I think you could correctly classify some anti-gun feelings as hysteria.
I watched a fellow female law student TREMBLE as she handled an UNLOADED shot gun that was part of a mock trial. I mean the fear is beyond anything that is rational. She declared after the practice session "I hate guns and anyone who owns one." Well, well, well.....as you might imagine, I took the opportunity to point out that not one gun had ever jumped up, loaded itself and with malice aforethought SHOT someone. I asked her why she thought she was safer because she had no way to equalize the size/strenth differential between herself and the average man. She stuttered.
Reality just never, ever enters the mind of a liberal.
At this point, I set the book down, called my father and thanked him for not being a liberal and for teaching me about guns.