America's Gun Addiction

Americans like to make fun of their supposedly harmless "addictions." For example, if someone jokingly claims they are "addicted to chocolate," we do not call their mental health into question. We make fun of our faux addictions because we know there are ways to break habits of simple overindulgence.

True addictions are more serious, of course. People who develop addictions to alcohol, drugs, pornography and gambling often learn there is no easy cure. Addictions destroy careers, marriages and lives. Treatment for addictions is a huge and necessary industry. Many well-meaning organizations are devoted to helping individuals break free from cycles of dependency.

Emerging technologies almost never fail to create a new crop of addicts. First came TV, then computers, then video gaming and the interactive world. All created their share of addicts. There are also email addicts, live chat addicts, social networking addicts and people addicted to a seemingly endless parade of personal gadgets; Palm Pilots, cell phones, Blackberrys, iPhones. Most of these addictions turn out to be harmless fads in the long run. If someone wants to spend 10 hours a day texting obsessively on a tiny keyboard, who are they really hurting?

It is the addiction to gadgets that really can cause harm we need to worry about.

Like guns.

If you don't think gun addiction is a problem in America, then you haven't been paying much attention to news and events the last 10 years. For example: Charlton Heston stood up in front of an NRA national convention with a rifle over his head shouting that someone would have to pry his weapons out of his "cold, dead hands" before giving up his Second Amendment Rights. The enthusiastic crowd of NRA members cheered. That is the language and behavior of a group of true gun addicts.

Most recently gun sales and gun permit requests went through the roof went after Barack Obama was elected. The reason? People believed the incoming President and a Democratic Congress would conspire take away their guns. These weapon addicts have responded as if America was entering a period of Weapons Prohibition. Better get your gun fix before the supply is taken away...

Frankly these are signs of a sick, fearful society. They also give clear indication that people are irrationally and obsessively attached to their guns. It is certainly no stretch at all to call this type of behavior gun addiction.

How does it all start? How do gun addictions form?

Like most addictions, gun addiction begins with a process of habituation. Persistent use of a thing or substance can transform into an obsession. When that obsession can no longer be controlled, it becomes an addiction. To make matters worse, obsessed people often seek the company of others who share the same interest--and often encourage it. This is called "enabling" the addiction.

Gun enablers seem to be everywhere in America. They are especially prominent among the conservative movement's talking heads. I once heard a noted conservative guest on TV's "Politically Incorrect" insist that it should be every American citizen's obligation to own a gun. Not just a right--an obligation! That is certainly an aggressive interpretation of our Second Amendment rights. Thankfully the right to bear arms remains a right and not an obligation (or requirement) for American citizenship. Gun addicts cannot seem to imagine why everyone on earth would not want to own a weapon of some sort.

There are plenty of good reasons not to own a gun, but the manic way guns are being used to impact society simply overwhelms rational arguments for gun control. Every new outbreak of gun violence in America threatens not only our society but our Constitution as well. A nation that cannot control crime through rule of law is not a stable republic. Gun addicts of course think the solution to this problem is more guns! They propose passing laws that allow "concealed carry" to combat gun violence. Their argument is that a threat of retaliation is the best deterrent against criminal use of weapons. But tif you think about it, concealed carry is nothing more than a disguised return to the vigilantism of the Wild West. What concealed carry could well produce is even more shootouts where innocent people are harmed.

Concealed carry one of the solutions proposed after every new outbreak of gun violence. You hear the gun addicts trot it out after every high school or college campus murder spree. But this basic truth is hard for gun addicts to swallow: proliferation of lethal weaponry has exceeded society's ability to govern them. The solution is not to add even more weapons to this mix.

The media exhibits a poor grasp of the gun problem in America. In the days following the Northern Illinois University gun tragedy in February 2008, one prominent newspaper headline screamed: "What was killer's motive?"

The question itself is wrong. Killers no longer need a motive to fire their weapons. The destructive capacity of the weapons themselves has become the key satisfaction. We see this dynamic acted out in violent video games where the goal of the contest is to kill as often and as much as you can. Splatters and compete annihilations of characters are prized achievements. Video games feature weapons that can be easily reloaded, fueling the horrendous fantasy of merciless and perpetual power.

Guns also fulfill an ancient human desire for power over others. That is why movies about gun violence are so popular. They feed a power fantasy that guns are an almost magical solution to our problems. The "guy with the gun" is depicted as the guy with the power. Think Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator. Keanu Reaves in The Matrix. These characters exert power over others and perform superhuman acts that feed the sub-ego American fantasy that force equals merit. People get shot in these movies and run around as if nothing happened. In truth, bullets maim, disable and kill. Just ask any victim of a gun shooting if they feel like a hero afterwards. The gory reality of guns and bullets is tragic and depressing. People's lives are ruined and the innocent often suffer the worst consequences. Almost every week in cities like Chicago, New York and LA, bystanders get caught in crossfire from gang shootings. People die.

Like drugs that remove the worry or conscience from an addicted soul, guns empower the dispossessed to exert authority over others through weapons of deadly force. Our gun laws are designed to keep weapons out of the hands of people with a propensity for this type of disenfranchisement, but powerful weapons are relatively easy to get. And when you have popular figures like Charlton Heston waving guns and uttering declarations about "prying a gun from my cold, dead hands," who can tell the sane from the disenfranchised? It appears the nuts are running the nuthouse. I'm sure if any of them read this, there will be the requisite insults and accusations of being un-American. They're perhaps the same people trying to run me off the road on my bicycle while driving their giant pickup trucks with the gun racks. Their America does not have room for people who don't act and think like them.

Of course not every gun owner is a gun addict. There are millions of law-abiding gun owners who simply own guns for self-protection and legal hunting. But here is the problem: Gun addiction is like alcoholism or heroin use. It reflects badly on the rational sector of gun owners.

I once worked with a successful sales associate who made a six-figure income and owned a beautiful home in the suburbs. He also owned literally dozens of weapons. His gun obsession was driven by his deep hatred and fear of black people, both of which he verbalized on a regular basis. To keep these fears at bay, he stocked an arsenal of loaded weapons in his house. This man genuinely feared the day when, in his words, "the n******" would storm his house and take away his possessions. Listening to him obsess on the supposed vagaries of enemy races, you began to wonder if he would relish the opportunity to carry out his violent fantasies.

Is this the new mold of the American hero? Frightened loners who stock weapons in their house to fight off their fears at their door?

If these really are our new heroes, it may become impossible to run a democracy that isn't shot full of holes.