[Dr. Keith Ablow, of the Fox News 'Medical A-Team' sez,] "gun control advocates...ignore the potential widespread psychological harm that disarming Americans could cause.

"As Thomas Jefferson wrote to his nephew Peter Carr in 1785, 'A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the Body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind . . . '

"The right to bear arms is a critical component of feeling competent and autonomous as individuals, rather than relying on the goodwill of a super-powerful, unassailable government.

"A disarmed population is, by definition, a population that has completely ceded the power to defend its homes against local, state or federal authorities. This implies a level of trust much more consistent with that which children have for parents than that which thinking adults have for the institutions they have created to perform vital functions like defending the nation, keeping the peace, maintaining schools and providing clean water.

"A disarmed population is allowed the toxic luxury of feeling as though our way of life and our safety from oppression comes without the tremendous responsibilities and moral complexities of wielding force. The same people who passively pay taxes that put tanks on the streets and fighter jets in the skies over our enemies' nations can cringe at the idea of owning guns themselves — projecting their survival instincts onto an all-powerful father figure (the state)."