THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GUNS

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The Court has a gun rights case and the NRA recently sent me an incendiary invitation to join. So let’s talk about guns and the people who carry them.

There are a lot of stereotypes about who is dangerous and who is not. People assume that rural populations are less dangerous. Actually I think that stereotype is wrong. Many who live with few neighbors get used to doing whatever they want and assume they’re within their rights. Crossing people not used to being crossed can be dangerous. I’ve lived in rural areas on vacation and have had lovely experiences, but I understand from friends what could happen when, for example, they tried to keep hunters off their own property. It wasn’t pretty and doesn’t accord with what most of us think are our property rights, but our friends got the message and shut up.

City folk are a bit different. There are so many of us that conflict is likely, for the same reason that traffic accidents are more likely in cities. But city people live with restrictions. Most of us understand that rules are necessary so that we can live in close proximity to each other. And by and large we solve problems by avoidance.

Throw guns in the mix. Guns aren’t just an equalizer; they’re a dominator. With a gun in your pocket, you don’t feel like you have to back down. Pull it out and you control the situation. It seems relevant to me that our friends’ experience in a rural area was connected to guns. With a gun, you can feel strong, tough, like you don’t have to back down because the other guy better.

I grew up with a temper and don’t even want to imagine what would have happened if I’d grown up with a gun. I like myself better without one and learned to use my head instead of my fists or a weapon. That generally put me in a much better place than those who have behaved in uncivil ways toward me.

Holding a gun is similar to participating in a mob. With people around you urging action it becomes increasingly hard to hold back, so that mobs do things that individuals would not. That psychology also affects juries – holdouts need partners or the psychological pressure becomes too much.

Put guns in the hands of people in a mob and you have an incendiary combination – people storming government offices, threatening public officials, planning to kidnap the governor of Michigan, intimidating members of Congress, or settling scores with opposing demonstrators. States trying to authorize people to drive into demonstrations are showing the belligerence of mobs, of angry people with guns at the ready. Power corrupts and people who can make laws blow up in their heads the justification for throttling their opponents. With guns or cars driven into demonstrations, the damage is deadly.

Guns and politics don’t mix – they lead to more violence than good sense. That’s been true across the world; we don’t need it here. In proportion to population, the Civil War was one of the most deadly in human history and the current partisan divide echoes those divisions, over Confederate monuments, violence, race and immigration. We don’t need to repeat it. We don’t need anything encouraging violence like gun rights decisions telling a large part of the country it can’t protect its people, Black or white, and encouraging another part of the country to settle disputes violently. We don’t need decisions edging us toward civil war, as the Court infamously did in 1857.

— If you agree with this commentary, please feel free to share it. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, November 16, 2021.