...It has been my experience that the VAST majority of people who are strongly anti-2A are living in such complete denial of the dangers of the world, and in such blind nanny-state dependence on the non-existent promise of "rescue" by "authorities", that most of them don't have fire extinguishers in their kitchen either...
You gotta understand the level of abject cluelessness and ostrich-like denial under which these people function.
Although the "fire extinguisher" metaphor is a VERY illustrative one, I think that with most anti-2A people it doesn't hold much water, because they actually believe that the Fire Department is there to protect them from fires, just like they believe that the police will protect them from BGs.....
Agree completely. I took the Fam to the Disney Cultural Re-education Center in Florida over the period that included September 11, 2001. As a foreigner in that system of thought, I took the opportunity to act like a tourist, an objective third party observer. I felt like an anthropologist studying a primitive culture. The most important thing I learned about while I was there was the principle you articulate so well, Dreamer. I call it "living in the Magic Kingdom". In Hinduism, the principle called, "Maya", is related - it's the deception built into the way people are that causes them to believe that the model of the Universe they've created in their heads on the basis of conventional sensory perception is the true and real world. Some folks call it, "romantic idealism". Even of those who have some glimmer of the truth, most choose to ignore it, preferring the world of their own making.
I met a guy at a VCDL after-meeting social time at a restaurant in Fairfax County. He has a religious perspective that he calls, "Biblical Christianity". That system, as he described it, has almost nothing to do with the theological tradition that the Roman church and its derivatives promote. I suspect they'd say he's a "heretic". In talking, we agreed that Jesus never said, "worship me", he said, "follow me". And taught that there is exactly one right way to live, though he didn't tie that to participation in any religion. And he said that in order to perceive that way correctly, one has to die and be reborn. I take that to be the only antithesis to "living in the Magic Kingdom", which is a system of self-absorption, self-worship, and self-indulgence. Unless a person is willing to "die to self", he is unable to shift his perspective such that he will understand the illusion that Maya (or, "Satan") represents.
Only by being aware of the external self-existent reality ("I am that I am.") and being willing to conform one's self to that reality, instead of making up one's own universe and pretending that it is truth, can a person be aware of, and prepare for, external threats and dangers. People who cannot do so are slated for culling from the herd. ("For every tree which does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.")
The religious people came up to Jesus and asked for him to do some magic tricks to prove he's The Guy. He said, "I tell you the truth, this world of men demands a sign; but no sign shall be given except the sign of Jonah." A very cryptic statement, which I take to refer not to Jonah but to the Ninevites. Jonah was forced to go to the Ninevites in the guts of a big fish with a message. So he gets washed up on shore, a putrid foreigner stinking of fish-guts, and tells the Ninevites, "God told me to tell you, you've been a bunch of evil bastards; and if you don't straighten up right quick, he's going to level your city, and you in it." The Ninevites (1) heard the truth, regardless of the source; (2) recognized it for what it was; and (3) acted on it immediately.
The dividing line between the sheep and the goats isn't on the basis of religious labels or affiliations. What some people call, "the Holy Spirit", other people call, "gut instinct", "intuition", or "psychic awareness". Point is, it doesn't matter what you call it, and it don't care what you call it. Those who have the awareness sufficient to be able to recognize the truth when they see it will be "saved". Those who do not, or will not, will be de-selected. It's not that some folks are slated for eternal punishment - it's more like wilting away, a "failure to thrive".
So I am convinced there is nothing that can be done to persuade people living in Hell that they can and should embrace a system of self-defense. They hate the gun thing precisely because it calls the premise of the Magic Kingdom into question, and therefore represents a threat to their own sense of self. Like that old "New Christy Minstrels" song, "Don't let the rain come down; my roof's got a hole in it and I might drown."