Fox News has a feature called the Mind of the News. I know, right? How hard could it have been to come-up a catchier title than that? I’d go with Nuts About The News. But that’s me. Anyway, Dr. Keith Ablow shares his shrink slant on today’s headlines. What’s this? A Brown University graduate who’s pro-gun? As an ADHD obsessive compulsive blogger, I wonder if I should have put that hyphen between come and up, and why the word “the” isn’t capitalized in Ablow’s blog. Again, that’s me. But at least I can claim that my gun collection is proof of my maturity—after reading the analysis below. I’m armed, you’re armed. And it’s OK. Apparently . . .
The right to bear arms is a critical component of feeling competent and autonomous as individuals, rather than relying on the goodwill of a super-powerful, unassailable government. A disarmed population is, by definition, a population that has completely ceded the power to defend its homes against local, state or federal authorities. This implies a level of trust much more consistent with that which children have for parents than that which thinking adults have for the institutions they have created to perform vital functions like defending the nation, keeping the peace, maintaining schools and providing clean water.
disarmed population is allowed the toxic luxury of feeling as though our way of life and our safety from oppression comes without the tremendous responsibilities and moral complexities of wielding force. The same people who passively pay taxes that put tanks on the streets and fighter jets in the skies over our enemies’ nations can cringe at the idea of owning guns themselves — projecting their survival instincts onto an all-powerful father figure (the state).
