The perceived need for guns to provide security from attack by an outside force is ironically undermined by the incidents of self-destruction, including suicide and accidental injuries or fatalities of family or other intimate associates. The need for protection is often consciously described as the driving force behind the desire for gun ownership. In addition, unconscious motivations related to the need for a firearm and the fantasy of what it fulfills energize the embrace of guns and make it extremely difficult to counteract intellectually or legislatively. This paper is a psychoanalytic perspective on the conscious and unconscious meanings of the need for firearms and the purposes they serve, even as they undermine the fantasy of providing security while propagating self-destructive and societal-destructive actions.
Mark Goldblatt (Wed,) studied this question.