Menatl Illness and the anti gunners

mental health note
Date: Apr 24, 2007 10:06 PM
From: National Association of Medical Examiners [
<NAME-L@LISTSERV.EMORY.EDU>; NAME-L@LISTSERV.EMORY.EDU] On
Behalf Of Steven Cogswell
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 11:06 AM
To: NAME-L@LISTSERV.EMORY.EDU
Subject: Re: Fwd: mental health note

Actually, the "collective mental illness" at work here is yours. It's
called
"hoplophobia": the irrational fear of weapons. It's characterized
by the
magical thinking that an inanimate object not only has a will of its own,
but that it can force otherwise rational people into irrational and evil
acts. Coupled with an arrogantly elitist and totally unwarranted sense of
smug moral and cultural superiority (evidenced by the use of dismissive
pejoratives like "redneck"), there is often psychological projection on
the
part of those afflicted, frequently manifested by statements like, "It's
a
good thing I didn't have a gun today on the way to work; I would have blown
away that jerk who cut me off". The hoplophobe believes that, because he
would have behaved badly if he had been armed, and because others are
inferior to him in intelligence and culture, QED: it is dangerous for anyone
to be armed. That t hey th emselves are mentally defective never enters
their minds.
Hoplophobes also (bizarrely enough) suffer from the delusion that all people
are inherently good, that no one is just plain evil; irrationally enough,
they believe that, if societal predators did not possess firearms, those
predators would have no impetus to evil: they would get a job, stop selling
and using drugs, be nice to everyone, and become productive members of
society. To compound the irrationality, hoplophobes somehow are able to
believe that there is a "special" class of people who are unaffected by
the
evil aura of firearms. They call these "special" people "police and
the
military".
The hoplophobic belief system is akin to a herd of sheep, who cluster
together and think happy thoughts to keep the wolves away. When it doesn't
work, they bleat and mill about, but can't (and don't) actually do anything
to prevent wolves preying on them. Fortunately, there are sheepdogs, who are
white and fluffy and look like sheep, but are strong and fast and have
fangs. Wolves fear sheepdogs, and the very presence of sheepdogs makes them
much more cautious. When the wolf does attack, he may kill one or 2 sheep,
but the sheepdog stops him from wreaking wholesale slaughter. Unfortunately,
sheep aren't particularly bright, and are unable to tell the difference
between wolves and sheepdogs: after all, they both have those big scary
fangs. Sheep believe themselves to be morally and culturally superior to
anything with fangs, and want everything with big scary fangs to go away,
thus allowing the sheep to all graze peacefully on the hillside, drinking C
oke an d singing Kumbaya. The wolves don't care what the sheep think, so the
sheep content themselves with making the sheepdogs' lives miserable. When
the sheepdogs get disgusted and move to Texas, the sheep congratulate
themselves on no longer having big scary fangs in their midst. Then comes
the wolf. In the aftermath of the slaughter, the sheep bleat to each other
that fangs are bad and should be totally outlawed, and wolves should learn
to eat grass and not be mean and hurt anyone.
The hoplophobic mindset is irrational, delusional, dangerous and,
ultimately, self-destructive. However, since it thrives in an atmosphere of
collectivism, socialism and abnegation of personal responsibility, few of
those so affected choose to correct it.

Cogswell


-------------- Original message --------------

From: Dimitri Contostavlos <drcontostavlos@HOTMAIL.COM>

> How about when a nation is suffering from collective mental illness in

> regard to failing to recognize that uncontrolled personal handgun
possession

> imposes unacceptable danger to self or others, as acknowleged by every

> civilized nation except ours ?




The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !