Monday, October 06, 2014

GUN WATCH: Charles Cooke at National Review Writes About Threats based on Gun Watch Picture

GUN WATCH: Charles Cooke at National Review Writes About Threats based on Gun Watch Picture

Charles C. W. Cooke writes about it at National Review.com.   I would have been happy to have him use the photograph, with attribution, but perhaps, because the MDA page did not give attribution, he never contacted me.

He does a good job of covering the issue.  I would have been happy to give him more background.   From nationalreview.com:

Reacting to a photograph of a man standing at a checkout with a handgun holstered upon his hip, mom-who-demands-action Joyce Ward asks, “Why weren’t the police called immediately?” And “why,” Ward continues, “wasn’t he shot by the police for having a weapon”? Fellow poster LisaMcLogan Shaheen has a similar inquiry, wondering, “Why hasn’t someone called 911 so the cops can gun him down?” Others go a little further, proposing that they might help their cause along if they were actively to bring about an altercation. “Every time I see someone with a gun in a store I will call 911,” Jennifer Decker vows, “they’ll get tired of that right quick!!!” Even that plan is too limited for Ann Marie. “Just call the police every time you see someone with one,” she counsels, “the police will get sick of it eventually or have a run in with one of these clowns and then things will change.”
I am the person in the  checkout that they are discussing, so the threats are of more than academic interest to me.   If you  wish to read the original story, it is at this link.   To understand why the people making these threats are doing so, I have found this article by Sarah Thompson, M.D. to be informative.   For those of you who do not wish to read the whole article, she discusses  projection, denial, reaction formation, and rage.  

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