Hoplophobia
The term "hoplophobia" was coined back in the 60's.That, obviously, makes it a new word. It was made up by Jeff Cooper from a pair of Greek roots:"haplon" meaning arms or weapons, and "phobia" meaning fear of.A great many people have the fear of anything that they perceive can hurt them. Perception, in this case, is not reality. Any weapon, be it a knife, gun, baseball ball, or whatever. It is, however, just an inanimate object. It's made of metals, wood, plastic and so forth.Most importantly, the object itself is inert. The feelings associated with and around the object are real to the person feeling them. Feelings are not really based on logic and reasoning. To go about saying "guns are scary to me therefore they should be made go away" is not a rational viewpoint. It's not rational because they can't go away. You can legislate against them, but that doesn't make them go away. You can make people give them up, but that only affects people that will give them up. The legislation might salve the feeling, but the underlying reality is unchanged. Worst, the reality might be in an uglier place.
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I'll draw another analogy. It you had witnessed a plane crash you may have a reasonable fear of flying. That feeling is OK to have. You can even act on that feeling and decide to not fly any more. That, likewise, is a fine thing to do. If you make legislation against flying, you are now taking things away from me. Your fears project your feelings onto my reality. You can even make all sorts of arguments that "you don't need to fly, just drive." The reality is that you are no safer than before (remember -- you already chose not to fly). Perhaps you are even less safe. The act of flight is still a reality, even if illegal. Laws don't stop physics from working. Pilots become increasingly rare. The air traffic control system atrophies. Now, if someone wants to use aviation against you, we as a people are no longer prepared.All because you had a fear.I know the analogy doesn't work all the way. But I'm trying to illustrate fear.
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If one of you reading is afraid of guns I would ask that you go to one of your friends that isn't and have them show you around a gun. Learn what makes it tick. Maybe go to a shooting range and try it yourself.What you know about guns likely comes from the media. Be it TV, movies, internet, books or however else you consume content. The amount of misinformation out there about guns is beyond measure. You owe it to yourself to at least know what you are afraid of. At the end you might still be afraid, but you'll at least know more.