The Last Refuge for Hate: Gun HateAuthor seeks to add hoplophobia to DSM, the official directory of mental ailments
by Alan Korwin, Author
Gun Laws of America
Email has been flooded recently with links to the Dept. of Justice study, just released, that unambiguously finds the right to keep and bear arms belongs to individual people.
The 214-year-old American right to keep and bear arms does not protect some sort of collective, or assembled militias, or armed forces, or a right of the states. Those newly minted arguments are now off the table, wiped out, dead. RKBA is a right you and I have as individuals. Ive gotten the link a dozen times already, you may have too, and if not, here it is:
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm (main conclusions excerpted at end of this report)
However, since the bulk of resistance to the American right to arms has its roots in a medical condition, no amount of history, legal analysis, precedent, logic or argument will resolve the issue.
People who are terrified of and hate guns -- hoplophobes -- dont care about anything rational, and we waste our time on such arguments. They want guns to go away. They dont trust guns. They dont trust people who have guns, and especially people who like guns. The only exception is official people with guns, meaning, theyre from the government, a source of relief.
I know, I know, thats irrational. But thats the nature of the disease, and it will not be fixed by DOJ reports.
The more intelligent of the hoplophobes may give up their you-have-no-rights argument due to the DOJ report, but it wont stop them one bit.
They will seize on anything else, because hoplophobia is an irrational fear. Conveniently, the language of the report itself says that the limits of this individual right have not been clearly defined.
To a hoplophobe, that means your right to arms can be legally limited to a single gun, with a single round, that does not operate, and is locked away, with government holding the key. And even that leaves them nervous.
We dont need more arguments or some DOJ paper that finds what we already know and have exercised for two centuries. Oh, I guess the intellectuals on our side will make some use of it, and it may have some positive effects in some courts.
What we really need is research and medical-treatment programs for the poor, unfortunate people who are terrified of guns, wont go near guns, who would not defend themselves or their families if they had to, and who, very plainly, hate guns.
Hate is a terrible thing.
It must be confronted vigorously, righteously, and in a forthright manner. Logic and law do not confront hate, or help lessen it. We must learn not to tolerate gun hate, anywhere we find it.
Hoplophobic behavior in government, schools, and all facets of public life must be recognized for what it is, exposed, and rooted out or treated. Seemingly utopian pacifists are free to profess their love of a weapon-free world, but they must start by disarming the evil, criminal and tyrannical. Disarming the general public is a vent for their twisted fear and hatred, a grotesque affront to freedom, and unacceptable.
Guns save lives. Guns stop crime. Guns are why America is still free. The history of freedom is inextricably tied to the development of weapons (an interesting study, by the way, if you have the time to examine it). Good people need guns. Efforts to end that are immoral and unjust, and when done by government, is a direct failure to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Thats a violation of the oath of office, which should lead to removal from office and possibly even criminal charges.
The people we elect or hire for public service should be screened for latent or overt gun hatred, and disqualified if such hatred is found, before it can do any more harm to our nation and its values.
It is well past the time when the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the catalog of recognized mental infirmities, includes hoplophobia, in all its forms, and serious medical research is conducted to identify and treat this pernicious condition that threatens us all. The doctors among you should begin raising this issue. If youre not a doctor but have one or two, ask them about it.
The opponents of gun rights come in four fundamental categories:
Utopian Idealists - Dreamers willing to ignore human nature (anger, hostility, temper, greed, lust, hunger, poverty, want, megalomania, social pathologies, etc.) in the vain hope for a world where no one ever needs to defend themselves or others; Result: misguided efforts to disarm the public since no one should ever be capable of exerting lethal force for any reason. Fairly rare.
Routine Bigots - Ignorant gun haters who, generally, have never actually seen a real gun much less fired one, and hate what they dont know; strong corollaries with race haters; Result: Vigorous anti-rights profile if left alone, however they often resolve their blind hatred when education removes the ignorance -- frequent anecdotes of such folks converting after their first time at a range. Quite common.
Hoplophobes -- Unfortunate souls afflicted with a phobic terror of firearms, deserving of pity, and in need of medical attention; Result: Though they should never be involved in setting policy on self defense, national security, or Second Amendment rights, they often insinuate themselves into such positions, their need for treatment goes unattended, and they cause grevious social harm. Easily mistaken for plain bigotry. Too common.
Power Mongers - Like some at the U.N or many anti-gun-rights politicians, they know full well that an armed public interferes with their plans, and they insidiously use lies about the gun issue, and disarmament (of you but not them) as a road to peace as a power base and source of support; Result: truly evil, tyrannts who ultimately suppress human rights, contribute to global genocides, live an elite lifestyle, care not for their fellow citizens. Rare but extremely dangerous.
Bottom line:
Its nice that the DOJ report came out. The battle however lies elsewhere.
Alan.
DOJ CONCLUSIONS: (from 125-page report)
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and to bear arms...
...our examination of the original meaning of the Amendment provides extensive reasons to conclude that the Second Amendment secures an individual right, and no persuasive basis for either the collective-right or quasi-collective-right views.
The text of the Amendment's operative clause, setting out a "right of the people to keep and bear Arms," is clear and is reinforced by the Constitution's structure.
The Amendment's prefatory clause, properly understood, is fully consistent with this interpretation.
The broader history of the Anglo-American right of individuals to have and use arms, from England's Revolution of 1688-1689 to the ratification of the Second Amendment a hundred years later, leads to the same conclusion.
Finally, the first hundred years of interpretations of the Amendment, and especially the commentaries and case law in the pre-Civil War period closest to the Amendment's ratification, confirm what the text and history of the Second Amendment require.
"My own view on gun control is simple: I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anybody would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned." --Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Harvard School of Public Health
http://www.armedfemalesofamerica.com/crosshairs/hoplophobia.htm
