We know morbid gun fear – hoplophobia – drives gun-control advocates to invent mythical gun problems, and use these myths in gun-control campaigns.
These folks need to recognize they have a problem and seek treatment. They don’t. One telltale symptom of hoplophobia is adamant denial. They sublimate their fears into politics where they do immeasurable harm instead of into needed treatment and intervention.
Because these well-meaning folks typically don’t own or use guns, the ideas they dream up or support bear little resemblance to actual problems. They delay our arrival at solutions.
Their output, though often compelling and delivered with great force (crimes of passion! remember that old one?), are classic projections of their baseless fears, picked up and trumpeted without research or due diligence, and society ends up in an endless loop.
We introduce pointless—or worse—harmful bills, then meet ferocious resistance from decent innocent Americans who rightly feel assaulted. At the recent presidential town hall, Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu asked how the president’s proposals would stop jihadis or spree murderers. Obama changed subjects without answering—because the proposals wouldn’t have stopped crimes.
Infringing on the rights of people not causing problems won’t solve the problem. The “other side” doesn’t get this, or the resistance it provokes.
The gun mythologies we face from the untreated fearful and the news media are legendary and familiar. Making it worse, the evil and the power hungry use these fears, and manipulate useful idiots (Vladimir Lenin’s term), in time-honored traditions used by every tyrant throughout history.
So what are these gun myths already?
You’ll remember them — Step into the Wayback Machine.
Start here—THE “BITS” MYTH—Blood In The Streets:
“OMG, if people have permits to secretly carry loaded guns in public we’ll have blood in the streets like Dodge City. People will shoot slow waiters and each other at stop lights and turn simple arguments into gunfights and the guns could even just go off!”
All 50 states now have carry rights restored, at least marginally. BITS is a proven myth. The reason liberals and gun haters believe in BITS is because they have such insecure mentality themselves that if they were armed they might be tempted to snap and act that way. It’s classic and documented—they project their unfounded but strongly felt fears onto others in classic psychological projections, virtually paranoid delusion at a neurotic level.
It is now amply clear that people who see fit to arm themselves—by the millions—do not act out this way. As every single state in the Union came on line, this exact BITS myth was adamantly proposed, irrationally amplified by politicians and the media, until the programs were implemented. The foolishness was proven false, society moved forward and crime “inexplicably” dropped.
Arm the public, crime drops, go figure. Pundits claim they’re mystified. No apologies or corrections were issued for the fear mongering and discriminatory rights denial that preceded carry-rights restoration. Someone should have faced arrest for all that abuse.
We are going through yet another round of the same thing, as Constitutional Carry sweeps the nation, with eight states now on board, and 23 with bills introduced or considering it.
Constitutional Carry simply restores the right to bear arms without government interference, sort of the way you own books—no test, forms, taxes, renewals, prior approvals, no registration or application of any kind, no FBI list. Just simple ownership of property, and laws that severely punish misuse of the property, in law for centuries. Adequate training and caution are left up to the individual, like knives and power tools. What a concept in a free society.
THE NEXT MYTHS: Dum dums, cop killers, armed pilots, so much more, the left gives us grist!
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Alan Korwin is the author of 14 books, 10 of them on gun law. His book After You Shoot examines ways to lower your risks after a self-defense shooting. He has been invited twice to observe oral argument in gun cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. Reach him at GunLaws.com, where he is the publisher of Bloomfield Press.