Pacific Standard:
Why do so many Americans own handguns, and resist the regulation of firearms? “Protection” is the most common response, but who (or what) exactly are they protecting themselves from? And why do fact-based arguments, such as the reduction in crime rates and the dangers of having a gun in the house, fail to change minds?
Newly published research provides a partial answer. It finds handgun ownership is motivated by two distinct impulses: “The specific perceived threat of assault, and a diffuse threat of a dangerous world.”
A research team led by University of Groningen psychologist Wolfgang Stroebe reports that second, vague notion of potential peril is the stronger of the two—and the one most resistant to rethinking.
“Handgun ownership and advocacy is, at least in part, a psychological phenomenon,” the researchers write. “Gun ownership is predicted by various levels of perceived risk”—including the difficult-to-dislodge belief that the world is a menacing place.
[ … ]
“This could make it difficult to conduct persuasion campaigns aimed at dissuading handgun owners of the need to own a gun (or support limitations on gun ownership),” they write. That’s because “a broader system of beliefs about the nature of the social world, and what people are like, is extremely difficult to influence.”
Such mindsets are learned in childhood, and tend to shape one’s thinking for the rest of one’s life.
If you believe that sin is the moral malady and affliction of mankind, the psychologists don’t know what to do with you. The world must surely be a safe place, because just shut up. They are looking for ways to retrain your thinking, but sadly you’ve learned this behavior and world view in childhood. They find it difficult to dislodge.
Have you ever seen a profession so disconnected from reality as this one? You may as well consider them Voodoo practitioners and witchdoctors.
