Years ago when I was teaching an “understanding violence” course in the military I told the students a couple of things.
1. Forget any and all “education” you have received from T.V., video games, and movies. These forms of entertainment are NOT REAL. Not real means they are false in whatever they teach. Some are actually accurate, most are not. Remember the old cowboy movies where the “6 shooter” never ran out of ammunition? We all joke about that now. Because it was laughable. Well so is hiding behind a car door when someone is shooting at you. Also, do not believe the media about guns. Most are woefully wrong. Sadly, like movies and entertainment, some reporters don’t go to the right source for their gun information. Most don’t really bother even researching. Some things on the internet are biased or wrong. So where do you get your information about guns? Believe it or not, the NRA is a good source. I’m not talking about opinion of gun rights, even though I do feel they are a good authority. The NRA knows guns and gun safety. They know the difference between clips and magazines. They do have an agenda, preserving gun rights. But their knowledge of guns surpasses any organization I’ve ever heard of. Certainly over any anti-gun organization.
2. There is little sense in being afraid of an inanimate object. Some people, even in the military, are afraid of guns. It’s as silly as being afraid of a chain saw. Both can be dangerous or deadly, but only the gun has something attached to it that scares people. My Mother grew up on a farm yet she was scared of guns. What quells that fear is education. Actual hands-on education is the best.
There is a quote from a professor who perpetuated this fear at the University of Kansas.
“Try to forget I’m wearing a bulletproof vest and I’ll try to forget that you could be packing a .44 Magnum,” the professor told students.
What a rube. Fear shows great ignorance. There’s nothing wrong with ignorance as long as you are trying to change that ignorance with education. If you are happy with you ignorance, I’d call that stupid. This professor wasn’t trying to change his or others fears, he was feeding them. Actually he probably just has an agenda and is trying to get concealed carry on his campus removed. The thing is, he doesn’t know the discomfort of wearing a vest all day. I wonder if he wears that vest today? I seriously doubt it. But I’ll bet someone in his class is still carrying concealed though.
If someone is serious about not being afraid of guns then they would be actively trying to change that. I’m not saying they should become gun lovers, but just trying to get over a fear of a thing. It comes down to this, there are people who don’t like guns and don’t like people who do like them. They don’t like the people. That’s pretty sad. I think abortion is wrong but I don’t hate the people that are pro-abortion. I’d just like to change their minds.
Years ago I met a great gun advocate named Jeff Cooper. He was a wonderful guy and a real friend of gun rights and gun owners. Jeff talked about something that is real, hoplophpobia. This is the irrational fear of weapons. The whole thing hinges on the word “irrational”. Having a fear of a thing that has no life, that cannot harm you except when used by a living person, is irrational. If I had an irrational fear like that I would want to change that. The problem is, many of those fears are displayed in political ways adding to the hysteria. I don’t have a problem with someone having a political view that doesn’t match my own, but when you add an irrational fear with that, it makes the whole political view look irrational! Add to that, ignorance of guns and their gun terms and how they operate and you have what I see as a large part of the difficulty between gun people and anti-gun people trying to work out their differences. I have talked to people that sound so ridicules that I end up laughing at them. I don’t really mean to but they sound so silly. I wish that we could have an intelligent debate about guns but I have such a hard time trying to take someone serious who is irrational.
I also have such a problem with children, teenagers, trying to change legislation. I have no problem with them having an opinion, but why would I listen to them over anyone else? They are referred to as “children” all the time. They are irritating teenagers. They are not children. I find it difficult to take seriously kids that are so obviously coached and want to change just gun laws. They don’t seem to be interested in securing our schools. They talk of being traumatized during a shooting but all they talk about is guns. This myopic view of a real problem angers me. Why do they not want secure schools? Mainstream media has made these obnoxious kids their little darlings. This alone ruins their credibility. These kids also show their ignorance of guns in their demands. The March for Our Lives list of changes that they want reads like Nancy Palosi legislation. I can tell you for a fact that limiting magazines to 10 rounds will not change anything. This is how I know they have no knowledge of guns. Anyone who does know that changing 10 round magazines is a 2 second problem. The original M-16 in Viet Nam came with a 10 round mag. And their idea of weapons of war is ludicrous. Shotguns were used in Viet Nam so I guess they are banned with AR’s. Their holophobia is showing. Their immaturity shows in the way they present themselves. The same rhetoric that comes from many anti-gunners comes from these kids. They profess to care. So why are they not demanding security in schools? I’m not talking about arming teachers, although I advocate such a thing. I’m talking about making a school a hard target. This is why I don’t take these kids seriously. They are only another bunch of ignorant anti-gunners.
People with irrational fears of guns express those fears in several ways. They may imagine guns as having lives of their own. They think a gun will jump off the dark shelf and attack on its own.
These exaggerations can seem funny to gun owners. Many of us take our friends shooting. We start them with low powered .22 rimfire weapons. These come in every size from child to adult. If they want more, there are mid-power firearm such as the .223. Originally designed to shoot small pests, this rifle throws a light bullet with little recoil. It can fit most adults when outfitted with an adjustable stock.
Perhaps you caught on: we’ve just described the dreaded “assault rifle”.. as well as dozens of other firearms we’ve had for a hundred years. The hoplophobe sees them as death-dealing murder machines, though it remains a “girl’s round” to many of us. Unfortunately, hoplophobia doesn’t end there.
Condemnation plays an important part in their battle against irrational fear. The more strongly they exaggerate the power of firearms, the more energetic their attacks against gun and gun owners, the less they feel controlled by their fear. They empower the monster in order to vanquish it. That sounds irrational to most of us, but hoplophobes can’t address firearms logically because of the overwhelming irrationality of their relationship to these devices of plastic and metal.
If someone realizes that they are a hoplophobe they need not worry. The key to this is not medication, counseling, or shock treatment, the key is education. Find out about weapons, not just guns, but several kinds of weapons. Find out about violence. I can teach anyone how to be accurate with a gun. But dealing with violence is a much more difficult thing to teach. If you’ve never experienced violence in any form (intentional or accidental), then it’s a hard thing to understand without the experience to reference. Learning about fear and violence is something that everyone should know. A few books that I would recommend that may help are:
“On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society” By: Dave Grossman and “The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence” By: Gavin de Becker. You can find both of these on Amazon.
These fears need to be faced in ourselves and others. Only then can we make healthy decisions and live safer, less fearful lives.
Semper Paratus
Check 6
Burn
No comments:
Post a Comment