Gun rights are, in fact, human rights. The right to self-defense is largely unquestioned, with some notable exceptions, and having the means to act in self-defense is a big part of that.
So when a group that says it defends human rights publishes a piece in Psychology Today, one shouldn't have to expect gun control. But that's exactly what we get.
The group is called Mindbridge Center, and they describe themselves as "human rights defenders." One of their number decided to publish something at a publication that claims to be about psychology, but never misses a chance to push gun control, and this was no exception.
Gun violence is not just a criminal justice issue; it’s a public health crisis and a human rights concern. Every year, more than 45,000 Americans die by firearms, with a majority of these deaths being suicides (Pew Research Center, 2025). While public discourse often centers on legislation and politics, understanding the psychological underpinnings of gun violence reveals critical insights that can help shift our culture, policies, and community responses toward lasting solutions.
Psychological science has long examined the ways fear, identity, and social norms shape behavior. When applied to the issue of gun violence, this lens helps explain both the causes and the resistance to reform. Rather than approaching the issue with blame or binary thinking, psychology invites us to explore root causes and human motivations, then to act in ways that are both empathetic and effective.
Here are three insights from psychology that shed light on gun violence in America and steps we can take to help reduce its toll.
You can go and read those three "insights" if you want, but I'm going to spare you. All of them are about what drives gun ownership, generally lawful gun ownership, and at least one focused more on waiting periods for gun sales to address suicides than, I don't know, actually addressing suicides.
The only psychological aspects I can find here are trying to somehow deter people from wanting to buy a gun in the first place, and absolutely nothing about actually using what we understand about the human mind to prevent people from becoming a danger to others.
One example is the suggestion of running billboards saying that 60 percent of men don't own a gun, all so that men won't think being armed is masculine or something.
Yet absolutely no mention of increasing mental health research into things like mass shooters, so we can understand what drives someone to commit that kind of evil, and perhaps find that there's some psychological mechanism we failed to identify much earlier that we can treat and end these horrific events.
The right to keep and bear arms is a human right. People should maintain that right, and pushing for any degree of gun control is an attack on that right. Then again, so is trying to pressure people not to exercise that right, especially knowing that gun owners tend to become gun voters, as history has shown us.
Maybe the readers of Psychology Today should start, I don't know, looking at how psychology might address violence instead of trying to push it off to others.
Just a thought.
