Wall Street Journal “Dear Dan” Response Ticks All the Wrong Boxes

By Robert Farago

“Dear Dan, I’m wondering what you make of gun control,” an alleged reader allegedly named Skyler allegedly asks The Wall Street Journal’s know-it-all Dan Ariely [above]. “Obviously, it is in everyone’s best interest to have a safer country where you’re less likely to be shot in public. But since the massacre in Oregon, gun sales have only gone up. Is there anything we can do to reduce gun violence?” Dan’s answer . . .

This all strikes me as a case of over-optimism. When we hear about gun violence, we tell ourselves, “If I didn’t have a gun, I might get attacked—but if I had a gun, I could protect myself.” We can imagine the benefits of gun ownership, but we can’t imagine the stress or panic we’d feel while being attacked. (In wartime, in fact, many guns never get fired because of the stress felt by people under fire.) We also can’t imagine ourselves as hotheaded attackers or imagine our new gun being used by people in our household to attack others.

After all, we’re such good, reasonable people, and those surrounding us are similarly upstanding and calm. So people buy guns, often with good intentions—but these guns …Read the Rest

Source:: Truth About Guns