Paranoids With Guns

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Paranoia is the exaggerated or unfounded fear that others are trying to hurt you. In its worst case, it is a mental illness that requires treatment, but, milder forms of paranoia are relatively common throughout the population.

Recent studies have shown that the incidence and severity of paranoia are on the increase. A psychologist at the University of Texas has found that the percentage of his students with paranoid thoughts has tripled over the past few years from 5 percent to 15 percent.

Another professor of psychology, this one from the University of North Carolina, noted that “People walk around with odd thoughts all the time. The question is if it translates into real behavior.” In other words, we are free to think what we want, but when our thoughts work their way into action they will likely have impacts on society – and those impacts are not always positive.

Sometimes our paranoid sense can be heightened by things that occur in our environment. September 11th, for instance, caused many people to become more careful and alert to their surroundings. The events of that awful day also stirred some prejudices toward people who were Arab or identified as Muslims. The prejudices were probably already within us to a lesser degree, but the destruction of the Twin Towers gave us an internal permission to be more open regarding our dislike of the groups that we held responsible.

Last week’s election of a Black man, Barack Obama, has also stirred and inflated the prejudices of a large segment of American society. One way that this prejudice can be quantified is in gun sales. The National Rifle Association, an organization largely funded by gun manufacturers, has been working overtime trying to convince the public that Obama intends to ban semi-automatic weapons and that he is very anti-gun. As a result of this industry manipulation, gun sales have risen dramatically since the election. The sale of assault rifles (usually priced above $1,000 each) has gone through the roof in the more conservative areas of the United States.

So people are becoming more paranoid and they are stockpiling arms. What a great combination! I hope that in the midst of this “worst financial crisis since the 1930’s” that the guys buying the thousand dollar assault weapons are caught up on their house payments and have already done their Christmas shopping. Kids deserve a chance at a normal life, even if their parents have already given up on living in reality.