GROOMING GUN PHOBIA
By
WILLIAM BARCLAY MASTERSON. October 28, 2022
Mrs. Masterson and I went out for lunch yesterday to our favorite pizza restaurant. Let’s call it Tony’s Pizza Palace. We’ve been going there for almost 50 years! The pizza we first bought there for about $7 or $8 now costs us $23! Same great pizza over three generations. There was Antonio, Tony, and now Anthony. We’ve known them all. Tony and Mrs. Tony run the place. They’ve always treated us like one of their favorite customers. These days, they treat us like family … except it’s still a business … and we still have to pay the $23.
I personally never open carry. Even though I live in an open carry state, I’m sure you and I both know a whole lot of important reasons why one should keep our friends close and covered. The law here is, if it’s on private property, the owner can absolutely say yes or no to open carry. I understand. It is their property.
As for concealed carry, of course places like schools, post offices, court facilities, airports and casinos, are strictly off limits. But a NO FIREARMS ALLOWED sign in a store or restaurant window can be interpreted (not legally, but practically) as a suggestion. Where I live, we all just keep it covered, don’t print, live your life freely and safely, and pray you’ll never need it. I don’t know anyone who would give up their right to carry, license on their person, in a store or restaurant. True, if caught, they can ask you to take your sidearm to the car, leave it, and then if you wish, come back vulnerable. Never mind that the bad guys don’t obey laws and could be lurking to cause you and others serious bodily harm or death.
If you refuse these options, then they can call the police and you will be arrested. And no matter what you do, once flagged, they will have your name and photo on file. If they ever catch you carrying concealed a second time, you will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Why? Because they said so! At that point, you either obey or boycott them by doing as President Reagan famously said: “vote with your feet.”
But this incident yesterday was just about me posing a hypothetical question of open carry at Tony’s Pizza Palace, where they know me for almost 50 years.
I asked my server if she knew the answer to my hypothetical. I know she carries, she knows I carry, so she loved the idea. But she is just an employee, not a decision maker.
Tony stopped by our table to greet us, so I asked him what thoughts he might have about open carry in his pizza shop. He said he truthfully had never thought about it. Why? Because no one had ever asked. And we both know that most of the guys in the place do conceal carry. This is one of those friendly up-places with Trump hats and patriotic shirts everywhere. It’s just a great place to eat and be! Everyone talks to everyone. The vibes are heartwarming. Tony did say he’d seriously think about it. Truthfully, I really did not think he’d OK it, if only because of insurance issues. I know he has a gun in his home, but never carries. And he knows I always carry wherever and whenever I legally can. We’ve discussed it. But he did say he would think about it. More than fair. Remember, my question was just a hypothetical, and I expected a no.
The other owner, Mrs. Tony, popped by our table just to say hello. I asked her my question and after almost 50 years, her attitude and demeanor changed, on the spot! Not only was there an immediate, knee-jerk NO, but I got a lecture! It seems they either have or had a 15-year-old server working there. In the recent past, she freaked out and had a conniption fit when she saw part of a gun! Since we are not talking open carry, I can only assume that she either saw a police officer having lunch, or someone momentarily printed or accidentally flashed. No one drew a weapon, no one so much as touched, brandished, or fired a round, G-d forbid. In the exact words of Mrs. Tony: the 15-year-old girl “SAW IT.” SAW IT!
I said to Mrs. Tony “what the girl probably has is a conditioned gun phobia called hoplophobia. It is treatable, usually by a psychologist.” Completely unfazed because she knew she knew more than I did, and she clearly wasn’t listening to a word I said, Mrs. Tony repeated to me over and over and over what happened when the 15-year-old girl “SAW IT!” FREAK OUT. CONNIPTION FIT.
At that point, I realized who and what I was talking to. I calmly but assertively replied “Mrs. Masterson and I would never frequent any restaurant where any policy refused to allow admittance to licensed concealed carry persons, sign or not. We are freedom and safety lovers, and would never choose to do business with people who would deny others their G-d given, constitutionally protected 2A rights. My open carry question was just a hypothetical. Nothing more. We enjoyed our lunch. Take care.”
What I wanted to say (and of course didn’t) was “wise up Mrs. Tony. Stop! It’s all in the girl’s well-conditioned imagination. Nothing happened except her irrational fear manifested itself in her mind.” But I held my tongue. We took our now boxed up leftover pizza, and headed for the parking lot. We had had quite enough.
Masterson’s Analysis
1. It is perfectly legal and perfectly OK for Tony’s Pizza Palace to not allow open carry. I expected a no. What I did not expect nor appreciate was a lecture about firearms and that inherently evil IT that so traumatized this young, now forever victimized, helpless 15-year-old child! The charge is we gun owners hurt her. Life has failed to live up to her irrational needs and fears, her personal daily requirements to set foot out the door. And now somehow, we all collectively owe her time to heal. It takes a village don’t cha know!
2. Mrs. Tony failed to listen to something that could have actually helped her young server if she would ever wish to be helped. Mrs. Tony missed a significant opportunity to learn something by completely ignoring a valuable teaching moment, both for her server, and herself.
3. Mrs. Tony apparently believes that guns, in and of themselves, are intrinsically evil even when holstered and untouched! It seems she thinks that a mere glance of even part of a secured and safely holstered sidearm can potentially cause severe headaches, fits, convulsions, hysteria, sleeplessness, blindness, baldness, loss of bladder and intestines combined with simultaneous nausea, and who knows, an acute myocardial infarction! As with Lot’s wife in the Bible, a quick glance alone may instantly turn a person into a pillar of salt!
4. Mrs. Tony is seriously reinforcing the current lunacy within some young people that the world must conform to their irrational fears and fantasies. This type of irrational thinking and expectation is as dangerous as it is commonplace.
5. Mrs. Tony is seriously reinforcing the mistaken belief that it is for the world and even Tony’s Pizza Palace (where the girl is a paid employee), to magically guarantee her a safe space, in a very uncertain and unsafe world, where the public is invited in to do business.
6. Hoplophobia is not caught like the common cold. It is a conditioned phobic response, the result of bad learning and repetition which creates an irrational phobic expectation that then gets further reinforced and hardened over time. In truth, Mrs. Tony is guilty of reinforcing and enabling the server’s irrational phobic responses which affirm that untouched guns are dangerous and could go off all by themselves. She is, as my title says, grooming gun phobia in her employee! Furthermore, she enables the fiction that it is perfectly OK to have a fit by just momentarily looking at an inanimate IT. Mrs. Tony’s concerns are doing her employee no favors, no no. She is genuinely causing harm by enabling her to continue the phobic response. Additionally, Mrs. Tony makes it abundantly clear to the Mastersons, that the phobic response of a 15-year-old employee outweighs informed, responsible information about a hypothetical question.
7. Mrs. Tony may well have hoplophobia herself! That would explain her own behavior. She’s absolutely still a wonderful person. I’m not mad at her, nor anyone else. People have a right to be uninformed and wrong. I am just continually disappointed and saddened, that so many good people in society, at best tolerate us concealed carriers. She is doing us a big favor. It’s all about that evil IT don’t cha know.
8. Mrs. Tony did not have the wisdom to say to me “… but I am glad you are here and armed, for your own protection, Mrs. Masterson’s protection, and quite possibly others here as well.” Instead, I got the lecture.
9. I think I have a pretty good idea why Tony never carries, and Anthony is not at all interested in the 2A. And if you are perceptive, you have a pretty good idea why too.
10. One of the lessons learned from this true tale is a simple but profound reminder that people are after all, human beings. We all sometimes think and believe things that are not true. Reason number 17,936 that we must vote in politicians who understand the Bill of Rights and all the Amendments of the Constitution, including the 2A. It all begins by electing people who understand, respect, and will preserve, protect, and defend our G-d given, constitutionally protected rights. If we don’t, the ignorant and fearful will reign supreme. It’s called Tyranny. Radical, Totalitarian, Top-Down, Marxist, Tyranny. If we’re not careful, it absolutely can happen here in America (even worse than it already is!), exactly as it has happened and is happening elsewhere right now. G-d willing, enough people will de-woke, wake up, and vote barely in time to stop it. It really is up to us!
© 2022, Copyright by William Barclay Masterson
