{"id":11496,"date":"2026-07-24T12:55:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T19:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/?p=11496"},"modified":"2026-07-24T17:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T00:08:15","slug":"hoplophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/2026\/07\/24\/hoplophobia\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoplophobia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Hoplophobia<\/em> is defined as the fear of weaponry (in this case guns) as coined by <a href=\"https:\/\/jeffcooperfoundation.org\/?page_id=453\" target=\"_blank\">Col. Jeff Cooper<\/a> in 1962. Although the phobia itself is not classified as an actual mental disorder. Personally, I think it should be. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mrcolionnoir.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Colion Noir<\/a> posted this interesting video on you tube about an actual individual who suffers from hoplophobia:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/08AQfPyPYc8?si=c7lW4Urfw_IfFVKF\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I had a short conversation with <a href=\"https:\/\/grok.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Grok<\/a> about the disease:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Have there been any actual clinical diagnoses for hoplophobia?<\/p>\n<p><strong>No, \u201choplophobia\u201d is not a recognized clinical diagnosis** in mainstream psychiatry or psychology.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Official Status<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It does **not** appear in the *Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders* (DSM-5 or DSM-5-TR) published by the American Psychiatric Association.<\/li>\n<li>It is not listed as a distinct code in the ICD-10 or ICD-11 (the international classification systems used for medical diagnosis and billing).<\/li>\n<li>Major psychiatric and psychological organizations do not treat \u201choplophobia\u201d as an official diagnostic term.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How Fear of Firearms *Can* Be Diagnosed<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>A clinically significant, irrational fear of guns or weapons *could* meet the criteria for a **Specific Phobia** (DSM-5 code 300.29; ICD-10 F40.2). Specific phobia is a real, recognized anxiety disorder. Diagnosis requires:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Marked, persistent fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation (here, firearms).<\/li>\n<li>The fear is out of proportion to the actual danger.<\/li>\n<li>Immediate anxiety response when the object is encountered or anticipated.<\/li>\n<li>Active avoidance or endurance with intense distress.<\/li>\n<li>Significant impairment in daily functioning.<\/li>\n<li>Duration of at least 6 months.<\/li>\n<li>Symptoms not better explained by another mental disorder.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In practice, a clinician would diagnose \u201cSpecific Phobia, situational type\u201d (or a similar descriptor) and note the fear of firearms in the clinical record. They would not typically write \u201choplophobia\u201d as the diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Evidence of Clinical Cases<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are **no well-documented, peer-reviewed clinical case studies** in the medical literature that formally diagnose patients with \u201choplophobia\u201d as a distinct entity. Searches of medical databases (such as PubMed) turn up essentially nothing under that term. A few non-peer-reviewed sources and opinion pieces (often written from a pro-gun perspective) claim the condition exists and is treatable, but these do not constitute formal clinical recognition or systematic diagnostic evidence.<\/p>\n<p>In short: while an extreme, impairing fear of firearms can be clinically valid and treated under the umbrella of specific phobia, \u201choplophobia\u201d itself remains a non-clinical, largely rhetorical term rather than an established medical diagnosis.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There seems to be some room under the diagnosis of &#8220;<strong>specific phobia<\/strong>&#8221; that would enable a clinician of mental disorders to apply treatment for the disorder to the individual in the video and for others of extreme fear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hoplophobia is defined as the fear of weaponry (in this case guns) as coined by Col. Jeff Cooper in 1962. Although the phobia itself is not&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,45,83,55,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comrades-in-arms","category-firearms","category-notions","category-second-amendment","category-whacko-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11496"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11502,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions\/11502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}