A lady I knew expressed the relaionshp between guns and murder in a singularly pithy phrase: "guns cause murder the way penises cause rape."
But some anti-gun advocates see another relationship between guns and penises: the theory that gun ownership is a sign of penile and psychological inadequacy.
Over a decade ago I published an article co-authored by a professor from Columbia Medical School, two professors from Harvard Medcal School, and a University of N.C. biostatstician.[Don B. Kates, Henry E. Schaffer, et al., "Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda", 62 TENN. L. REV. 513-596 (1995)] It discussed the priapic theory fc gun ownership as follows:
Anti-gun public health advocates seem blind or unconcerned about the danger that their emotions may preclude rational evaluation of gun ownership. Psychiatrist Emmanuel Tanay, M.D., who admits that he loathes guns to the point of being unable to look upon or touch them with equanimity, asserts that gun ownership betokens sexual immaturity or neuroticism. Dr. Tanay deems it evidence of this: that gun owners actually "handle ... with obvious pleasure" these horrid objects which so repulse him; that collectors "look after" their collections, "clean, pamper and polish" their guns: "The owner's overvaluation of his gun's worth is an indication of its libidinal value to him." [Emmanuel Tanay, M.D., "Neurotic Attachment to Guns", quoted in Don B. Kates & Nicole Varzos, "Aspects of the Priapic Theory of Gun Ownership" in William Tonso (ed.), THE GUN CULTURE AND ITS ENEMIES 93, 95 (1989).]
As further evidence, Dr. Tanay invokes Freud's view of the sexual significance of firearms in the interpretation of dreams. This is particularly ironic because Freud's comments were not directed at gun ownership or owners. Insofar as Freud addressed the matter at all, he seems to have deemed fear and loathing of guns a sign of sexual immaturity and neuroticism.[ Sigmund Freud & D. Oppenheim, DREAMS IN FOLKLORE (1958) at 33; see also THE MAJOR WRITINGS OF SIGMUND FREUD, Great Books ed., 1952) at 507.] We are emphatically not endorsing Freud's view as either applicable to Dr. Tanay or explanatory of his views. Our concern is with the effect fear and loathing of guns has on the intellect, not the libido. On Dr. Tanay at least the effect is that he can't recognize how gun collectors' tastes might differ from his own, nor can he comprehend passages from Freud; in fact, he is unable to read them without imposing a meaning almost opposite to what they actually say.
