Why are firearms feared?

[nammac]

So perhaps the litmus test for politicians is to determine if they are hoplophobic before they are allowed to be sworn in...

If they turn out to be hoplophobic, "Sorry, you do not meet the established requirements to hold this office", and are turned away...

I like that idea... That'd be utopia...

 

[Joe13]

Whatever clinical term it gets labeled (the DMS book changes every few years) my point wasn't that there are not people that are truly afraid of a firearm.

I assume victims of violence with guns or children raised in homes where one of the adults were victims at some point and have beat it into the kids head that firearms are gonna kill you will be afraid.

(True Story: my dad had an infant brother only a couple of years younger then he was that choked on something and died. He was too young to remember it but for some reason my grandmother retold the story of the baby dying so many times and so often that even now as an adult if someone coughs around my dad he is visibly startled - in a family gathering he would actually get up and go check on the person. The above is what I guess I'll refer to as conditioning and believe that it most likely happens with guns as well (what percentage I have no idea).)

Other then those traumatized by an event or directly related to it, I have a difficult time believing that a rational adult (or child) couldn't be shown in a very short time that guns are perfectly safe with minimal instruction (don't point the muzzle at anything you don't want to shoot & and keep your finger out of the trigger guard will do it for most folks).

 

[The Heretic]

Whatever clinical term it gets labeled (the DMS book changes every few years) my point wasn't that there are not people that are truly afraid of a firearm.

I don't believe it is in the DMS. There is some controversy about whether this is an actual clinically recognized phobia or not. I am sure there are a few people out there who have a fear of firearms that could be classified as a phobia, but for most people who "fear" firearms, I don't believe it approaches the level of a phobia.

It is convenient for us to label a simple "fear" of firearms as a phobia, but for most people it is more of a political/philosophical belief than it is anything that approaches a phobia.

 

[Ura-Ki]

People who are "armed" have historically been a relatively low percentage of any one group of people! If you look back through history and cultures, the large majority of people were not of the "hunters" part of hunting and gathering, they were part of the farming or child rearing, or crafting, or bartering, or traders. Society at large needed these people to help provide food as well as protection and were generally held in hi esteem among the people. Many were wise old hunters who had braved many encounters with dangerous beasts! Fast forward to today, and people forget that the "hunters" among us are still here, and while we no longer have to hunt and provide for each other as part of a community, our community has forgotten us, cast us down, and declared us unnecessary in modern society. Our needs and desires no longer matter to the greater society and so they think we no longer need the tools for which were not long before found indispensable, and the skills to use them. The large percentage of people think guns and gun ownership is unnecessary in this new world of convenience we live in, and so they shun what they don't believe in, and turn a def ear on when it comes up. Add in the MSM reporting of events, especially events that further this attitude and we have what we now have! People conveniently forget that the Britts gave up much of there gun rights for this reason, and during WW2 had to beg the U.S. for any and all small arms they could get. No one was building any numbers and the factories were not capable of ramping up quick enough to meet this need! Many of those so called European Progressive Utopias found them selves begging for any arms they could get when the Nazi's came marching! 'Merica answered!

 

[tac]

'People conveniently forget that the Britts gave up much of there gun rights for this reason...'

Sorry, but the 'Britts' [whoever they might be - are you confusing them with the citizens of the United Kingdom?] did NOT have any 'gun rights' to give up. After the mass evacuation of Dunkirk had taken place, the UK faced a clear and obvious shortage of military arms of all kinds, so that the home defence forces had to give up their issue weapons to replace them until the armaments factories, which were being bombed on a daily/nightly basis, BTW, could ramp up to production. Much of that shortfall was made up by the generosity of Americans, who, at that time, were watching the action over here from the safety of three thousand miles of ocean, and under skies empty of the Luftwaffe.

Please do some research before engaging in trite Brit-knocking - a favourite but unpleasant sport on this otherwise friendly site.

tac

 

[PaulB47]

Hmmm, sounds like both posts said essentially the same thing.

As to Americans watching the action in safety, that is what happens when you mind your own business. We were wrong to join "The War to Save Josef Stalin" anyway - not the least because America is far more German than it is English, demographically speaking. Just a repeat of the mistake in joining the allies in WWI. The rulers make the wars, and the peons get to fight them...

 

[Ura-Ki]

And I wasn't bashin Brits, That what we Americans call citizens of the whole of the British Empire! Notice the Empire part. We 'Mericans don't live "Over There", and so we don't have a lot information of the laws and such or the fire arms restrictions or whats what. Sorry to have offended you good sir! What would you like us to call you if not British?

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

And then there's this: The Seattle media are reporting three shootings from last night (Friday 4/22 into Saturday). One, on Capitol Hill left behind about 40 shell casings in the street, but only one slightly-grazed person who didn't go to the hospital.
The other two had more serious consequences.

That's from one night.

The country has a compulsive-obsessive love/hate relationship with guns. Look at the movies and TV shows that routinely, I mean every day, every night, have people aiming guns at each other. It's so epidemic, it's become blandly routine, and that's sick.

Try this: for today only, notice the promos for tonight's upcoming shows.

They make it so delicious, people can't look away. Murder as entertainment!

Parents leave their kids in care of an electronic baby-sitter: the TV. So the kids become numb to the pretend violence; and when they get old enough go out armed, thinking that shooting people is normal, maybe exciting, maybe fun, they give it a try. They don't realize until it's too late that it's not fun, and it's permanent. Real dead people don't spring back to life after the commercial break. A 25-to-life prison sentence doesn't end at the top of the hour.

For most people who don't live a life that places them in real situations, (home, car, office, car, home) the retina of their mind's eye is the TV screen. The brain perceives what it sees on TV as raw experience. Therefore television IS reality, and reality- is less than television.

It can't be overstated the damage that TV and movies are causing, from their sociopathic programming to their reality-distorting so-called news coverage.

When I look back on it, how lucky people my age were, to be kids when there was no TV at all; or if there was a TV in the house it had one channel which went off the air at 10 and stayed off

until 8am.

When I was a a kid TV stated at 4pm and for the first 7 years of my life had no idea what a TV set was. Every kid in the neighborhood was armed to the teeth with toy guns in the 50's-60's, we had no illusions as to what a real gun could do as we shot real ones and were strictly drilled on gun safety and appropriate behavior with real firearms. Any transgressions were swiftly and sternly dealt with by our parents.

 

[Medic!]

Fear of guns is just stupid and irrational.

Now FEAR OF CLOWNS! That's a real thing!

 

[Boboclown]

Now FEAR OF CLOWNS! That's a real thing!

Hey now... I'm not THAT scary...

 

[The Heretic]

Fear of guns is just stupid and irrational.

Fear, irrationality and stupidity == human nature

 

[Andy54Hawken]

I hear ya Medic. I have never liked clowns.
They are way too over the top for me.
Once when I was around eight years old , my aunt took me to the circus.
One clown was out and about interacting with the crowd.
Twice he came my way , both times I remember telling him to leave me alone.
The third time he came around me , I punched him as hard as I could.
I do hope I didn't give him a fear of kids , LOL , but damn leave a kid alone when he tells you.
Andy