GUN CONTROL DEBATE

The gun control debate should be based on understanding the three fundamental contributing factors:

1. Self-protection

2. Trust

3. Hierarchy dominance  

Handling these three factors is like juggling three unequal sized balls. They are unequal because each person values each contributing factor differently, in some cases markedly so. Failure to appreciate the extremes in variation of personalities has complicated the problem beyond belief. Each extreme trying to dominate has allowed the gun control debate to get totally out of hand.

Self-protection is hard to define unless we talk about protection from what. Examine the people who are gun owners: some have pistols in bedside tables, some hunting guns in a cabinet; others have assault rifles in the trunk of their cars, etc. In addition, some own one gun while others own multiple weapons; others even own grenades.  The NRA cry is “the only way we can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”.  Except for those who use their guns for target practice or hunting, the prime reason advanced for gun ownership is self-protection, which is the first ball juggled in the discussion. This ranges from a pistol in a bedside table to assault rifles, which depends on the demons one finds in the head of the owners. Therefore, reasons for gun ownership range from home invasion to protecting payroll, from fear of a neighbor to fear of the government; small wonder there is such a range in choices of weapons.

Counter to the self-preservation argument is that in a civilized society, that police, security personnel, or bodyguards (secret service if you are the president) protect you and yours. At the national level, the army, navy, and marines do the protecting. This introduces the second ball, “trust”, into the discussion. There are many instances of failures in trust at all levels of institutionalize agencies of protection; homes and business are robbed, politicians are assassinated, and countries are invaded. Unfortunately, the failure of the institutions of protection is often not to enhance security but to do just the opposite, almost as if they do not realize the size of the task they seem to want to take upon themselves. You hear again the NRA express this in the form of “the only way we can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. The fallacious idea being implied is that a good guy with a gun will protect everyone around him or her from the bad guy.  However, this myth segues into the third ball in the juggle; the question of the part hierarchy dominance plays in the gun debate.

The idea is that the “John Wayne type” individual, the person with the gun, will save the poor and oppressed. This is the fundamental basis of the conservative idol myth, the Marlborough Cowboy. The tough guy, always the big good-looking guy, who will get down off this horse and thump you if you do not right.  Obviously, the thing that is wrong is that the cowboy’s idea of what and right is never shared with the guy getting thumped. Part of the myth is that the guy with the gun should be respected; an argument that falls apart when the bad guy is the guy with the gun, which is exactly the case in mass shooting. Apparently, many of these people confuse fear with respect. They have failed to gain the respect of their peers in everyday life. To compensate, they buy and use, show display, wear guns, lots and lots of them, the bigger the better.

Gun control will not be easy. I feel that we can never hope to keep all three balls in the air at the same time with out dropping one or two. Those who follow firetreepub.blogspot.com know that I have repeatedly declared that self-protection, trust, and hierarchy dominance are deeply embedded in our personalities through genetic synergy. As such, to argue against such firmly held beliefs is like trying to argue against smoking to a nicotine addict. Therefore, the only way to keep the balls in the air is to argue the middle of the road by give and take. Work to develop trust in institutionalized agencies while pointing out that their peers will respect them the most if they are law-abiding citizens and disrespect them if their only claim is that they are gun-owning rogues.