Stephan:   I have decided to dedicate today's issue to one aspect of the effects fear is having on our society: the obsession with guns. And, more than the guns, the almost pathological fear that underlies this obsession. Other countries also have guns, but our death and injury rate from firearms is orders of magnitude greater than any other country in the world without an active war. First, a story so mad I thought it must be a parody when I initially read it: A proposal to permit college faculty to go around carrying concealed arms on campus. The next two stories provide some real data showing where this leads, and the effects it produces. I can tell you one thing with large numbers of people in Arizona now carrying concealed weapons you won't find me in a bar anywhere in that state. In the interest of full disclosure I was a competitive shooter from the age of 12 to 23. When I was actively competing and training I was shooting about 100 rounds a day. Hunting never interested me, because there was no sport in it, and I really didn't care that much for eating game, so why kill it? I can still appreciate why someone enjoys target, skeet, or trap shooting, and know that for many rural families a deer in the freezer represents significant protein in a family diet. But for me, if you are trying to make a group of five shots fit inside of a quarter or less, shooting a deer was like shooting one of our Angus cows in the field. When I got out of the Army, where I had been a medic, I sold my 17 long arms, shotguns, and handguns. Taking care of a friend shot in the gut with a VC AK-47 round, I found, left me uninterested in weapons.