Brian Micklethwait at Samizdata.net gives the all-too-obvious answer to Unc's oft-asked rhetorical question "Why are anti-gun activists so violent?"
And he's right in stating that the assumption that everyone is more or less just like us is a huge factor in a wide range of behaviors: It's why the office gossip believes everyone is talking about them and why chronic fabulists assume everyone else is a BS artist, too...
One of the great ego-driven failures of "localized" cognition (and higher education) has been the notion of Universality - that everybody else, despite all evidence to the contrary, wants to be like the thinker.
ReplyDelete*Tune of Fiddler on the Roof--Anti on the Roof*
ReplyDeleteProjection! Projection!
If I were a crazy man all day long I'd be Paul Helmke if I were a crazy man . . .
Projection!
Shootin' Buddy
There are over 400,000 concealed handgun licenses issued in Texas. I've run across a fair number of them. I've only arrested ONE of them for assault (or anything else), and it bothered me, because, though the elements of the crime were there, it was thin. I fully expected him to have his case dismissed, and it was.
ReplyDeleteThat's over a decade of law enforcement in a state that has been issuing CHLs since 1995.
It's anecdotal, but there it is.
"I've only arrested ONE of them for assault (or anything else), and it bothered me, because, though the elements of the crime were there, it was thin. I fully expected him to have his case dismissed, and it was."
ReplyDeleteBig difference between probable cause and beyond a reasonable doubt.
I just wish the police would make more thin arrests! Imagine having a defense to a majority of your cases . . . *wipes drool off chin*
Shootin' Buddy
Why are violent people anti-gun?
ReplyDeleteMaybe they aren't really projecting their fear they will misuse a gun on others. Maybe they're afraid the spouse or other person they want to victimize will shoot them.
I would expect every true bully to be anti-gun.
Maybe they aren't really projecting their fear they will misuse a gun on others. Maybe they're afraid the spouse or other person they want to victimize will shoot them.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what said projection entails -- I would never do it because I'm under control ... but those other guys ...
In this village we put Shootin' Buddy on the roof . . . why? Projection!
ReplyDeleteShootin' Buddy, in a basement, not on a roof.
In this village we put Shootin' Buddy on the roof . . . why?
ReplyDeleteBetter fields of fire
Another place I run into this projection thing is folks that choose to live in large cities and cannot understand how anyone would not want to live in NYFC, DC, SF etc.
Well, I can't understand wanting to live is such places, but I'm glad they do as it keeps them as far from me as possible while minimizing their ability to turn my area into one as Fraked up as those are.