Renowned firearms instructor Lt. Col Jeff Cooper coined a term in the early 60’s in an attempt to describe the manic nature in which gun control advocates attempt to apply an evil stigma to inanimate objects. This term, “hoplophobia”, is taken from the Greek words “hoplon” meaning weapon and “phobos” meaning terror. Of course Gun Control advocates despise this word, arguing that it is not a legitimate medical term but rather a political pejorative used to discredit certain individuals who desire only to protect human life by suggesting the existence of an irrational fear when, in fact, such a fear need not exist in order to adopt the political viewpoint that the manufacture, sale, possession and use of firearms be controlled, limited or forbidden altogether.
To be fair, it is important to point out that it is common for those on both sides of the political isle to discredit the other by using the age old battle tactic of accusing them of “xenophobia” or possessing an irrational fear of that which is unfamiliar foreign or unknown. The term, “hoplophobia” is no exception. But do you remember the terms “homophobia” or “Islamophobia” coined by the left and used to discredit those who would otherwise be at odds with gays or Muslims? Of course you do. It didn’t matter why one might be at odds with those groups of people, only that one was. Soon, those terms were flying off the lips of anyone who wished to dismiss the concerns of the another by assigning to them a term or label that carries with it the connotation that the person is in some way “irrational” and thus not worthy of expressing an opinion at all.
I happen to think it is a lazy way to argue one’s point and that a point, if one exists at all, is done an injustice if not obscured totally by refusing to argue it on its own merits. But sometimes the shoe fits and while it may not be true that all gun control advocates possess an irrational fear of guns, it is arguable that the methods by which they recruit others to their cause certainly involve the fostering of such an irrational fear. Guns are commonly presented as tools of evil and thus evil themselves and, as is true in so many political arguments originating on the liberal left, the concept of personal responsibility has taken a backseat to the practice of blaming others as enablers of a crime rather than to hold the criminal responsible for his or her actions. In other words, if Smith & Wesson, for example had not been allowed to produce a particular firearm, then Joe Shmukatelli would not have been able to perpetrate a crime with that firearm and thus Mr. Shmukatelli is not responsible for his heinous actions but rather Smith & Wesson instead. Likewise, if Bob’s House of Guns hadn’t sold that Smith & Wesson firearm to John Q Public, then Mr. Shmukatelli would not have been able to steal that firearm from Mr. Public and perpetrate a criminal act. So again, by the logic of the gun control activists, it is not Mr. Shmukatelli who is responsible for his actions but rather Bob’s House of Guns for selling the firearm and Mr. Public for buying it legally. Despite the fact that a four year old child could easily deduce the error in this logic, it persists none the less. The idea is peddled that it is not because evil people possess guns that evil itself is perpetrated but rather instead that guns themselves are evil and without them, no evil deed could exist. Therefore if guns are evil, then they are to be feared as evil’s source.
Cooper argued that "the most common manifestation of hoplophobia is the idea that instruments possess a will of their own, apart from that of their user." It is this fear of an object with no will of it’s own that makes that fear itself “irrational”. If gun control advocates are not peddling “hoplophobia” then why would it not make more sense for them to call themselves “criminal control activists” and focus their efforts on preventing and controlling the people who perpetrate evil rather than attempting to control the access to the tools they might choose to perpetrate it? What if those criminals chose to use knives, baseball bats, claw hammers or tomahawks? If there were a sudden exponential increase in the amount of strangling murders in a place, then by their logic, should not piano wire and rope and extension cords be outlawed? Of course not! But why not? Because there exists for these things, a legitimate need and use. In other words, because they are misused by one, does not mean that they should be prevented from being properly used by another. The Latin phrase, “Abusus non tollit usum” transliterated as “misuse does not remove use” has existed for centuries and addresses this very logic. It is an axiom which states that just because something can be, or has been, abused, does not necessarily mean that it must be, or always is. Abuse, therefore does not, in itself, justify denial of proper use. Apparently the Romans knew a thing or two about logic. Perhaps gun control activists should take note.
You see the proper use of a firearm as a defensive weapon is to defend against an attacker. Why do I have the need for such a weapon? Because criminals can and will always have access to an unstoppable source of weapons. Our national borders literally bleed with drugs. Countless local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are tasked with preventing the manufacture, trafficking, sale, possession and use of these illegal substances. Can anyone argue logically that they are making progress? Can anyone deny that if I were to desire to obtain these substances that, with the proper amount of cash, I could not in the span of an hour obtain them with virtual ease? Why then would anyone suggest that various forms of small arms and weapons would not then be just as easily obtained? Why would anyone argue that we have any greater hope of controlling the black market trade on firearms any more successfully that we can control that same black market in the trade of narcotics or any other illicit substances?
It is the age old nemesis of Gun Control. They can’t get past that one sticky wicket. The broken cog, if you will, in the wheel of gun control… the black market trade. Who hasn’t seen a bumper sticker or t-shirt emblazoned with the now cliché saying that “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns?” It’s painfully overused and no less true because of it. How can they guarantee my safety if they would deny me the very means by which to keep myself safe? They can’t. They don’t. They don’t even touch this subject. You won’t hear an argument from them. They have chosen not to fight on this front because this is the front where Second Amendment Activists congregate en masse! But their agenda is no less important to them and in light of the recent US Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applies INDIVIDUALLY to every law abiding citizen of these United States, they realize the only way they can disassemble that right is to make people afraid to exercise it. How? By villainizing and stigmatizing the humble gun itself as evil from its inception. By fostering and pushing and irrational fear of that which is otherwise not understood to crowds of sheep who reject the concept of personal responsibility and who believe that it is the government’s function to attend to their every need.
Why would they want to do this? Are they stupid? The answer is “no”. They are not. They know exactly what they are doing. They understand their agenda and are banking that you do not! If they can make you fear exercising a right, then they can make you forfeit that right altogether. They know they can’t do it in one fell swoop. But they have a fantastic shot at it by attrition. One at a time! They’ll chip away at this right of ours little by little. They’ll continue to indoctrinate our children in the academic arena and send them off to reject that right themselves. And pretty soon, much sooner than you might imagine, the majority will believe that our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is antiquated, barbaric and unnecessary. The minority will be silenced and the Bill of Rights will cease to exist. Why? Because they don’t like guns? Because they honestly believe in the cause they sell to you and me as caring about the sanctity of life and wanting to protect it? NO! Because it ushers in yet another agenda that has been sleeping and lying in wait to take its place when you and I are no longer able to protect ourselves and our individual rights because we are disarmed. What is that agenda? It’s called SOCIALISM, folks! And this malarkey about you and I being safer with less guns in our hands is just a smoke screen to what they really want….and that is for this nation to be one of collective rights and not of individual rights; for the United States of America to be a nation of collective ownership and not of individual ownership; for our country to embrace the idea of collective thought and not individual thought.
If you don’t believe that then you are one of the sheep mentioned above. Ever notice that it’s the same players who are present in the anti-gun movement and the anti-God movement? Ever wonder why? Hmmm… because God doesn’t fit very well into socialism either. Disarming Americans removes from us the means by which we would resist a socialist revolution or even a slow moving socialist reformation. We want our individual rights and we would fight and die for them. They want their collective rights but they are not willing to fight and die for them. Revolution does not have to spill blood to be a revolution. It merely has to swiftly change the ownership of production. But revolution is not in their grasp so long as you and I are armed and so long as a conservative Supreme Court continues to uphold the individual rights in our Constitution. So for now, they are relegated to selling their own form of xenophobias like “hoplophobia” and “Christianophobia” to impressionable young Americans who don’t know any better because they were never taught the value of their individual freedoms in a socialist run academia. How long before you and I fight back??
