Raging Against Self Defense !, page 1

I have been pondering this problem with people who believe that self defense is someone else's responsibility! That only the police and military should be allowed to own or carry firearms. In my research I came upon this article and found it interesting in its scope and in it's depth! I knew some of the reasons given but, here on ATS, I have heard so many opinions. Some informed others kneejerk on the subject. I hope many here take the time to read it. Specially those who still believe there is no reason for Americans or any other countries citizens to have the rights we here in the US have. Please, when responding, give us your opinion. Not those talking points of the anti-firearms groups.

Zindo



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 © 2000 Sarah Thompson, MD
Published by
Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (262) 673-9745
www.jpfo.org

Excerpt:

Raging Against Self Defense:
A Psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality
By Sarah Thompson, M.D.
righter@therighter.com


"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.
2:
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 so that the projector believes the gun itself will murder him.

4:
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.

7:
To 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.)

More at the LINK!

reply to post by ZindoDoone

---

I'm with you. It is fear and lack of self-confidence I think. I know a lot of people that are anti-self defense and it seems to stem from a world view where there is them, the hip socialist, and everyone else, the Walmart shoppers. They distrust and despise the Walmart shpppers and think they are all ignorant low-IQ rednecks that would shoot one another over any number of innocent confrontations and therefore they are more likely to be shot by a law abiding civilian than by an actual criminal.

Of course, knowing the guy I sort of agreed with him - he certainly had more to fear from law abiding Americans.

reply to post by Janky Red

---

If it were that simple there would be no need to fight the anti-firearm attacks we see every day here in the US and the world. It's people so scared of their fellow citizens who refuse to become victims of the scum our government keeps turning back into the streets. They are the ones that have so loudly proclaimed their rights to be safe from the law abiding but expect to be protected 24/7. An idea that can never be accomplished!
Zindo

reply to post by Myrddin Wyllt

---

"My instructor has a favorite saying when asked about what to do when facing a "life threatening" situation...... "BETTER TO BE EXPLAINING TO TWELVE, THAN LYING UNDER SIX!".... and I couldn't agree more."

Here, that saying is "Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six!" The comments here are about what I expected. Those from Europe or the Pacific Rim, are in dire need of revamping their government as much as we are here. Common rights of citizens to protect themselves should be paramount to a free society. You'd think the damned bureaucrats would realize that live tax payers are needed not dead or injured and infirmed victims. It is better for the countries they live in.

Zindo


[edit on 5/2/2010 by ZindoDoone]

Resurrecting this thread. It's time again.

Here is the link from the OP in case you want to know what's going on.


www.vcdl.org...

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