Hoplophobia
The pretty little girl stood on tiptoes as the bespectacled proprietor behind the counter rang up her order.
"Now let's see here, Mary-Lou," said the man with the white apron. "You've got the CZ-61 Skorpion submachinegun, 500 rounds of high-velocity .32 ACP hollowpoint ammunition, and--what's this?"
The little girl was typically American. She couldn't have been older then eleven, maybe younger, to judge by the missing tooth in front. She wore a frilly gingham dress, white bobby socks, and saddle-shoes. Her shiny dark brown hair had been carefully braided into a pair of pigtails with ribbons in the ends that matched her dress, and she had freckles across both pink cheeks and the bridge of her upturned nose.
She was puzzled. "Why, that's morphine, Mr. Suprynowicz. It's for my mom."
He shook his head. "Now you just take that right back to the shelf where you got it, Mary-Lou, and look a little harder next time. Our store brand is a lot cheaper, and it happens to be on sale this week."
"Thank you, Mr. Suprynowicz!" When she returned, the storekeeper counted out her change, bagged her purchases, and she skipped out of the store, happy as a little freckled lark.
From the January 2002 issue of Liberty magazine, quoting Salman Rushdie in an issue of The Washington Post "a few weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center." I'll overlook his transgressions in the first and last paragraphs, since the rest of it is good.
The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multiparty political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing beardlessness, evolution theory, sex.
There needs to be a thorough examinination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is that the faith they love breeds so many violent mutant strains. If the West needs to understand its Unabombers and McVeighs, Islam needs to face up to its bin Ladens.
United Nations Sercretary General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no-brainer. Suicidal assassins ram wide-bodied aricraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people. I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the above list--yes, even the short skirts and dancing--are worth dying for?
The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters. Kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them.
I got a large collection of The Libertarian columns by Vin Suprynowicz. I'm not going to review them, but the list is below.
- 11/13 - And now, the federals won't even let us die
- 11/15 - Government interventions mask fault, forestall reform
- 11/18 - 'Only God can judge that'
- 11/19 - Nevada Supreme Court OKs corrupt property grab
- 11/20 - 'Strapping us in our cars'
- 11/21 - Will Internet critic soon 'sleep with the fishes'?
- 11/28 - A feast of lard: Last thing economy needs is a platter of congressional cholesterol
- 11/30 - If nuclear power can't stand on its own after 44 years, when will it?
- 12/1 - The art of dodging objective reality
- 12/2 - Making up the law as they go along
Dr. Bill Rogers at KeepAndBearArms.com - Confronting the "Hoplophobe" - I vaguely remembered that there is a word to describe people with an irrational fear of weapons, so I looked it up and found this article and the one below.
Jeff Cooper coined the term "Hoplophobe" to describe a person who lives in fear of an inanimate object. The Hoplophobe does not recognize that there is a living, breathing human being in possession of the inanimate object. (See: Bad Gun - Liberals attack the gun issue.) Therefore the Hoplophobe chooses to have a relationship with an inanimate object rather than with the sentient being in control of the object. Such a person is, by definition, irrational. Such a person is, by association, insane.
...
Yes. It is time we came out of our own little closets and began telling our fellow citizens:"Any man (or woman) among you who is physically able and yet who does not learn to shoot and carry a defensive weapon at ALL times, is a deadbeat who deserves... DESERVES... whatever comes your way."
Jeff Cooper - The Root of the Evil - Mr. Cooper says here that he coined the word "hoplophobia" in 1970. This article was printed in Mr. Cooper's 1990 novel, To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth,
One cannot rationally hate or fear an inanimate object. Neither can he rationally hate or fear an object because of its designed purpose. Whether one approves of capital punishment or not, one cannot rationally fear a hemp rope. One who did, possibly because he once narrowly escaped hanging, would generally be referred to a shrink. When the most prominent hoplophobe in the United States Senate says that he abhors firearms because their purpose is to put bullets through things, he reinforces the impressions that many have formed about his capacity to reason.
My point - and I hope it is clear - is that hoplophobia is a mental disturbance rather than a point of view. Differences of opinion - on economic policy, or forced integration, or the morality of abortion, or the neutron bomb - these we may hope to resolve by discussion. But we cannot so resolve a phobia. The mentally ill we cannot reach. But we can identify a form of mental illness for what it is, and so separate its victims from the policy considerations of reasonable people.
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