Volume 30 - Number 1 - Fall 2023
Pages: 1 - 137

PARAGRAPHS AND SHORT ARTICLE ON FEAR IN YOUR LIFE

Elovitz, P. H. (2023). Fearing for our children in our anxious, gun-crazy society. Clio’s Psyche30(1), 36-37.

https://doi.org/10.70763/59a3adea76fadcb6dd9e54c96fc155d1

Fearing for Our Children in Our Anxious, Gun-Crazy Society

article
Keywords:

accidental shootings, children, community, fear, gun culture, mass shootings, psychohistory, school shootings, suicide

Again, it was with sadness and fear for our children that I read the headline, “Oakland [NJ] School Board Funds Hiring for More Police.” The national focus on the terrible mass and school shootings has filtered down to elementary schools. In this quiet middle-class suburban community where my kids went to elementary school, the chances of a school shooting are extremely low, but taxpayers will now be paying for four fully-armed police officers in elementary schools to reassure the local parents and community that their political leaders are making them safe.

In “gun crazy” America, we have more gun deaths than the rest of the entire developed world and the majority of people who die from guns are by suicide. The officers carrying guns provide the message in this sleepy suburban town that to be safe, you need a gun—but that’s the wrong message! Whenever there is a mass or school shooting, people go out to buy guns, which ultimately leads

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to an increase in suicides and accidental tragic shootings. Putting students and staff through “active shooter drills” spreads fear among staff and students alike. While I carried a gun as a draftee in the U.S. Army and as a security guard protecting a major arms manufacturer to support my family while earning a doctoral degree, I hated these weapons for the death they represented. In writing, I even avoid using “bullet points.”

The way of reducing mass and school shootings is to greatly reduce the number of guns in society. I am fearful, angered, and saddened that we Americans continue to do just the opposite.

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About the author

Paul H. Elovitz

Dr. Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, began organizing scholarly meetings when he started as a faculty member at Ramapo College and then as convener of the Institute for Psychohistory Saturday Workshops (1975-1982). In 1982, he founded the Psychohistory Forum to nurture psychohistorical research and continues to lead its Executive Council. In 1994, he created Clio’s Psyche (cliospsyche.org) to publish its scholarship, of which he is Editor-in-Chief. Prof. Elovitz is a historian, psychoanalytic researcher, and author of well over 400 publications, covering presidential psychobiography, teaching, documenting the field of psychohistory, and much more. After taking his doctoral degree in history, he trained and practiced as a psychoanalyst for three decades, and in 2019 was made the first Research Psychoanalyst by the New Jersey Institute for Psychoanalysis. Elovitz is the author of The Making of Psychohistory, editor of The Many Roads of the Builders of Psychohistory, and edited or wrote eight other books. He is a founding member and past president of the International Psychohistorical Association (1978-) who held all but one of its offices and continues to serve on its leadership council. He is the sole founder of the IPhA who has attended and presented at all of its annual meetings. In recent years, he has devoted himself to editing, publishing, and writing psychobiography.  Prof. Elovitz was a founding faculty member at Ramapo College who previously taught at Temple, Rutgers, and Fairleigh Dickinson universities. Aside from teaching Western and World Civilizations, his focus on teaching was on American, English, and European history; childhood; gender; genocide; the Holocaust; identity; leadership; psychobiography; psychohistory; the psychology of creativity and innovation; and war and peace. Presently, he teaches post-graduate courses on creativity, psychoanalysis, psychobiography, and other aspects of psychohistory online at psychoanalytic institutes. A Festschrift honoring him is scheduled for publication in Clio’s Psyche in 2024. He may be contacted at .

How to cite this article

Elovitz, P. H. (2023). Fearing for our children in our anxious, gun-crazy society. Clio’s Psyche30(1), 36-37.

https://doi.org/10.70763/59a3adea76fadcb6dd9e54c96fc155d1

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