They aren’t arguing what you think they are arguing

@OHGunRights asked on Twitter yesterday

He’s missing the point. It isn’t his fault that he assumes that the words that come out of the mouths of the gun grabbers might bear at least a partial resemblance to the issue being debated. I’m sorry to have to burst his bubble.

It’s been said before, but when two people differ on first principles, they cannot have any profitable discussion except on those first principles. Here we have people arguing about the different actions that flow from those first principles rather than the first principles themselves.

When someone calls you paranoid for carrying a gun, they aren’t making a substantive point. They are merely calling you names. They hope that by calling you an unpleasant name, you will be shamed into conforming to their preferred behavior norms. When this happens in middle school, we would call it “peer pressure.” The important thing to remember is that they haven’t made and argument which can be refuted. They have merely said that they disagree with your choice. There’s no point in arguing with name calling, but if you absolutely must respond, try “What do I have to be paranoid about? I’m carrying a gun!”

But Sean, if they aren’t offering an argument, what are we really arguing about? We are arguing about walls. Our society is protected by pretty walls built mostly of lies that we pretend into reality. We pretend that people are nice and sweet, and that nothing bad will happen to us today. Some people are very invested in the reality of these pretty walls. Over on Blackfive, a guy named Grimm wrote a post about PTSD way back in 2007 that I think illustrates a useful point.

What you need to know, first and last, is that so-called PTSD is not an illness.  It is a normal condition for people who have been through what you have been through.  The instinct to kill and war is native to humanity.  It is very deeply rooted in me, as it is in you.  We have rules and customs to restrain it, so that sometimes we may have peace.  What you are experiencing is not an illness, but the awareness of what human nature is like deep down.  It is the awareness of what life is like without the walls that protect civilization. 

Those who have never been outside those walls don't know:  they can't see.  The walls form their horizon.  You know what lays beyond them, and can't forget it.  What we're going to talk about today is how to come home, back inside those walls:  how to learn to trust them again.

If you carry a gun, you’ve peeked outside those pretty walls and you’ve seen that the world isn’t pretty and it can be very violent. Some of us learned about the world outside the walls by experience, others by listening to the experience of others. It doesn’t matter how you learned, just that you know and acknowledge that danger lurks.

Grimm talked about PTSD recovery involving learning that most of those combat dangers exist permanently outside the walls of civilization. There is very little likelihood of being mortared here in urban North Carolina. But many dangers exist inside those walls of civilization that are studiously ignored by most people in society. They ignore the dangers of being mugged, or being a bystander at a convenience store robbery. When you carry a gun, you are telling them that you are concerned with dangers that they have ignored. You are telling them that you are preparing for problems that they think they don’t have. What they hear is “you are a stupid Pollyanna because you don’t bother to prepare for these dangers.”

Now you know as well as I do that none of us calls the other side stupid for failing to see. At least not to their faces. But that’s what they are hearing. Because they cannot allow themselves to believe that danger exists in their lives, they cannot endure the sight of people who prepare for that danger. Basically, either danger exists and one must prepare for it, or danger does not exist and those who prepare for it are paranoid for doing so. They are calling you paranoid because the alternative is admitting both that there is danger, and that they have not made any plans for dealing with it. When you carry a gun, and especially when you advocate for the widest possible latitude in carrying a gun, you are attacking them at a fundamental level. You are attacking their basic world view. You are telling them that they are wrong when they pretend that the world is a safe place. You are injecting fear into their world where no fear existed before. You are being a jerk, at least in their mind.

I say that it’s just too bad for them. The world can’t be made pink just so that it resembles the one they see in their rose colored glasses. It is what it is. Making rational plans to deal with rational, if rare, dangers is not paranoia. They are being cowards for not even acknowledging dangers, much less facing them. It’s not your job to acquaint them with reality. Reality will intrude on them soon enough. Don’t allow their magical thinking to stop you from exercising both your rights and your common sense.