Ohio college professor calls for armed attack on NRA headquarters, now under investigation

Hillsboro, Ohio's Highland County Press is reporting that a Southern State Community College (SSCC) faculty member is being investigated following a Facebook post calling for the murders of NRA officials and pro-gun rights lobbyists.

According to reports, on June 13, James Pearce, an adjunct professor posted the following message:

“Look, there’s only one solution. A bunch of us anti-gun types are going to have to arm ourselves, storm the NRA headquarters in Fairfax, VA, and make sure there are no survivors. This action might also require coordinated hits at remote sites, like Washington lobbyists. Then and only then will we see some legislative action on assault weapons.”

A former SSCC student reported the comments to local law enforcement, who then informed SSCC.

From the article:

“We discussed the proper avenue. I took the information to VP Dr. (Nicole) Roades, who would be his immediate supervisor,” Heaton said. “Chief Whited took the information to Highland County Sheriff Donnie Barrera, since the post was made in the county.

“Dr. Roades contacted the Ohio Attorney General. The sheriff sent the information to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The Attorney General advised Dr. Roades to take no action until the Feds had completed an investigation.”

An investigative reporter writing for Campusreform.org contacted Kris Cross, Director of Public Relations for SSCC, asking if Pearce would continue to teach during the investigation. Cross is quoted as saying “certainly any criminal prosecution and findings could be a consideration for employment decisions in any matter of criminal conduct.”

Gun ban extremists like to claim that the mere presence of a gun inevitably leads to more violence. The fact is that many anti-self-defense extremists are admitting their own fears of what they would do if they had a gun. Some years ago, Dr. Sarah Thompson, a psychiatrist who was also, at the time, Executive Director of Utah Gun Owners Alliance, published an excellent essay examining the anti-gun mentality from a psychiatric perspective. She observes that this phenomenon is a display of defense mechanisms including projection and reaction formation.

Projection

All people have violent, and even homicidal, impulses. For example, it's common to hear people say "I'd like to kill my boss", or "If you do that one more time I'm going to kill you." They don't actually mean that they're going to, or even would, kill anyone; they're simply acknowledging anger and frustration. All of us suffer from fear and feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. Most people can acknowledge feelings of rage, fear, frustration, jealousy, etc. without having to act on them in inappropriate and destructive ways.

Some people, however, are unable consciously to admit that they have such "unacceptable" emotions. They may have higher than average levels of rage, frustration, or fear. Perhaps they fear that if they acknowledge the hostile feelings, they will lose control and really will hurt someone. They may believe that "good people" never have such feelings, when in fact all people have them.

This is especially true now that education "experts" commonly prohibit children from expressing negative emotions or aggression. Instead of learning that such emotions are normal, but that destructive behavior needs to be controlled, children now learn that feelings of anger are evil, dangerous and subject to severe punishment. To protect themselves from "being bad", they are forced to use defense mechanisms to avoid owning their own normal emotions. Unfortunately, using such defense mechanisms inappropriately can endanger their mental health; children need to learn how to deal appropriately with reality, not how to avoid it.

Another defense mechanism Dr. Thompson identifies as common among gun ban extremists is...

Reaction Formation

Reaction formation occurs when a person's mind turns an unacceptable feeling or desire into its complete opposite. For example, a child who is jealous of a sibling may exhibit excessive love and devotion for the hated brother or sister.

Likewise, a person who harbors murderous rage toward his fellow humans may claim to be a devoted pacifist and refuse to eat meat or even kill a cockroach. Often such people take refuge in various spiritual disciplines and believe that they are "superior" to "less civilized" folks who engage in "violent behavior" such as hunting, or even target shooting. They may devote themselves to "animal welfare" organizations that proclaim that the rights of animals take precedence over the rights of people. This not only allows the angry person to avoid dealing with his rage, it allows him actually to harm the people he hates without having to know he hates them.

This is not meant to disparage the many wonderful people who are pacifists, spiritually inclined, vegetarian, or who support animal welfare. The key issue is not the belief itself, but rather the way in which the person experiences and lives his beliefs. Sincere practitioners seek to improve themselves, or to be helpful in a gentle, respectful fashion. They work to persuade others peacefully by setting an example of what they believe to be correct behavior. Sincere pacifists generally exhibit good will towards others, even towards persons with whom they might disagree on various issues.

Contrast the sincere pacifist or animal lover with the strident, angry person who wants to ban meat and who believes murdering hunters is justified in order to "save the animals" - or the person who wants to outlaw self-defense and believes innocent people have the obligation to be raped and murdered for the good of society. For example, noted feminist Betty Friedan said "that lethal violence even in self defense only engenders more violence."[16] The truly spiritual, pacifist person refrains from forcing others to do what he believes, and is generally driven by positive emotions, while the angry person finds "socially acceptable" ways to harm, abuse, or even kill, his fellow man.

In the case of anti-gun people, reaction formation keeps any knowledge of their hatred for their fellow humans out of consciousness, while allowing them to feel superior to "violent gun owners". At the same time, it also allows them to cause serious harm, and even loss of life, to others by denying them the tools necessary to defend themselves. This makes reaction formation very attractive from a psychological point of view, and therefore very difficult to counteract.

It is these defense mechanisms (and another known as denial), Dr. Thompson writes, that impede the anti-gun person's ability to understand facts about gun ownership:

Because defense mechanisms distort reality in order to avoid unpleasant emotions, the person who uses them has an impaired ability to recognize and accept reality. This explains why...anti-gun people persist in believing that their neighbors and co- workers will become mass murderers if allowed to own firearms.

People who legally carry concealed firearms are actually less violent and less prone to criminal activity of all kinds than is the general population. A person who has a clean record, has passed an FBI background check, undergone firearms training, and spent several hundred dollars to get a permit and a firearm, is highly unlikely to choose to murder a neighbor. Doing so would result in his facing a police manhunt, a trial, prison, possibly capital punishment, and the destruction of his family, job, and reputation. Obviously it would make no sense for such a person to shoot a neighbor - except in self-defense. Equally obviously, the anti-gun person who believes that malicious shootings by ordinary gun owners are likely to occur is not in touch with reality.

Dr. Thompson goes on to say that in her experience, "the common thread in anti-gun people is rage. Either anti-gun people harbor more rage than others, or they're less able to cope with it appropriately. Because they can't handle their own feelings of rage, they are forced to use defense mechanisms in an unhealthy manner. Because they wrongly perceive others as seeking to harm them, they advocate the disarmament of ordinary people who have no desire to harm anyone."

The entire article, entitled "Raging Against Self Defense - A Psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality" is well-worth the read. I predict you'll be thinking a LOT of SSCC professor James Pearce, who is so upset about legal gun ownership that he says he wants to buy a gun and murder everyone at the NRA's Fairfax, VA headquarters, as well as pro-gun rights lobbyists in D.C.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.