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Actor’s anger directed at criminal, not inanimate object
July 30, 2009 | Tagged hoplophobia | 1 Comment
The crime was the stuff of nightmares. Actor Kelsy Grammer’s sister was brutally stabbed to death in Colorado Springs in 1975. Karen Elisa Grammer was 18 years old when she was murdered by three men. One of the killers, Freddie Glenn, who was also convicted of two other homicides, came up for parole this week. Mr. Grammer was unable to come to Colorado to testify against the felon’s release from prison. However, Mr. Grammer wrote a letter that was read at the hearing that probably helped to keep one of the men who butchered his sister in prison for another five years.
The headline, “Actor to testify against killer,” appeared in The Denver Post on 01-27-09 on Page 14A. The article described Mr. Grammer’s efforts to adequately punish one of his sister’s killers and save society from further outrages.
Bob Russel, a former Colorado Springs District Attorney, told The Denver Post Reporter that Mr. Grammer “felt guilty…because he didn’t protect…” his sister. Of course, he couldn’t have kept her from harm, because it is impossible for good people to shield everyone they love from the evil actions of felons and sociopaths. Nevertheless, this sense of guilt is often psychologically transformed in the minds of relatives and other loved ones of crime victims into a visceral hatred for anything associated with the crime.
We frequently see this defense mechanism of displacement at work in cases where the weapon involved happened to be a firearm. The displacement of feelings of guilt, anger, and overwhelming loss that accompanies a fatal crime helps to ease the burden of the survivor by providing a scapegoat, a target for the negative emotions that are eating away at the grieving individual. An unreasoning fear of weapons may also be described by the term hoplophobia. (See my post “Displacement as a defense mechanism in the irrational fear of guns,” 08-17-2008, tagged “hoplophobia”)
To my knowledge, and I believe to his credit, Mr. Grammer has never advocated banning knives or imposing draconian restrictions on the people who own them. Instead of displacing his anger, Mr. Grammer has appropriately directed it against the perpetrator of the horrible crime against his sister. By his actions, Mr. Grammer is taking a positive step to insure that a dangerous felon is not released back into society to kill again.
It would be a good thing, if all relatives and other loved ones of crime victims were this rational and precise in their response to tragedy. Sometimes, however, it is harder to target specific perpetrators. What happens if the criminals are out of reach of the survivors, because they have been killed, committed suicide, or evaded the law? It would seem to make sense to direct blame against individuals in the criminal classes who commit violence, e.g., muggers, killers, and rapists, to name a few.
Unfortunately, in many cases, survivors’ anger is inappropriately directed at law-abiding citizens and heretofore-legal behaviors. I am referring, of course, to legal gun ownership and the right of Americans to armed self-defense against crime, tyranny, and genocide recognized by the Second Amendment.
We, who struggle to preserve that right against all infringement, owe Mr. Grammer a vote of thanks for his courage and insight in opposing the parole of a triple murderer. It makes sense to punish offenders. It does not make sense to disarm or hinder potential victims.
Def Mech
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1 Comment so far
Thank for sharing this interesting post.