Psycho-physiological effects have a great deal to do with reluctance to add gun laws. Self-preservation comes before American ideals. The United States is a political and social experiment where we are ideally encouraged to defer our individual disputes to elected and appointed officials, but we have real doubts about the effectiveness of the authorities as our one and only saviors.

We don’t trust them because political power is lethargic and responds after a lawless act has occurred. We know that we’re on our own to be victims or to defend ourselves with guns until the authorities arrive. We haven’t solved the problem of political lethargy. This is a dangerous slowness within which many Americans have been grossly maimed or have lost their lives. I believe that most gun owners aren’t unreasonable fanatics. The appetite for self-preservation is a strong, natural controller of human behavior. The will to live is as natural as sucking in your next breath rather than passing out from a lack of oxygen.