Guns and Fear

Gun advocates make a case against legislating based on "feelings", and claim we cannot instate gun regulation based on fear. Yet people want to have their rights to own guns protected by law precisely because of fear. In fact, protection is now the biggest justification for gun ownership, according to recent studies. So, most gun purchases are motivated by fear. People want to protect themselves, and are psychologically prepared to use armed force in fear, and they want this fear and its physical manifestation to be enshrined in law - the very thing gun nuts claim to be legally and logistically impossible. We even have people arguing the case for more guns based on a different fear, fear of government: "Obama's coming for our guns".

What we're in the midst of is a civic arms race of sorts; one primarily fuelled by fear. Fear IS the problem. It's the biggest psychological root cause of the gun obsession, and it's a problem nobody is discussing. Instead, the debate constantly gets distorted into mental illness being the biggest concern, based on a black-and-white interpretation of the diagnosis. "It's not me, I'm not the problem, it's all the crazies out there". But mental illness is a sliding scale. If you're prepared to arm yourself in preparation for a projected attack, you are already suffering from a form of mental illness: it's called paranoia. And paranoia and fear mean the exact same thing in the gun context: they are incredibly dangerous when coupled with tools of mass manslaughter because, as the gun nuts themselves argue, people don't act rationally when they're fearful, and irrational behavior together with lethal weaponry spells death. So, what we should actually be wary of is fear-based gun ownership, not fear-based desire to rid society of guns.

The bottom line is, you can't get rid of the fear without getting rid of the guns. Adding more guns to the mix will just amp up the fearfulness; criminals will bring bigger guns to their next B&E endeavor, which will make victims even more fearful. I don't understand why that would be something to strive for, or why it shouldn't - and couldn't - be legislated against. Our laws determine what kind of society we want to build; how we ensure the safety and continued productivity of our citizens; which kinds of behaviors we find acceptable, and which we find destructive, and therefore seek to mitigate through the application of law. We have financial laws in place to try to stave off financial panic (or at least we used to); gun legislation is just another instance of where laws are needed to combat irrational and de-stabilizing behavior. Feelings of trust in the law are essential to a stable society, and so you could argue that ALL laws serve an emotional purpose, because they would be meaningless if they didn't inspire confidence and trust.

It may seem like a redundant statement, but it's really hard for a society to be stable and safe if it's citizens are gripped by paranoia. If they believe that any stranger could be a killer, with a potentially concealed weapon. If they therefore continue to arm themselves, and in turn escalate the paranoia even further.

This is a psychological spiral from which there is no recovery, until we stop stoking the fearful fire that fuels it.