FORCING US TO BE THE VICTIMS IN THEIR HERO FANTASIES

There's still a lot we don't know about the Washington Navy Yard shooting, but when right-wingers tell us that the problem is gun-free zones (as a couple of Fox commentators have already done, not to menion Alex Jones and his Infowars), what they're telling us is that we have no right to pursue policies that help make it possible for us to live, work, go to school, shop, travel from place to place, see a movie, and generally go about our business unarmed. They want to define any space where it's likely that all of the non-security people are unarmed as abnormal -- and not only abnormal, but run in an irresponsible manner. How dare you not have several armed, trained fellow employees, or fellow daycare center workers, or family members sitting around your living room! You're the problem! You're the reason we have mass shootings!

In short, gun zealots aren't standing up for freedom -- or at least they're not standing up for your freedom to live in a way they'd prefer not to. The gun-zealot movement is coercive. Gun zealots want to compel all of us to acknowledge, and arm ourselves against, the state of siege they perceive. They prefer to see the actual level of danger increase if it will make us pack heat.

They see themselves as the ones who understood before the rest of us did that society operates according to the law of the jungle -- even if the lawlessness and danger they perceive is something they helped create. They like believing that we live in a state of siege because they see themselves as the heroes in our war of all against all. They're going to save us -- not laws, not the cops. (They may say nice things about the troops or the first responders, but many of them are the same folks who have "Terrorist Hunting License" stickers on their cars. It's all about being a self-appointed hero.)

It's their fantasy. We just die in it.