Constitutional Law

Calling Dr. Freud

From the Boston Globe":

"The naughty thrill of reaching under the socks, the shock of actually touching the thing, finding it cold, as if on ice. Such is my memory of furtive encounters with my father's handgun. At the time, Dad was an FBI agent. Where he stowed his weapon when off-duty was absolutely out-of-bounds, which defined its appeal.....

Even at age 4, I was hypnotized by a gun. The gun was a mystical object, with significance that far transcended any imagined use. Fear, but also consolation. Awe. Trembling. That the gun was my father's was a first clue to potency. Hidden away, yet the gun sent a pulse through the whole apartment, a psychological electromagnet around which my awareness swirled. Long before I tasted the temptations of sex, I yielded to an irresistible prurience by opening that drawer. ,,,"

I must admit that, at age 10 or so, I handled my father's deer rifle, a converted Springfield 03, without permission. But I knew the code. Open the bolt, check the magazine, peer up into the chamber, stick your little finger in to make sure. Never trembled nor had some strange pulse thru the entire house, nor in later years considered it like sex (nevermind the comparisons to full auto, let alone those to full auto fire).

Can't help but wonder if the antigunners' argument has some Freudian resemblance to rather puritanical arguments about sexuality. The rationale isn't that something is sociallty harmful, or that the harm could be averted by restricting harmful misuse, but that someone, somewhere, is having disapproved fun.

(With recognition that this does injustice to the puritans, who had nothing against drinking -- witness Cromwell, who loved good wine, nor shooting, nor sex at least in marriage, witness their enormous families and also prosecutions for fornication ). Actually, esp. in places like modernday Boston, the puritans' real views come off as quite libertatian.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on June 16, 2008 (boomark / email).