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A recent video provides a great summary of what makes most anti-gun arguments tick these days.

Sociology Professor David Yamane of Wake Forest University is already well-known for his work on Gun Culture 2.0, or the shift in motivations behind gun ownership in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In his latest video, The Standard Model of Explaining the Irrationality of Defensive Gun Ownership, he gives a six-point summary that encapsulates most anti-gun arguments today.

Knowing how these arguments work and what premises they’re built upon can help us not only understand the full argument, but better refute it. Let’s take a look at the six points and some things we can learn from this.

Recognition of Gun Culture 2.0

Most of today’s anti-gun arguments acknowledge the reality of Gun Culture 2.0. In short, this newer, current version of gun culture focuses on self-defense rather than hunting, military service, collecting, other pursuits that “Fudds” are into. There are still fools like Joe Biden who try to focus on hunting, but those arguments often intentionally avoid the self-defense angle as a way of denigrating and discounting it, or as an attempt to split the gun-owning community.

Either way, it’s widely known in anti-gun circles that they have to refute the self-defense argument for gun ownership to win, and can’t simply rely on saying “You don’t need that for hunting” anymore.

Discounts Need For/Utility of Guns In Self-Defense

The obvious counterargument to guns for self-defense is that they aren’t necessary or useful in defense. This argument takes many forms, and they’re too numerous to discuss here, but one good example is the “Why do you need an AR-15?” question that supposedly wins the argument (because they won’t accept any defensive need).

Claim The Opposite is True: That Guns Add Risk

This one is based in flawed academic studies from decades ago. The basic idea is that you’re highly unlikely to need a gun in self defense (because academics and others often undercount defensive gun uses), and that the risks of an accident or having a criminal use the gun against you are far greater than using a gun to defend yourself.

Thus, the argument goes, you shouldn’t own a gun for self-defense…or, the government should actively prevent you from doing so.

Gun Ownership, Therefore, Is Irrational

If the risks outweigh any possible benefit, then gun ownership must be irrational. In other words, individuals aren’t using logic to justify their gun ownership. Pretty simple.

But, if you’re not being rational, anti-gun academics and those who on their work think that something else must explain tens of millions of Americans owning guns. There must be some other ulterior motivation.

Sociologists and Political Scientists’ Alternate Explanation

The laymen’s version of this set of arguments often focuses on genitalia. But while academics no doubt agree with the small penis hypothesis, they tend to avoid it as it’s seen as undignified in and around their ivory towers. Instead, they’ve come up with more complex, but fundamentally similar explanations for what causes individuals to make the fundamentally illogical decision to own firearms  . . .

    • Downward economic mobility
    • Stereotypical/Toxic Masculinity
    • Racism/Racial Resentment

You can basically boil all of this down to “You own guns because you’re weak.”

Psychologists See Gun Ownership as a Maladaptive Coping Mechanism

Looking at the conundrum of widespread gun ownership a little differently, psychologists view it slightly differently, calling it a coping mechanism for problems in your life like…your family getting poorer, insecure masculinity, or racism. In other words, the same motivations as above, just restated slightly differently.

Where These Arguments Break Down

I think Yamane’s analysis here is spot on. These are the bases for almost every argument against civilian gun ownership you see these days. He’s going to be doing several more videos detailing each point over the next few weeks, so he’s worth subscribing and hearing him out.

Recent events, however, aren’t kind to those who use this structure on which to build their anti-gun arguments. The increasing diversity of gun ownership for self-defense has made these claims not only untenable, but even self-contradictory. When gun ownership increases among minorities, women, and the middle class in suburban or exurban areas, the argument that guns are a coping mechanism for poor, rural, white, racist men looks absurd.

It looks even worse when the anti-gun arguments start to expose their own inconsistencies. There are a few people out there who really are insecure white supremacists and/or authoritarian theocrats, and they can be threatening to marginalized groups. So, when anti-gun people tar all gun owners as toxically masculine insecure racists that are menaces to society, they erode their own premise that guns aren’t needed for self-defense.

If they’re really out to get us, then we aren’t paranoid. If insecure racist white men pose a threat to minorities and others — as academics and anti-gun activists increasingly claim — then owning the tools with which to defend ourselves is a perfectly rational response.

Just don’t be surprised when they block you or change the subject when you point out that the anti-gun snake is eating its own tail.

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50 COMMENTS

  1. Had some interesting non-conversations with anti-gun brother-in-law. Every time he uses one of the tactics described in the article, I just note, “If it saves only one, especially me…” The response usually results in claims that saving only one life is irrational. When I reply that using gun control laws to save only one is irrational, things wind down pretty quick.

  2. Seat belts and air bags, irrational. Fire alarms and extinguishers, irrational. Gun ownership, irrational. We all just need to solve our problems by holding hands and doing trust falls because if we say nothing bad ever happens then we don’t need back up safety measures. If you have these things it’s because you’re racist btw.

  3. I dont gaf what’s legal, or what “makes sense” to a bunch of sheep. I’ll keep my guns and a whole bunch of you will regret trying to take them. By a bunch, I mean millions. Guns are small potatoes when it comes to fighting.

  4. yada, yada, yada teacher…Enough about how pasty mouth pompous nitwits view Americans exercising a Constitutional Right.

    The only people who deserve being scrutinized are people who wallow around in Gun Control. After all History Confirms Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is rooted in racism and genocide.

    With The Truth About Gun Control chiseled in History it’s crystal clear Gun Control zealots and their useful idiots have mental problems.

    • As noted a key part of their argument is that if you want a gun you must be compensating for having a small penis.

      The counter argument seems obvious – if you are afraid to defend yourself and your family and your property with a firearm, should it become necessary, YOU HAVE NO BALLS.

    • You are absolutely correct about the history of gun control, Debbie. Why do you think that history is under attack by the Liberals? It’s because those who know history are less likely to repeat past mistakes. The historical record does not support their suppositions on gun control.

  5. Ya know on May 31,2020 BlackLootersMurder had breached my town. The local po-lice did quite little to slow the looting & misconduct. I had my AR by my side waiting for the scum to show up…as did a bunch of other’s locally. Only I had no wish for publicity. I am my own 1st responder.

    • When a group of protesters announced they’d be coming to my town on behalf of Antifa/BLM crowd and stopping in front of the local Sheriff station, literally half of all our valley’s uniformed were ordered to dress up in full battle rattle and stand in formation outside to protect the building. Mrs Haz works in a building across the street from the station, so we both witnessed the scene when I visited her at work that day.

      As I viewed the protesters, journalists, and LEOs, I realized that our entire community was being patrolled that day by half the usual Deputies, meaning petty criminals had twice the opportunity to burgle, steal, or otherwise do what they wanted without being caught (home security video doesn’t mean as much anymore now face masks are accepted as ‘normal’, even today).

      • Isn’t that funny though how the left wines about Republican governors taking us back to the Wild West meanwhile they are all for the bandana face covering? Making sure the bad guys never get recognized. You know, the ones they purposely let out of their cells.

  7. “You own guns because you’re weak.”

    Like millions of other young kids, I was bullied in grade school. I asked my dad to teach me how to box so I could defend myself and he declined, saying that boxing was a sport, not a self defense tool. He also told me that if I had something in my hands, I was ten feet tall. After I learned to master improvised weapons, I found out that he was right.

    I’m almost 75 now and my days of fighting off more than one young guy at a time with just my hands, feet and improvised weapons are long gone. That doesn’t make me weak, it just makes me old.

    I recognize that leftists want me to die, and some day I will — but not today because I still shoot straight.

  8. Totally ignores the increasing numbers of entirely unprovoked and seemingly without reason (revenge, argument, robbery, etc.) violent attacks being videotaped, mostly in urban environments, over the last year or so.

    And the reported 25% of robberies or muggings where the perpetrator shoots or stabs the victim even if they were entirely cooperative.

    Seems to me that if someone with criminal intent comes into your world, much less your home, waving a firearm you really need a better comeback than “take whatever you want” because what they want may be more than you or your wife or your children are willing to give.

  9. The same sociologists and phycologists that are totally cool with lopping off your junk and taking hormone injections for the rest of your life. Because that’s rational and not at all maladaptive.

  10. Self defense is one thing defense against tyranny is another form of defense that was not mentioned. Ask any culture that has been denied gun ownership how that’s worked out. Nazi Germany, China, North Korea, etc just to name a few. We had to send weapons to Ukraine to help them out, what about us?! We gun owners are the last line of defense against invaders both foreign and domestic. And don’t say that it can’t happen in the U S of A.

  12. sounds like the 6 BS points dacian, Miner49er, and Albert Hall bring up. Especially dacian who relies on ‘copy-n-paste’ harping on outdated and debunked studies/research that try to reinforce these points. The six points are anti-gun dogma that is not only wrong and a lie, it actually leads to increasing deaths and injury.

  13. Woman Kicked Out Of Sam’s Club For ‘Concealed’ Carry, Allowed Back In After Calling Corporate > https://concealednation.org/2022/10/woman-kicked-out-of-sams-club-for-concealed-carry-allowed-back-in-after-calling-corporate/

    “A woman was kicked out of Sam’s Club for carrying concealed but then allowed back in after the store manager called corporate.

    A North Carolina woman with a concealed carry permit went shopping at Sam’s Club after working on her farm. She was open carrying, which is legal in North Carolina. Knowing that Sam’s Club had a sign on the door that only stated that open carry was not allowed, she put her shirt over her open carry gun.

    The doorman noticed the gun under her shirt and alerted other employees. Two female employees confronted the woman and asked her to leave and remove the gun.

    After the woman showed the store manager the sign, the manager called corporate, who reportedly got angry that any employees even approached her. She was then allowed back into the store to show with her ‘concealed’ carry gun.”

  14. Beginning with taking antigunners’ propaganda at face value (as what they actually believe) and trying to understand why, this model sidesteps the real question(s).

    Given that there is not only the text of the Constitution and ample precedent for what its writers (and every pre-20C legal mind) meant / intended, but also abundant empirical evidence (from non gun-rights-advocate sources like the CDC or FBI) for all the relevant facts (DGUs, infinitesimal rate of accidental gun deaths unrelated to crime, police inability to intervene in violent crimes in progress), what causes antigunners to advocate policies completely contrary to facts, principles, logic, and pragmatic considerations?

    One of the first logical steps should be contrasting their theories with historical mistakes / pseudohistorical beliefs.

    • Let’s first recognize that “facts” are not “truth”. “Facts” are evidence of white privilege.

      Second, Dims put emotion ahead of thinking. Emotion over non-criminals being shot.

      Third, fear. Dims fear not the criminal, but the “normal” looking person carrying a gun, and suddenly snapping; leading to mass shootings. Mass shootings in places where “nice” people congregate. And that is actually rational and logical. Since Dims are “nice” people, and don’t go into crime-ridden areas, nor do “responsible” gun owners, fear of “normals” makes sense.

      Fourth, history didn’t happen in the lives of Dims; that was all long, long ago, when people were not as civilized as today. However, if it should happen that a “nice” person is attacked and killed, that is just part of living in this country. It is better that thousands of unarmed people submit to being killed, than one armed person stop a deadly attack….because attackers are not “bad” people, just disadvantaged.

      Note: Dims are arming themselves against 2A defenders, not criminal activity in their neighborhoods.

      • Well written! Your sarcastic blog comment came closer to the truth than the Professor’s model.

        • “Your sarcastic blog comment came closer to the truth than the Professor’s model.”

          Happy to be here, grateful for the opportunity, proud to serve.

          Thank you.

  15. Family of four were kidnapped and found killed this week (the youngest eight months old). Lets have those psychologists break out arguments for not being armed instead should offer tea and crumpets.

  16. Of course guns are owned because your weak…duh

    That what we have been saying all along. Atleast when it concerns defensive firearms. They level the playing field as a force multiplier. I’m not sure why it takes such educated minds to remind us that a 90lb female can be easily overtaken by a 250lb male. Is it really so much rocket science to say that a single person is too weak to fend off multiple attackers at once in most circumstances?

    Maybe some people just need it stated another way for them to understand.

    • Why do you think prisons have more body building equipment than educational resources? The idea is to make the criminals stronger when released and maybe better schooled in the “art” of criminality.

  17. 1 death by gunfire in Japan last year

    40,000 deaths on average and 85,000 wounded in Capitalvania per year because Capitalvania does not have any meaningful gun control.

    I think that really says it all without getting too complicated for the Neanderthal mind of the Far Right to try and comprehend through the fog of advanced paranoia.

    • You are being intellectually dishonest with a statistic.

      There’s lots of ways to attack or kill someone. A gun is just one way. But a gun is also an effective deterrant against most of the other ways. Gun ownership saves significantly more lives than it ever endangers. And often without a shot being fired.

      You conventiently make no difference between criminal gunfire and lawful defensive gunfire. I will happily take an honest Neanderthal over your rampant intellectual dishonesty.

      Duck season!

      • Storm Trooper

        You are a laugh a minute. Do you think the Red Army (Socialists) beat the White Army (Capitalvanian Far Right) by throwing cream puffs at them. The Socialists won and have been winning ever since. Every Social reform made by them was adopted by Europe and even many Far Eastern Countries not to forget some of them were adopted in the U.S. Ever year of Workers Unions, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Aid to Education just to name a few.

        Go back to school Storm Trooper you flunked history classes

        • Based on your words I am correct. My comment was directed at >you< not any political philosophy.

    • LOL. Literally the prime minister of Japan was shot and killed by a homemade gun! If this isn’t definitive proof gun control doesn’t work, I don’t know what is!

  19. The gun control nuts always use mass shootings as proof of their supposition that there are just too many guns in our society. I say that there are too many mass shootings because not enough people are armed. Gun Free Zones are nothing but “KILLING ZONES.”

  21. So, in light of recent events in ‘Vegas, just what law or ban, etc. will prevent someone from arming themselves with whatever they can get and using the item to commit a violent crime?
    2 dead and several wounded. Using a large kitchen knife.
    1 person with a pistol could have ended the attack with likely fewer injured and possibly only the perp being the deceased.
    Of course, the usual response is call 911 and try to be a good witness. Hard to be a good witness when you are either in intensive care or dead.

  22. The right to self defense is universal. To deny that right is to deny your own existence.

  23. So, in a twist that should be entirely unsurprising, the guy’s elucidating a shorter version of what I’ve been talking about for years (because I’m explaining the individual and group dynamics along with trying to show you where else this is prevalent, which is everywhere at this point). Which is not to say that Dr. Yamane is a Johnny Come Lately, but that he’s looking at this from a different (and IMHO too narrow) angle.

    The type of brainwashing that starts with the Pavlovians operates on multiple levels to be self-reinforcing for the brainwashing, for the individual and for a large group and it does this over time. It can be deployed in many ways, which is why I constantly hammer on “target audience”, because this is a huge, huge concept if you want to change a society, especially if you want to turn parts of it against other parts of it.

    Good dog trainers know these things and use them, but not for manipulative ends. The fastest way to train a dog is to introduce it to a pack of already trained dogs. Caesar Milan showed this on TV FFS. But people don’t see it being done to them because they’ve be conditioned to *look away*. But that *pack oriented training* is what we call a “society” and it is malleable if you want to change it and are ruthless enough to do so.

    These tactics works even better on people because we can make longer temporal associations and much more complex abstract connections, which are base facets of our being that casinos and other con men use to their advantage.

    It’s doubly effective for the fact that people will rationalize their behavior in a social context, meaning they unknowingly rationalize their own brainwashed behavior as a method of denying the brainwashing ever took place. This has been worked out in surprising detail over the past ~220 years and has been weaponized by pretty much every government on the planet to some degree or another.

    Huxley’s understanding of this back in the 1920’s is why he wrote Brave New World and I will remind you that by 1961 he publicly stated that the capacity to brainwash a population had already exceeded where he thought it would get to by 2050. This distressed him greatly and he spoke of it during that Ivy League speaking tour in ’61. Unfortunately, Orwell was already dead, having died, IIRC in 1950. A tragically short life for a man with the insight he possessed. Huxley, OTOH, did himself no favors with the public by publishing The Doors of Perception and being a visible proponent of LSD, something that got him lumped in with Leary in the 1960’s and basically discredited everything Huxley ever did that was correct, which was most of his life’s work if we’re honest.

    Simply compare the following lists and you’ll see that the “Psychology” list functions on multiple levels of the “Brainwashing” list, which is remarkably similar to this guy’s list (provided at the end for comparison). Keep in mind that the actual psychology functions at multiple levels and over multiple timescales in relation to the final list (or any other group you’d like to make that list for).

    ==Psychology of Manipulation==
    1. Assault the Identity
    2. Increase felt guilt in any way possible.
    3. Encourage self-betrayal based on guilt.
    4. Promote dissociative behavior/questioning of Identity.
    5. Offer temporary leniency for past transgressions if confessed to.
    6. Offer confession opportunity.
    7. Attach felt guilt to previous Identity.
    8. Introduce new belief system that removes guilt and prior Identity.
    9. “New, controlled person” emerges. (self reinforces new identity by seeking others with same views).

    ==Brainwashing==
    1. Pick Target/Isolate Target
    2. Attack Self-Esteem.
    3. Mental Abuse.
    4. Physical Abuse (optional/if necessary).
    5. Repetition of Abuse (mostly mental).
    6. Continued Isolation/Allowed Socialization with Others Further Along Brainwashing Track
    7. Introduce Us vs. Them mentality.
    8. “Love Bomb” the Target (We accept you, those others don’t!).

    ==Anti Gun Structure==
    1. Recognize Gun Culture.
    2. Discount Utility of Gun Culture.
    3. Hold opposite views of gun culture.
    4. Demonize gun culture as Irrational.
    5. Explain rationalization of maladjusted behavior.
    6. Use “expert” Psychological explanation for “maladaptive behavior”.

    This is brainwashing so fucking effective and deep that the new brainwashers don’t even realize they’re brainwashed themselves because they live if a bubble of society that self-reinforces old brainwashing to create new brainwashing. Exactly like Huxley and Orwell feared and articulated.

    This is a war of attrition where one side only need win 50.x% of the battles and do so over time. They have been doing this for decades on a host of fronts, guns are just one of them. Yuri Bezmenov told you how this system took over the entire schooling apparatus by the 1960’s, and evidence that he’s correct can be seen the the difference between SAT scores in 1964 and 1965, scores that will nosedive until 1975 and then be covered up by a “rescoring” of the test in the 1970’s. At no time did schooling recover, the testing was just rejiggered to provide the illusion that schooling was repaired.

    Run that system forward ~50 years and you have the perfect canvas for the Pavlovians to paint on. And paint they have, with ever increasing speed and furor since the 1980’s.

  25. I like to use leftists’ arguments against them when they use the small genital thing.
    My response usually ends up something like this:
    “I don’t know what your obsession is with other men’s(if it’s a guy) genitals, but if that is your sexual preference, then I fully support your decision- even if I do not share that preference with you. However, in your obvious misogyny, you forget that women own firearms as well. Do they not deserve to be able to protect themselves from men who would harm them? What about those women who do not wish to have their male genitals anymore, or the men who wish they did have them? Are you so hateful and bigoted towards the LBGTQ people that you have to prevent them from defending themselves as well?”

    It is a subtle check on their own sexuality and claiming they aren’t for gay/trans rights is also at play in the response. This usually overloads their prejudice centers of their brain and ends the conversation when I bring that response into play.

    • Any more, in a time when they are increasing likely to say the quiet part out loud, they might just say, “you know, you’re right. We should just our political opponents.”

  26. Listen to Joy Behar or any other psychotic screamer for 30 seconds or more if you have an overwhelming need to cringe.
    Hatred of a Penis is a very real psychosis these days. Should be recognized and treated as a threat to others. WE need to be protected from dangerous psychotics, too!

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