-433.

           5 Brenner 1973. P. 91.

           6 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton 1994, p. 432.

           7 Talbott, John A., Robert E. Hales and Stuart C. Yudofsky, eds.
1988. Textbook of Psychiatry. American Psychiatric Press. P.137.

           8 "Kids Suspended for Playground Game." Associated Press. April
6, 2000.

           9 Lightfoot, Liz. "Gun Return to the Nursery School Toy Chest."
The London Telegraph. May 22, 2000. Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton
1994, p. 433.

           10 Stevens, Richard W. 1999. Dial 911 and Die. Mazel Freedom
Press. [Analyzes the law in 54 U.S. jurisdictions]; see, e.g., Bowers v.
DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir. 1982) [no federal constitutional right
to police protection.]

           11 Kleck, Gary and Gertz, Marc. 1995. Armed Resistance to Crime:
The Prevalence and Nature of Self- Defense with a Gun. Journal of Criminal
Law & Criminology. Vol. 86 (Fall), pp. 150-187.

           12 Simkin, Jay, Zelman, Aaron, and Rice, Alan M. 1994. Lethal
Laws. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

           13 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton 1994, p. 433.

           14 Brenner 1973, p. 85.

           15 Veith, Gene Edward, Jr. 1993. Modern m: Liquidating the
Judeo-Christian Worldview. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing. Pp. 39-40 [ m
exalts nature, animals and environment].

           16 Japenga, A. 1994. Would I Be Safer with a Gun? Health.
March/April, p. 54.

           17 Brenner 1973, p. 92.

           18 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 219.

           19 American Psychiatric Association. 1994. Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. P. 410.

           20 Lott 1998, pp. 11-12.

           21 Most American gun owners are not violent criminals and will
not be potential killers. "The vast majority of persons involved in
life-threatening violence have a long criminal record and many prior
contacts with the justice system." Elliott, Delbert S. 1998. Life
Threatening Violence is Primarily a Crime Problem: A Focus on Prevention.
University of Colorado Law Review. Vol. 69 (Fall), pp. 1081-1098, at 1093.

           22 Sowell, Thomas. 2000. Blacks and bootstraps. Jewish World
Review (Aug.14). http://www.jewishworldreview.com

           23x Wein, Rabbi Berel. 2000. The return of a Torah scroll and
confronting painful memories. Jewish World Review (July 12).

           24 Dworkin, Andrea. "Terror, Torture and Resistance".
http://www.igc.org/Womensnet/dworkin/TerrorTortureandResistance.html

           25 Mfume, Kweisi, speech at the 90th annual NAACP meeting, July
12, 1999.
http://www.naacp.org/president/speeches/90th%20Annual%20Meeting.htm

           26 Yoffie, Rabbi Eric H. Speech supporting the Million Mom
March, May 14, 2000. http://uahc.org/yoffie/mmm.html

           27 "If someone comes to kill you, arise quickly and kill him."
The Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin. 1994. The Schottenstein Edition. New York:
Mesorah Publications. Vol. 2, 72a.

           28 Rape and Sexual Assault, Dean of Students Office for Women's
Resources and Services McKinley Health Education Dept., University Police,
University of Illinois; Hazelwood, R. R. & Harpold, J. 1986. Rape: The
Dangers of Providing Confrontational Advice, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
Vol. 55, pp. 1-5.

           29 Lott 1998, pp. 78, 134-37.

           30 Frank, Jerome D. 1961. Persuasion and Healing. The Johns
Hopkins Press. Pp. 216-217.

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From: "-L." <gentleboa@peacemail.com>

Cause you're the loudmouth that thinks that the
only opinion that matters is yours. And, quite honestly,
your fondness, and support, for violent criminals is
very offensive.
You are totally lacking in capacity for rational thought,
as your inability to muster an intelligent response
illustrates. You have a chip on your shoulder the size
of a truck. You're telling Candace to walk into a battle
that, by your own admission, you would lack the character
to fight yourself. As an avid Chess player, I enjoy
maneuvering an individual into an indefensible position.
And I am enjoying watching you try to squirm your way
out of answering my question......Poorly, I might add.
Should I continue?

True!

My understanding is that you weren't any good
at that, either.
(Ok, it's a cheap shot and I debated posting it,
but then I remembered that you were the queen
of cheap shots...so I left it in.)

Actually, I think it would be good for you to put
on some shoes and get out of the house once
in a while.....and maybe stay out of the kitchen
for a few months.

And trying once again......How would you
handle it?

there was a movie about this.
only thing, the intruder cut the wires and
trapped them in the "Panic Room"

pot of hot grease, I can see you keeping the fry daddy hot just for such an
occasion..."ill deep fry your a.s muffu"

just kidding!

--

people who break in during the day figure no one is home, but in this case,
woman and child, he knew they was there.
however and Especially at night. they know people are home and are ready to
hurt the owner.

i have often figured I would shoot their kneecaps off, bind them, rob them,
then call the police. (im an oppurtunist)

I have heard of cases where the robber sued the owner for personal injury
AND WON

I would also not wait for them to get past the threshold, (if i heard them
trying to force a door) I would open the door, draw a bead on them, compell
them to come in the house, ("naw naw naw! come on in...I said get to
stepping") mak'em CLEAN my  house, WASH my clothes, BATHE my cats, CLEAN the
litter box, CHANGE the oil in my vehicle, and shine my shoes. When it's all
said and done, I'd bust a cap in their a.s, bind them, gag them, rob them,
then call the police, and rescue. "Hurry! I just shot an intruder! I was
taking a nap and they was standing over me!"

police will tell me... "wow, you sure keep a nice place Miami"... I'll wink
and say, "Thank you officer, a mans home is his castle".

i'll probably slap the intruder in the back of the head as they bring him
past me, they'll have to restrain me...