The fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity. — Sigmund Freud, founded the psychoanalyst school of psychiatry.




  4. One approach to help you deal with anti-gun people is to understand their psychological processes.

Defense Mechanisms



How does my correspondent “know” that his neighbors would murder him if they had guns? He doesn’t. What he was really saying was that if he had a gun, he might murder his neighbors if he had a bad day, or if they took his parking space, or played their stereos too loud. This is an example of what mental health professionals call projection – unconsciously projecting one’s own unacceptable feelings onto other people, so that one doesn’t have to own them.(3) In some cases, the intolerable feelings are projected not onto a person, but onto an inanimate object, such as a gun,(4) so that the projector believes the gun itself will murder him.

Projection is a defense mechanism. Defense mechanisms are unconscious psychological mechanisms that protect us from feelings that we cannot consciously accept.(5) They operate without our awareness, so that we don’t have to deal consciously with “forbidden” feelings and impulses. Thus, if you asked my e–mail correspondent if he really wanted to murder his neighbors, he would vehemently deny it, and insist that other people want to kill him.



Some people, however, are unable consciously to admit that they have such “unacceptable” emotions. They may have higher than average levels of rage, frustration, or fear. perhaps they fear that if they acknowledge the hostile feelings, they will lose control and really will hurt someone. They may believe that “good people” never have such feelings, when in fact all people have them.


(This discussion of psychological mechanisms applies to the average person who is uninformed, or misinformed, about firearms and self–defense. It does not apply to the anti–gun ideologue. Fanatics like Charles Schumer know the facts about firearms, and advocate victim disarmament consciously and willfully in order to gain political power. This psychological analysis does not apply to them.)




Anti–gun people do the same thing. It’s obvious that we live in a dangerous society, where criminals attack innocent people. Just about everyone has been, or knows someone who has been, victimized. It’s equally obvious that law enforcement can’t protect everyone everywhere 24 hours a day. Extensive scholarly research demonstrates that the police have no legal duty to protect you(10) and that firearm ownership is the most effective way to protect yourself and your family.(11) There is irrefutable evidence that victim disarmament nearly always precedes genocide.(12) Nonetheless, the anti–gun folks insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that “the police will protect you”, “this is a safe neighborhood” and “it can’t happen here”, where “it” is everything from mugging to mass murder.



Reaction Formation

Reaction formation is yet another defense mechanism common among the anti–gun folks. Reaction formation occurs when a person’s mind turns an unacceptable feeling or desire into its complete opposite.(13) For example, a child who is jealous of a sibling may exhibit excessive love and devotion for the hated brother or sister.

Likewise, a person who harbors murderous rage toward his fellow humans may claim to be a devoted pacifist and refuse to eat meat or even kill a cockroach.(14) Often such people take refuge in various spiritual disciplines and believe that they are “superior” to “less civilized” folks who engage in “violent behavior” such as hunting, or even target shooting. They may devote themselves to “animal welfare” organizations that proclaim that the rights of animals take precedence over the rights of people.(15) This not only allows the angry person to avoid dealing with his rage, it allows him actually to harm the people he hates without having to know he hates them.


Contrast the sincere pacifist or animal lover with the strident, angry person who wants to ban meat and who believes murdering hunters is justified in order to “save the animals” – or the person who wants to outlaw self–defense and believes innocent people have the obligation to be raped and murdered for the good of society. For example, noted feminist Betty Friedan said “that lethal violence even in self defense only engenders more violence.”(16) The truly spiritual, pacifist person refrains from forcing others to do what he believes, and is generally driven by positive emotions, while the angry person finds “socially acceptable” ways to harm, abuse, or even kill, his fellow man.



Defense Mechanisms Are Not Mental Illnesses



Defense mechanisms are also frequently combined, so that an anti–gun person may use several defense mechanisms simultaneously. For example, my unfortunate correspondent uses projection to create a world in which all his neighbors want to murder him. As a result, he becomes more angry and fearful, and needs to employ even more defense mechanisms to cope. So he uses projection to attribute his own rage to others, he uses denial that there is any danger to protect himself from a world where he believes he is helpless and everyone wants to murder him, and he uses reaction formation to try to control everyone else’s life because his own is so horribly out of control.

Also, it’s important to remember that not all anti–gun beliefs are the result of defense mechanisms. Some people suffer from gun phobia(18), an excessive and completely irrational fear of firearms, usually caused by the anti–gun conditioning they’ve been subjected to by the media, politicians, so–called “educators,” and others. In some cases, gun phobia is caused by an authentic bad experience associated with a firearm. But with all due respect to Col. Jeff Cooper, who coined the term “hoplophobia” to describe anti–gun people, most anti–gun people do not have true phobias. Interestingly, a person with a true phobia of guns realizes his fear is excessive or unreasonable,(19) something most anti–gun folks will never admit.


Defense mechanisms distort reality

Because defense mechanisms distort reality in order to avoid unpleasant emotions, the person who uses them has an impaired ability to recognize and accept reality. This explains why my e–mail correspondent and many other anti–gun people persist in believing that their neighbors and co–workers will become mass murderers if allowed to own firearms.

People who legally carry concealed firearms are actually less violent and less prone to criminal activity of all kinds than is the general population.(20) A person who has a clean record, has passed an FBI background check, undergone firearms training, and spent several hundred dollars to get a permit and a firearm, is highly unlikely to choose to murder a neighbor. Doing so would result in his facing a police manhunt, a trial, prison, possibly capital punishment, and the destruction of his family, job, and reputation. Obviously it would make no sense for such a person to shoot a neighbor – except in self–defense. Equally obviously, the anti–gun person who believes that malicious shootings by ordinary gun owners are likely to occur is not in touch with reality.(21)


The Common Thread: Rage

In my experience, the common thread in anti–gun people is rage. Either anti–gun people harbor more rage than others, or they’re less able to cope with it appropriately. Because they can’t handle their own feelings of rage, they are forced to use defense mechanisms in an unhealthy manner. Because they wrongly perceive others as seeking to harm them, they advocate the disarmament of ordinary people who have no desire to harm anyone. So why do anti–gun people have so much rage and why are they unable to deal with it in appropriate ways? Consider for a moment that the largest and most hysterical anti–gun groups include disproportionately large numbers of women, African–Americans and Jews. And virtually all of the organizations that claim to speak for these “oppressed people” are stridently anti–gun. Not coincidentally, among Jews, Blacks and women there are many “professional victims” who have little sense of identity outside of their victimhood.


Identity as Victim





Thus the concept of “identity as victim” is essential. How and why do members of some groups choose to identify themselves as victims and teach their children to do the same? While it’s true that women, Jews, and African–Americans have historically been victimized, they now participate in American society on an equal basis. And other groups, most notably Asian–Americans, have been equally victimized, and yet have transcended the “eternal victim” mentality.


I would argue it’s because the basketball player and the physician believe that their identities are dependent on being victims — not because they have actually been victimized, but because they’re members of groups that claim victim status. Conversely, the disabled woman was probably raised to believe that she is responsible for her own success or failure.

In fact, many people who have been victims of actual violent crime, or who have survived war or civil strife, support the right of self–defense. The old saying is often correct: “a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.”


Special Treatment and Misleading Leaders


Second, these people have been indoctrinated to believe that there is no alternative to remaining a victim forever. Their leaders remind them constantly that they are mistreated in every imaginable way (most of them imaginary!), attribute every one of life’s misfortunes to “racism” or “sexism” or “hate crimes”, and dream up ever more complex schemes for special treatment and favors.(22) These leaders are the ones who preach that the entire Black experience is slavery and racism, or that Jewish history before and after the Holocaust is irrelevant,(23) or that happily married women are really victims of sexual slavery.(24)

Likewise, the NAACP is suing firearms manufacturers to put them out of business,(25) and is especially opposed to the inexpensive pistols that enable the poor to defend themselves in gang–ridden inner cities. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed evicting anyone who dares to keep a tool of self–defense in any of its crime–infested housing projects. Jewish leaders, especially those in the politically correct “Reform” branch, preach that gun control is “a solemn religious obligation”,(26) contrary to the teachings of their sacred scriptures and their own history.(27) Law enforcement agencies falsely teach women that they are safest if they don’t resist rapists and robbers,(28) while women’s organizations advocate gun control, thus rendering women and their children defenseless.

Victimhood is good business for organizations that foster victim status. As victims, the members depend upon the organization to protect them, and the organization in turn relies on members for funding and political power. In the interest of self–preservation, these organizations work hard at preserving hatred and bigotry and at keeping their members defenseless – and therefore dependent.


Anti–gun groups love victims!

From my observations, pro–victimhood is a feature of all of the anti–gun special interest groups, not just the ones mentioned here. Every organization that supports gun control apparently wants its members to be helpless, terrified and totally dependent on someone else to control every aspect of their lives. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a religious, racial, ethnic, political, social, or charitable group. From Handgun Control, Inc. to the Anti–Defamation League to the Million Mom March, they all want you to live in fear. In this scheme, soccer moms are “victims” just as much as are inner–city minorities.



The psychological price of being a victim




[1] use defense mechanisms to displace it into irrational beliefs about neighbors killing each other, and the infallibility of police protection, and –

[2] attempt to regain control by controlling gun owners, whom they wrongly perceive as “the enemy”.


Say NO to being a victim!



Communicating with anti-gun people



Anger and attacks do not work




Be Gentle


As you reach out to people in this way, you need to deal with both the illogical thought processes involved and the emotional reactions that anti–gun people have to firearms. When dealing with illogical thought processes, you are attempting to use reason and logic to convince the anti–gun person that his perception of other people and his perception of firearms are seriously inaccurate. The goal is to help him to understand that armed citizens and firearms are not threats, and may even save his life.


Reversing Irrational thoughts

The Mirror Technique

One approach that can be helpful is simply to feed back what the anti–gun person is telling you, in a neutral, inquisitive way. So, when replying to my anonymous e–mail correspondent (above), I might respond, “So you fear if your neighbors had guns, they would use them to murder you. What makes you think that?” When you simply repeat what the person has said, and ask questions, you are not directly challenging his defenses. You are holding up a mirror to let him see his own views. If he has very strong defenses, he can continue to insist that his neighbors want to murder him. However, if his defenses are less rigid, he may start to question his position.



It’s important to ask “open–ended” questions that require a response other than “yes” or “no”. Such questions require the anti–gun person actually to think about what he is saying. This will help him to re–examine his beliefs. It may also encourage him to ask you questions about firearms use and ownership.


The “What Would You Do?” Technique

Once you have a dialogue going with an anti–gun person, you might want to insert him into a hypothetical scenario, although doing so is a greater threat to his defenses, and is therefore more risky. You might ask how he would deal with a difficult or annoying co–worker. He will likely respond that he would never resort to violence, but “other people” would, especially if they had guns. (projection again.) You can then ask him who these “other people” are, why they would shoot a co–worker, and what the shooter would gain by doing so.

Don’t try to “win” the argument. Don’t try to embarrass the person you’re trying to educate. Remember that no one likes to admit that his deeply held beliefs are wrong. No one likes to hear “I told you so!” Be patient and gentle. If you are arrogant, condescending, hurtful or rude to the anti–gun person, you will only convince him that gun owners are arrogant, hurtful people — who should not be trusted with guns!


Defusing Emotional reactions

The “You Are There” Technique

Rational arguments alone are not likely to be successful, especially since many people “feel” rather than “think”. You also need to deal with the emotional responses of the anti–gun person. Remember that most people have been conditioned to associate firearms with dead toddlers. So you need to change the person’s emotional responses along with his thoughts.

One way to do this is to put the anti–gun person (or his family) at a hypothetical crime scene and ask what he would like to have happen. For example, “Imagine your wife is in the parking lot at the supermarket and two men grab her. One holds a knife to her throat while the other tears her clothes off. If I see this happening and have a gun, what should I do? What would happen next? What if after five minutes, the police still haven’t arrived?”



The power of Empathy

Another emotion–based approach that is often more successful is to respond sympathetically to the plight of the anti–gun person.

Imagine for a moment how you would feel if you believed your neighbors and co–workers wanted to kill you and your family, and you could do nothing at all about it except to wait for the inevitable to occur.

Not very pleasant, is it?

This is the world in which opponents of armed self–defense live. All of us have had times in our lives when we felt “different” and had to contend with hostile schoolmates, co–workers, etc. So we need to invoke our own compassion for these terrified people. Say something like, “It must be awful to live in fear of being assaulted by your own neighbors. I remember what it was like when I was the only (Jew, Mormon, African–American, Republican) in my (class, football team, workplace) — and even then I didn’t think anyone was going to kill me.” It’s essential that you sincerely feel some compassion and empathy; if you’re glib or sarcastic, this won’t work.

Using empathy works in several ways. First, it defuses a potentially hostile interaction. Anti–gun people are used to being attacked, not understood, by advocates of gun rights. Instead of an “evil, gun–toting, extremist”, you are now a sympathetic, fellow human being. This may also open the door for a friendly conversation, in which you can each discover that your “opponent” is a person with whom you have some things in common. You may even create an opportunity to dispel some of the misinformation about firearms and self–defense that is so prevalent.




Corrective Experiences

Perhaps the most effective way to dissolve defense mechanisms, however, is by providing corrective experiences(30). Corrective experiences are experiences that allow a person to learn that his ideas about gun owners and guns are incorrect in a safe and non–threatening way. To provide a corrective experience, you first allow the person to attempt to project his incorrect ideas onto you. Then, you demonstrate that he is wrong by your behavior, not by arguing.


If you have used the above techniques, then you have already provided one corrective experience. You have demonstrated to the frightened, anti–gun person that gun owners are not abusive, scary, dangerous and sub–human monsters, but normal, everyday people who care about their families, friends and even strangers.


For example, if you’re dealing with an anti–gun person with whom you interact regularly and have a generally good relationship — a coworker, neighbor, church member, etc. — you might indirectly refer to concealed carry. You should never say anything like “I’m carrying a gun right now and you can’t even tell,” especially because in some states that would be considered illegal, “threatening” behavior. But you might consider saying something like, “I sometimes carry a firearm, and you’ve never seemed to be uncomfortable around me.” Whether to disclose this information is an individual decision, and you should consider carefully other consequences before using this approach.


First-hand experience

Ultimately, your goal is to take the anti–gun person shooting. Some people will accept an invitation to accompany you to the range, but others are too frightened to do so, and will need some preliminary experience.


Encourage the newcomer to ask questions and remember that your role is to present accurate information in a friendly, responsible and non–threatening way. This is a good time to offer some reading material on the benefits of firearms ownership. But be careful not to provide so much information that it’s overwhelming. And remember this is not the time to launch into anti–government rants, the New World Order, conspiracy theories, or any kind of political talk!


Remember that just visiting the range can be a corrective experience. Your guest will learn that gun owners are disciplined, responsible, safety–conscious, courteous, considerate, and follow the rules. He will see people of all ages, from children to the elderly, male and female, enjoying an activity together. He will not see a single “beer–swilling redneck” waving a firearm in people’s faces.




Why these techniques do not always work


You will also not be successful with the anti–gun ideologues, people like Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein. These people have made a conscious choice to oppose firearms ownership and self–defense. They almost always gain power, prestige, and money from their anti–gun politics. They are not interested in the facts or in saving lives. They know the facts and understand the consequences of their actions, and will happily sacrifice innocent people if it furthers their selfish agenda. Do not use these techniques on such people. They only respond to fears of losing the power, prestige and money that they covet.(31)



By better understanding advocates of civilian disarmament, and by learning and practicing some simple techniques to deal with their psychological defenses, you will be much more effective in your efforts to communicate with anti–gun people. This will enable you to be more successful at educating them about the realities of firearms and self– defense, and their importance to our liberty and safety.







  1. the largest population emerging in America and currently second largest are Latino Americans yet this writer failed to acknowledge them. great article but the sentiments of the largest population in the US would have created a better understanding.

  2. Edward i have been reading your articles for awhile. I dont see how some of what you put out reflects the galactic codex. You paint people with brushstrokes that enforce the separation model.

    We are everyone!

    How is it your articles appear on this website? Puts all the other information released on this site into question.

    Please strive for a synergistic message. Blessings!

    • Dear Joann, there are two sides to our cosmic coin. The answer to your question was actually given to you by James Freeman about an hour before you even asked. Please read his comment.

  3. Excellent article. Very fact-based and respectful.

    Frankly, I was quite surprised to see it here, alongside some of the fluffier ‘love & light’ type of articles that are commonly posted, but am certainly glad the site admins didn’t decide to knee-jerk ban it 🙂 Unfortunately the need for properly motivated, well-informed individual efforts towards self defense will continue to be necessary for a while yet on this godforsaken planet.

  4. Your just as RETARDED and out of your power and in dogma for believing in this ridiculousness you would let yourself get raped do you have any common sense at all the obvious answer is no you do not have common sense allowing yourself to be raped is the definition of being out of your own power lack of self love lack of self respect lack of self protection i could go on your a fool for believing this soon there will be no weapons or power over other’s yes these are times of rapture ascension but soon it will be the end of stupid moronic perceptions like this as well.

    • Yes, after the “Rapture or Ascension” there will be no more need for guns or weapons but until that happens weapons are need it to protect yourself & your love ones from the extremely hostile & well armed Dark brotherhood….


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