Penis envy and the anti-gun movement

Sometimes, when we're sitting under the mango tree with a few tinnys playing red-necks (well, I 'm playing) the mates and I have puzzled over the bigotry and fanaticism of the anti-gun movement and their allies among the urban chattering classes. Of course, the mates don't exactly use those terms, not being into sociobabble.

Apart from anything else, the anti-gun mob put a ridiculous amount of effort into trying to stop ordinary folk from having guns, yet there is plenty of evidence that guns are statistically very safe in the hands of normal people. Worse, recent work suggests that anti-gun laws seldom do much good, and sometimes even make things worse.

I mean, you would have to be really obsessed to put that much effort into stopping other people from doing something that had little chance of ever effecting you. Further, when what you are fighting to stop others doing is perfectly respectable, in fact, quite an ancient part of the Western European Dreaming, well, that verges on the psychopathic.

Anyway, we noticed that just about everything the anti-gun mob does can be adequately explained by just two motives:

1. Xenophobia

2. Penis envy

Ok! Many anti-gun folk may have noble (though mistaken) motives, but the movement as a whole behaves as if it was mainly motivated by just these two. Maybe, because that is what mostly drives the leaders.

That xenophobia is involved is hardly even open for discussion these days. I often pull up friends and acquaintances among the urban professional and chattering classes (of which I'm a fully paid up member) in the middle of a tirade against "red-necks" (just about anyone they don't like, especially if working class or rural).

When I point out exactly what they sound like, at least my lot have the honesty to admit that they dislike and are nervous of the classes they term red-necks. What they find difficult to accept is that there is no difference between their prejudice against people with other ways of life, from other social classes, and their fathers' prejudice against people from other religions, nations or races.

Briefly, they associate gun ownership with classes they dislike and fear, so they seek to "get" the disliked class by removing something they feel is central to its core identity. That people of all classes own guns, and that guns are hardly central to the Australian working class identity is unimportant, it is their belief that counts.

Seems that most people confuse tolerance with favoring those groups who are in fashion, and hating those who are out. Problem is, this is one issue where "rule of law" is paramount. Either everyone is entitled to the benefits of tolerance and respect for their preferred culture and lifestyle, even if it causes some social damage or you find it unpleasant, or the whole thing breaks down into merely changing which groups get to do the discriminating.

The penis envy part is pretty obvious when you think about it. Notice the way the anti-gun fanatics and urban chattering classes insist that that guns are phallic symbols. Most of the people I know who use guns are mildly puzzled by these claims as, for them, guns have nothing to do with sex.

Of course, we long since worked out that guns really are phallic symbols, but to the anti-gun mob rather than the people who use them. This penis envy (I don't have a gun so why should anyone else, especially a [shudder] blue-collar worker) explains a lot of their fanaticism.

And fanatic they are. Even the roughest of the mates are repelled by the way the anti-gun leaders turn up at the site of any mass killing and use it to push their own little agenda. Kind of like some sort of disgusting carrion eaters come to lap the decaying blood.

Apart from trying to get rid of something they have a phobia about, I guess they find the idea of ritually castrating (in their eyes) people they fear rather attractive.

You know, having major areas of social policy driven by people's sexual hang-ups would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. But then, that's pretty well par for the course these days.

Amusing thing is, if they ever do manage to get rid of guns most of the mates won't be too worried. You see, they tend to be bigger, stronger, and tougher than the chattering classes, not to mention having much better tattoos. They certainly don't need guns to engage in a bit of good-natured intimidation (guns are actually a bit of a menace to them) and they can easily switch to hunting with dogs.

Oh! And one other thing the mates find really funny is the constant shrill accusations that they depend on guns as a penis substitute that emanates from various androgynous creatures in the anti-gun movement. You see, the mates are mostly pretty well hung, at least judging from the ones I've hosed down a tree with over the years, and this seems to be something of a class trait.