When discussing the gun issue often the term of pyschological projection often comes up. Many anti-gun people are against guns because They Themselves are violent people and they project their own violent nature onto lawful and peaceful gun owners.
Now that’s a huge slam for the anti-gun activists, but not what I’m here to talk about. Is there projection on our side?
I’m going to say yes.
Nate who writes at Guns and Bullets seems like a really nice guy, but also projecting.
Of course I’m not going to tarnish a good guy like Nate, but will say that I suspect that Nate is projecting his own honesty onto those who are not.
His above post is discussing James Kelly, but his post was not written in a vacuum, I discussed Mr. Kelly here, not only that but I first heard his name over at Kevin Baker’s and there have been a number of exchanges over there.
I myself have been quite guilty of projecting rationality onto people. A Good Example is This Rube who I refuse to link but I will show his Foolish Behavior in other blogger’s posts. I won’t link him because like a frighteningly large percentage of strident anti-gun activists this troll shows clear signs of Narcisistic Personality Disorder
You see I had a long and tumultuous relationship with this jerk. I assumed he was like I once was anti-gun for all the right reasons, but unaware of the facts of the issue, and filled with misinformation from the anti-rights side, and simply needed to hear a compelling argument, see some compelling data, and do some soul searching.
And I did this for over a year with this one individual, meanwhile broadcasting his blog to all who would listen. But he was never concerned with gun control in the first place. This troll simply wanted people saying his name and reading his blog. He didn’t care if the attention was negative or positive, just so long as eyes were on him, and the various hot-button issues he talked about, it seemed that preaching that lawful people should have their guns taken away for the “Common Good” was a damn good bell to ring if you wanted eyes on you, but didn’t care if they weren’t happy eyes.
So the question I have is: how long should we accommodate those who are vehemently illogical, and who are insistently pushing an ideology that is not only detrimental to you personally, but to society at large?
At what point is it safe to assume that your opponent is not being honest?
Kevin makes a nice statement about that
I remain convinced, as does James, that my side of the argument is the most compelling. I’ve met very few people who have gone from being gun-rights supporters to gun control advocates, but many (like Nate and Weer’d Beard) who have been convinced by exposure to the facts that gun control…Because it’s people like Nate I want to reach. It’s for people like Nate that I started writing this blog seven years ago.
Unix Jedi makes this great statement in the comments:
Sorry, but we’ve proven that otherwise. I appreciate you trying to be civil to him, but no, he’s got no problems with very dishonest arguments, demanding we have perfect knowledge, perfect safety, and perfect conditions and insisting that it’s ridiculous that we ask him to examine that of his arguments.
That’s not an honest argument.
Before I commented on Jame’s page I had read the prior exchanges, and realized that to assume he had been through all of that and was still an honest man, I would have to do some serious projection.
Still Nate has a valid point, so I answered a number of his questions honestly, then politely asked him mine.
When I got the answer I printed here, I felt there was no further to go. He was not an honest man interested in debate. Whatever reason he wants people on his sight commenting, I won’t indulge him in.
I will sit here and talk about gun rights, gun control, and guns in general tho, because there are many many people like myself and Nate, and my wife, and others who have honest questions, and I would love to supply answers to them.
Also I would be a zealot myself to not admit that I was wrong on gun control, so I myself am a fallible mortal, so I am wide open to anti-gun people to seek me out and point me to my errors.
The only problem with that is I have been blogging on gun rights for a number of years (OK on Livejournal, but it was something!), and I’ve been seeking out anti-gun bloggers for debate for about as long, and I’ve only found people who will change their mind (or at least retreat from the issue), or they engage in dishonest practices that buddy Mike W. lays out here.
If there weren’t so many facts to back it up, I’d suspect I was getting cynical. But I don’t think there are any honest supporters of gun control out there….but us Scientists are always seeking the unknown maybe I’ll find one.
But if I think I have, I’m no fool, I’ll be wary!
