I learned a new word today
by digby
I suppose many of you already know it, but it was new to me:
Hoplophobia is a neologism, originally coined to describe an "irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them." It is sometimes used more generally to describe the "fear of firearms" or the "fear of armed citizens."
Firearms authority and writer Jeff Cooper claims to have coined the word in 1962 to describe what he called a "mental aberration consisting of an unreasoning terror of gadgetry, specifically, weapons." The term was constructed from the Greek ὅπλον - hoplon, meaning, amongst other things, "arms," and φόβος - phobos, meaning "fear." Although not a mental health professional, Cooper employed the term as an alternative to other slang terms, stating: "We read of 'gun grabbers' and 'anti-gun nuts' but these slang terms do not [explain this behavior]." Cooper attributed this behavior to an irrational fear of firearms and other forms of weaponry. Cooper's opinion was that "the most common manifestation of hoplophobia is the idea that instruments possess a will of their own, apart from that of their user." Writing in an opinion piece, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Dimitri Vassilaros asserted that the term was intended by Cooper as tongue-in-cheek to mock those who think guns have free will.
I don't think guns have free will. But they do go off by accident and kill and main people. Often. And they are also often in the hands of people who like to intimidate and threaten others. It's hard to know who those people are just by looking at them so the common sense reaction is to stay away from people who have deadly weapons. That doesn't seem irrational to me.
But them I'm obviously afflicted with this disorder so there you go. I just can't help wondering about a culture that insists a zygote deserves state protection from its mother because it's immoral to kill innocent children thinks this is ok: "Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights."
Or this:
Apparently, they include their own kids.
