The observation that most humans are “pack animals” and conformists leads me to conclude that in addition to having the obvious detrimental effects of forcing conformity to harmful and even dangerous beliefs there are ways this human characteristic can be exploited to the advantage of freedom loving people. In essence we need to align the pack norms with our principles rather than let the anti-freedom movement align them for us.

I haven’t read it, but I suspect Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes would be very insightful. In the absence of my doing the proper research here are my speculations on the gun issue and how we might take advantage of this human characteristic:

• The more gun owners “come out of the closet” the more difficult it is for the anti-gun bigots to herd the pack in the desired direction.
• The more times you take a new shooter to the range the less people there will be who accept the implied characterization by the bigots of all gun owners as actual or imminent criminals.
• Every time you speak up when someone else is denigrating gun ownership you make it more difficult for others to agree with the anti-gun position.
• Every time a piece of pro-gun legislation is introduced and/or passed it makes it harder for the anti-gun forces to introduce their legislation even if it is mostly unrelated to the pro-gun law. Hence getting a state preemption law passed (YEAH Mike!) helps prevent “assault weapon” legislation from getting a toehold. Another example would be a law requiring the ownership of firearms in one city throws into question a proposal in another state or city to limit gun ownership.
• Every court ruling that says gun ownership, no matter how narrowly defined and incremental from the existing group think, is a right protected by the constitution it makes it harder for the bigots to get critical mass for restricting some other aspect of gun ownership.

We need to create a “pack” where gun ownership and freedom is the predominant viewpoint. When the forces of anti-gun bigotry and socialism are viewed with justified contempt the forces of freedom can then advance and turn back the terrible cloud hanging over our country and the world.

When Prophecy Fails also gives us insight and ideas for breaking people out of the pack. 

Are there any pro-freedom psychologists and sociologists out there that can contribute more on this topic?

One of the hazards of being a scientist is allowing your personal biases enter into your work.  It is exceedingly easy for people to believe what they want to believe.  This can take many forms.  It can be rejecting data that does not fit your conclusion.  It can be using subjective measurements of your data (particularly easy when assessing mental conditions–“Are you happy today?”).  One of the most common is forgetting/overlooking that correlation does not mean causation.  Just because birds fly north (in the northern hemisphere) before summer does not mean birds flying north caused summer weather.  Just because a most people die in hospitals does not mean hospitals cause most deaths.  And just because guns are present in “unstable” countries or cities does not mean guns caused the instability.  This is the mistake “expert” Wendy Cukier makes here:

Scholars fight arms flow, violent culture
Toronto has its work cut out, halting the gun run from the U.S., which owns one-third of the world’s 700 million guns
Jan. 3, 2006. 05:42 PM
OLIVIA WARD
STAFF REPORTER

Canada needs tough gun control laws, says a Toronto expert, but lawmakers are up against a global arms “epidemic” that has circulated millions of weapons around the world, destabilizing countries and undermining cities.

And, says Wendy Cukier, professor of justice studies at Ryerson University, the latest Toronto police figures — obtained through a Freedom of Information request — show that 52 per cent of handguns seized as “potential crime weapons” in 2004 came from the United States.

“The majority of those guns come from over the border,” she says. “And the ones that are reported as legally registered in Canada may also be manufactured in the U.S.”

Now, it’s possible that Cukier view of a “stable” city or country is a iron fisted police state but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt on that.  In areas of high crime or oppressive governments the people act in their own self interest and obtain weapons to defend themselves.  The guns didn’t cause the crime rate or the oppressive government.

Cukier became involved in the ant-gun movement after several women were killed by a woman-hating Muslim extremist using a rifle in Montreal 1989.  I suspect it was psychologically difficult for her to lay the blame where it really belonged–on a minority extremist.  It was far more politically correct to blame the availability of the rifle.  Once she took that step and pursued that path for several years it was even more difficult to back down from that position.  She would have to admit she was wrong for all those years.  That is an extremely difficult thing to do.  This has been known and studied for decades.  From this research we also know what comes when irrefutable proof for the error occurs–more proselytizing of her mistaken belief.  It is psychologically easier for her to find more converts to her belief system, hence giving her psychological support, than it is to admit she was wrong.  Read When Prophecy Fails–Cukier could be a case study.  And given her first hand experience with it perhaps that should be the field where she is considered a scholar and an expert.  She’s not an expert on guns or cause and effect.

1984 versus 2014, what’s 30 years when you are writing about society nearly 40 years in the future?

From Bruce Schneier we get this news:

Britain is to become the first country in the world where
the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national
surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing
number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements
so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a
driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which
are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day
to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as
towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police
National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35
million number-plate “reads” per day. These will include time, date and
precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning
satellites.

Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the
storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional
cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed
each day into the central databank.

And that’s just the beginning.  Here’s the future:

The new national surveillance network for tracking car
journeys, which has taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the
beginning of plans to monitor the movements of all British citizens.
The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is
already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces by
computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect
of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and
stored by machines.

It’s a slippery slope.  The government takes the guns
away “to reduce crime” and when that doesn’t work they conclude more
government power over the people is needed and when that doesn’t work
they need still more power. They never give consideration that giving
power back to the people could be a good idea.  As Lyle points
out, only when government involved do people conclude that their
failures mean we should give them more money.  It’s a classic When Prophecy Fails case.  It’s also an extreme failure of the Jews in the Attic Test.

This is extremely scary stuff.  I gives me shivers and just drains the energy from me.