Although I don’t make it obvious sometimes I do feel somewhat bad for anti-gunners. I can’t imagine living my life in fear every day as anti-gunners do. They have a fear that somebody will bring violence against them combined with a fear of taking action. As they fear taking action they want somebody else to do so in their name, which is what leads them to demanding the government strictly control or outright ban the private ownership of firearms. Pro-gun people are ones who have no fear of taking action, and subsequently dealing with the consequences. They realize that you can’t rely on others for your personal protection and that the only person who can keep you safe is you.
I think deep down inside anti-gunners realize that their attitude is self-defeating but don’t want to think about it. It’s likely this realization is what leads them to practice cognitive dissonance. Lionge did a masterful job of pointing out the logically fallacies in a comment made by an anti-gunner. As par for the anti-gunner course his comment was removed from the anti-gunner’s site and no other pro-gun comments were allowed to appear.
This happens time and time again, after an anti-gunners makes an false claim or comment about firearms somebody in the pro-gun community calls them on it. Usually a short back and forth ensues until the anti-gunners deletes all the pro-gun comments and enacts complete moderation powers on the post to ensure no further arguments in opposition to their beliefs appear. I honestly believe this is a defense mechanism used by those afraid to act; if they had to critically think they would realize they have no real choice by to act and suffer any consequences of their actions.
I dare say the root cause of all you describe is an inherent fear, on the part of the anti-rights cultists, of individual responsibility. They are afraid of taking responsibility even for themselves, because they know they will be held to that responsibility in the future.
However, if it is someone’s else’s actions, they can pretend it is someone else’s responsibility, even if they are the primary supporters of whatever the action might be. Responsibility-by-proxy, so to speak.
This dovetails nicely with their demonization and totemization of inanimate objects as well – if the untoward actions can be blamed on that object, then obviously no one has to take responsibility for them.
I agree… it must be kind of sad to live like that, but, thankfully, we will never have to experience it :).