Freudian Psychoanalysis of my Boyfriend’s Gun Collection

Dr. Tiffany Love¹ Mrs. Broman² 

¹ Department of Phallic Imagery Cranberry-Lemon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

² Chad’s Mother, Homemaker, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Abstract

My boyfriend Chad’s gun collection has been getting out of hand. It started with a 9mm pistol and a hunting rifle, only to grow to two fully stocked gun safes in our garage, a reloading station in my pantry, and an additional safe in my closet. The growing collection of hunting rifles, shotguns, pistols, and assault rifles has made me gravely concerned that if I don’t find the root source of this gun obsession, I may begin losing even more closet space. It’s also pretty weird and not a good look. My friends are starting to ask questions. Despite being trainable [1], and likely not a serial killer [2], there is something up with my boyfriend which may need Freudian Psychoanalysis. As modern therapy has been shown to be ineffective on Chad [3], this paper will utilize archaic forms of psycho-sexual Freudian analysis to explain and correct my Boyfriends cryptic behavior I’m assuming has something to do with his weird relationship with his mother or me not letting him buy that speed boat. 

Keywords:   Psychoanalysis, Freudian, Psychosexual Development, Gun Enthusiasts, Preppers, Anal Expulsiveness, Mothers

1. Introduction

Chad historically has never been that into guns. He’s not that into hunting and lives in the suburbs so the sudden expansion of his own gun collection must have some complicated psychological explanation. Due to his resistance to therapy [3], it’s easier to correct and analyze Chad’s behavior through a secret psychological profile which has shown several conflicts spurred on by subtle sexual fixations dating back to his early psychosexual development [4]. 

Figure 1: 30% of Chad’s Gun Collection (Algkalv, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, Photo: PO Phot Owen Cooban/MOD, OGL v1.0OGL v1.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Though, Chad has issues, I’ve always been confident that I can fix him and that he is not dangerous. I trust him. As shown in [2] when I was considering dumping him after we played Settlers of Catan for the first time, he’s not Schizophrenic, Bipolar, or has any debilitating Personality Disorders. His obsession with guns doesn’t seem to be my own safety concern but an outward behavior compensating for some dissatisfaction in his life or some psychological conflict. 

2. Chad Broman Psychosexual Background

Though he would never admit it, Chad is carrying plenty of emotional baggage. While, much of it has been catalogued and analyzed and not included in this study [5-8], the issues identified that may have caused his current gun fixation appear to be his messy toilet training, his classically Oedipal relationship with his parents, the speedboat incident, and/or the resurgence of porch pirates in our neighborhood.

2.1 Childhood Trauma

As detailed and analyzed in [9], Mrs. Broman told me that Chad had an extremely messy anal psychosexual period and if our kids were anything like him, we might not want any. The widely supported theory is that his years of toilet training were so messy and the enforcement by his loving parents was so passive that it has caused Chad to develop an anal expulsive personality [9]. This theory has only become more widely accepted by me and my Sunday brunch friends regarding Chad’s inability or unwillingness to pick up after himself [10] and its likely psychosexual cause. As shown in figure 2, the evidence is overwhelming

Figure 2: Chad’s “Man Cave” as growing proof of his anal expulsive personality

2.2 Relationship with Parents

Not only was it shown in [5] that Chad is a momma’s boy, but it was also shown in [1] that his unnatural love for his mother could be exploited. By using blueberry scented candles that smelled like his mother’s place, I was able to positively reinforce good behavior and finally get him to play less Witcher 3. 

While Chad has always had an okay relationship with his father despite his subconscious patricidal desires [11], he has only recently began exhibiting signs of any castration anxiety as shown by the expansion of his gun collection and his online Xbox live dialogue becoming far more aggressive than usual during his Overwatch game hour. A recent behavior shift may suggest masculine overcompensation. Chad’s father recently retired and began training for an iron man. For the first time since childhood, Chad could be metaphorically threatened with castration by his father due to the recently changed physical disparity after training for a late in life Iron Man and Chad’s inability to use his LA fitness membership.  

2.3 Speed Boat Incident

An additional source of masculine overcompensation may involve the speed boat conflict. Ever since Chad bought a speed boat in 2018 without asking while I was going through some stuff and I made him sell it because we were supposed to be saving up for a Paris trip [12], he has never let the issue go and I’ve had to closely monitor his purchasing activity. It was a stupid purchase that we didn’t need and could not afford. We didn’t even live near any lakes to use it on, and he had to ask his friend Jeff to come tow it if he wanted to go anywhere because he thought his 94 mustang was going to become a collectible and won’t get anything enough towing power. To this day, Chad still wants to buy that boat and we still can’t afford it or tow it!

Figure 3: Royal Boat Company’s “The Silver Bullet” 2013 Model A-6 Chad wants to buy second hand

2.4 Self Defense Insecurity

In the last few years, there was a significant uptick in porch piracy. Our neighborhood was getting more dangerous and there was no home security sign that could deter the crime. A short venture into glitter bomb design that ruined my rug proved even more ineffective. Earlier this year we did adopt our dog Franky as detailed and analyzed in [13-15]. Though the analysis showed that Franky would likely protect us in the eventuality of a robbery, an event in 2022 showed that Franky was far too friendly and vulnerable to head scratches to deter any crime. 

3. Theories

I’ve found it’s important to develop theories on my boyfriends before beginning any psychoanalysis, so I know what problems to look for [16]. Not one theory is likely to explain Chad’s behavior and a combination of two or more might be found. 

3.1 Manhood Defense Mechanism

As alluded to from the porch pirate incident, Chad is likely to be feeling insecure about his ability to protect me, himself, and his home. He has been taking Muay Thai classes for about five years now and he’s still stuck on white belt. Not only does Muay Thai looks like it couldn’t protect him from anything, but he also couldn’t ever get the technique down or commit to a practice time. Typical of Chad. After the second assault rifle in his gun collection, his excuse of target shooting, and feral hog hunting began to no longer add up. 

3.2 Castration Anxiety

Between his unnatural love for his mother threatened by his father and quarantining all his ugly YOLO-dude memorabilia to his “Man Cave”, Chad may be feeling metaphorically castrated. If he had better taste or just grew up a little bit, this may not have been the case. A Guinness neon sign does not belong in the living room! By buying and maintaining a gun collection, Chad may be clinging to objects that are simultaneously manly by societal standards but additionally phallic. This phallic theory is supported by the large number of double drum magazines he has been purchasing. 

Figure 4: Phallic Imagary of a Double Drum magazine (Martin Meise, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

3.3 Id-Super Ego Agreement 

It is impossible to determine whether Chad’s Id or Super-Ego is pushing for the growth of his gun collection. Though his Id may be fueled by his home defense insecurity and/or castration anxiety, his social circles and YouTube history suggests it may be a societal imperative to buy guns as shown in [17]. It may not even be an Id-Super Ego conflict but agreement unless one of the theories is invalidated by further psychoanalysis. Perhaps the reasonable Chad I’ve dated for years is still in there fighting the purchase of the massive number of unnecessary firearms, clips, memorabilia, and ammo. Our credit card statement says otherwise. As evident in the entries in [17], it is possible that my Boyfriend may be turning into a doomsday prepper in which readiness and fire power is the highest good. I have explicitly told him that if he ever makes me do a bug out drill, I’m leaving him.

3.4 Anal Retentiveness Overcompensation

For the first time in my long relationship with my boyfriend, he is neat and clean about something. I regularly vacuum three dust busters worth of crumbs from his gaming chair and keyboard every week. Now his gun hobby is clean and organized. While it may not explain the massive collection of guns themselves, his obsession with cleaning, oiling and gun maintenance may finally be a sign that he is developing past his issues spurring from his anal sexual period. In hopes that this is an over correction of his messy laid-back ways, this must be exploited in future work in order to achieve a cleaner house and less arguments over who should do the dishes [13]. Right now, he’s still only neat about his guns.

3.5 Speed Boat Displacement 

He may still be mad about my refusal to let him buy that speed boat and his gun collection is displaced anger. This theory may have some truth as we have had less arguments ever since his gun collection began to grow and our love making hasn’t been as rough as I’d prefer it [18] now that the guns are a rebellious outlet. If this theory reveals some truth, Chad’s gun collection could allow him a less invasive method to show frustration as long as I set boundaries to save closet space from the addition of yet another impossible to move gun safe.  

4. Psychoanalysis

With the theories established, we could now look for signs to confirm what I already believe through secret psychoanalysis. Using a word association test, a Rorschach Test, and keeping a Chad dream journal, I was able to collect data to confirm all my own theories on his recent behavior shift. Because he is typically non-cooperative regarding my own psychological experiments, I tricked him into thinking that the word association and Rorschach test was to see if he was racist after he said he thought Beyonce was overrated. No trick was required for dream analysis because Chad always tells me about his dreams in the morning despite the number of times I tell him that dream stories are boring no matter how real they felt.

4.1 Word Association

As shown in table 1, Chad is extremely obsessed with guns. I don’t know if this supports any of my theories.

Word	Response
Green	Mossy Oak Camo
Nothing	Empty Clip
Medicine	Advil
Child	Not yet
Bold	M1 Grand
Life	Black 1911
Fear	Jam
Family	You 😉
Clock	Glock
Media	Anti-Freedom
Future	New double Drum Clip I ordered
Fruit	Pineapple
Technology	Bump Stocks
Thoughts	AR-15
Luxury	.50 Cal
Passion	Rambo
Helpless	Franky
Marriage	Please stop asking
Expert	Tony (Gun enthusiast YouTuber he watches)

4.2 Rorschach Test

Similar to the word association test, nearly all of Chad’s answers revolved around guns in the Rorschach test. Table 2 shows his responses corresponding to the Rorschach images in Appendix A. While the response to image A5 was particularly troubling, and may end one of my closest friendships, it is unrelated to the whole gun thing, I’m going to have to have a discussion regarding A5. He might be sleeping on the couch for that. Otherwise, all his responses appear to be involving his gun hobby but not the motivation behind the hobby. I thought I was on to something with A10 but he clarified. Perhaps a Freudian slip?

Image	Response
Image A1	Casings
Image A2	9 millimeter
Image A3	Good Grouping
Image A4	AK-47
Image A5	Your Friend Susan
Image A6	12-Gauge
Image A7	Firing Pin
Image A8	A Pretty Butterfly
Image A9	Bolt-Action
Image A10	Cock (The gun cock not the other cock)

4.3 Dream Journal

Specific dream recordings can be found in appendix B. Like the results from the word association test and the Rorschach test, the dream journal revealed that my boyfriend is totally obsessed with guns. In one, he dreamed he was shooting at a can in the woods he just could not hit. In another, his gun kept jamming and he couldn’t clear it, and in another he couldn’t find any ammo for his AR-15 anywhere. Finally, one day he had a dream where he could fly for however long he could hold his breath, but he didn’t elaborate enough for thorough psychoanalysis because flying dreams are way too basic. 

5. Discussion

There is only one thing that’s clear from my psychoanalysis, and it’s that Chad is really obsessed with guns. There were some things involving gun rights and the NRA, which could arguably point to governmental induced castration anxiety, but it wasn’t strong enough to point back to him not feeling adequate as a man. The data does point to the need for more psychoanalysis. Chad rarely ever gets obsessed with anything outside of his video games [1] and it’s just too weird of a hobby to just be an interest. No one needs that many guns. 

The evidence may not yet directly point to the cause, but it suggests the extreme severity of his condition, whatever it is. There’s no smoke without fire. The fixation of the objects themselves suggest that it must be some fetishization of the essence of a gun which points to the phallic theories, obviously. But why would Chad be concerned about phallic overcompensation? I’ve told him he’s just the right size. Maybe it does have something to do with his father rekindling the romance with his mother. Maybe this will finally be what it takes to get him to move on from the love of his mother and finally propose. I hope he doesn’t because that would put us in a bad tax bracket. It is weird that he hasn’t brought it up though. 

6. Conclusion

A gun is not just a gun. However, there is a chance that he’s just into guns. Despite the evidence only pointing to Chad only being into guns, there must be something else going on. His hobby may be harmless but guns in America is an issue I can’t appear to be complicit in. I would never hear the end of it from my friends. I haven’t been able to host RuPaul Drag Race watch party since he got into the hobby. Susan knows about the problem but after the response to image A5, I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with her visiting any more. I enjoy hosting watch parties, but I would become a social pariah if they knew we owned so many guns. We will need to collect more data to determine what the cause behind the gun obsession is and correct it once and for all. 

References

1. Love, Tiffany 2022 Behavioral Conditioning Methods to Stop my Boyfriend from Playing the Witcher 3 :: Journal of Astrological Big Data Ecology
2. Love, Tiffany 2019 A Dark Triad Analysis of my Boyfriend: Am I dating a Serial Killer :: Journal of Murder Porn
3. Love, Tiffany 2017 Failures in Chad Behavior Modification through Witholding Sex :: Self Published
4. Love, Tiffany and Mrs. Broman 2016 A Psychosexual Profile of Chad Broman: The Damaging Effects of Early Ghost Prank Exposure :: Journal of Paranormal Psychology
5. Love, Tiffany 2013 Jungian Analysis of my Boyfriend’s Fear of Bees :: Self Published
6. Love, Tiffany 2015 Psychological Characterization of my Boyfriend’s Scarcity Mindset: How to Get More Gifts on a Budget :: Self Published
7. Love, Tiffany 2016 Dream Analysis of my Boyfriends Fear of Failure: How to dissuade Workaholic Tendencies :: Self Published
8. Love, Tiffany 2018 Oral Stage Developmental Fixations: How to get my Boyfriend off Vaping :: Self Published
9. Love, Tiffany and Mrs. Broman 2019 The Anal Sexual Stage of Chad Broman: A Bleach Fueled Journey into Anal Expulsive Behavior :: Journal of Potty Training
10. Love, Tiffany 2020 The Theoretical Limits of My Boyfriends Cleanliness :: Self Published
11. Love, Tiffany 2018 Play by Play Psychological Analysis of the Christmas Lights Accident that Nearly got my Boyfriends Dad killed :: Police Report
12. Love, Tiffany 2018. Financial Analysis of buying a Stupid Useless Speedboat when I might be Pregnant :: Journal of Dual Income Households
13. Love, Tiffany 2022 Minimum Maintenance and Reliability Study of Adopting Franky the Dog :: Journal of Household Animal Husbandry
14. Love, Tiffany 2018 Minimum Maintenance and Reliability Study of Adopting Skittles the Cat :: Journal of Household Animal Husbandry
15. Broman, Chad and Love, Tiffany 2022 Who Should do the Dishes? A Transportation Problem Solution :: Journal of Astrological Big Data Ecology
16. Love, Tiffany 2008 Theory Identification Process for Romantic Partner Selection :: Self Published
17. Love, Tiffany 2020 A Meta-Analysis of my Boyfriend’s YouTube History: Is Chad Getting into Qanon? :: Journal of Conspiracy Rabbit Holes
18. Love, Tiffany 2019 Safewords, Paddles, and Drama Induced Anger: Optimum Rough Play in the Bedroom :: Journal of SEX SEX SEX!

Appendix A: Rorschach Test Images and Results

Original Rorschach Test images were used in the experiment

Image	Response
Image A1	Casings
Image A2	9 millimeter
Image A3	Good Grouping
Image A4	AK-47
Image A5	Your Friend Susan
Image A6	12-Gauge
Image A7	Firing Pin
Image A8	A Pretty Butterfly
Image A9	Bolt-Action
Image A10	Cock (The gun cock not the other cock)

Figure A1

Figure A2

Figure A3

Figure A4

Figure A5

Figure A6

Figure A7

Figure A8

Figure A9

Figure A10

Appendix B: Dream Journal

All Dreams were recorded between the third snooze alarm and Chad leaving for work. 

Dream	Description
B1	Chad could clear a jam
B2	Chad couldn’t hit a coke can
B3	Chad felt like he was flying
B4	Chad finds a handgun that pushes him back several feet
B5	The bullets never fit into his magazine
B6	Chad could never aim straight because his hand keeps shaking
B7	Chad’s Shotgun turns into Spaghetti, but it tastes like Eggs
B8	No Ammo to be found no matter where he looks

B1. Gun Jam Dream

December 12, 2022: Chad tells me he was dreaming that he was testing out a new assault rifle he’s expecting to be in soon but every three shots it jams up and he can’t fix it. It’s some technical jargon like an AR-19/F-G model, I can’t remember, I hate listening to this hobby. 

B2. Impossible Coke Can Dream

December 15, 2022: Chad was dreaming he was target practicing with his Browning bolt action hunting rifle in the woods. He keeps thinking he has the aim dead center on a coke can but no matter how many times he fires, the can’s still there. He walks up to the can to see there are no bullet holes but the tree he set the can next to is made from stone.

B3. Flying Dream

December 16, 2022: Chad is able to fly for however long he can hold his breath and hover above the ground above the canopy of the trees. He says it felt like he was swimming through water but that it was the air and would start sinking back to the ground if he took a breath like he was a hot air balloon. 

B4. Handgun Dream

December 21, 2022: Chad dreamed that he got some massive huge revolver “Like the size of your leg” and that every time he shot it, it would push him back like five or even ten feet from each shot. I just don’t get the appeal of this hobby. That doesn’t seem comfortable at all.

B5. Large Bullet Dream

December 24, 2022: Chad tells me that he is working at his reloading station in my pantry and is afraid he’s about to run out of gun powder but somehow there’s just enough. As soon as he’s done reloading his bullets he can’t find any magazines that they fit in and feels like he spent hours searching for the correct magazine. I guess at least he’s saving some money this way, but I have no space left for most of my groceries or knitting supplies. 

B6. Shaking Hand Dream

December 28, 2022: Chad said he was trying to hit a rusted-out road sign in the middle of the woods but could not get his hands to steady. He doesn’t even take a shot because the sites never seem to line up right. Even in a prone position, the gun feels like it’s fifty pounds holding it up and he can’t stop the sway like the background around him is moving. 

B7. Spaghetti Shotgun Dream

December 29 2022: While skeet shooting with his friend Randy, Chad says his shot gun after the second shot collapses into a long bundle of spaghetti. He tries to slurp it up but there is not end to the gun spaghetti. Oddly enough it is buttered with no sauce and tastes like egg whites

B8. No Ammo Dream

January 2, 2022: Chad searches from gun shop to shop, even going to Walmart to find no ammo for any of his guns. He says at each store he asks the clerks and no matter what he asks for, there’s no bullets anywhere to be found.

If you enjoyed this well peer reviewed article attempting to explain why Chad can never have enough fire arms, please like, share, and subscribe with your email, our twitter handle (@JABDE6), our facebook group here, or the Journal of Immaterial Science Subreddit for weekly content.

Also, please enjoy the original A Time Series Analysis of my Girlfriend’s Mood Swings by Chad Broman and look forward to the Chad and Tiffany Article article Behavioral Conditioning Methods to Stop my Boyfriend from Playing The Witcher 3 Chad’s follow on article Sub-Nyquist Sampling While Listening to my Girlfriend or their first joint paper Who Should do the Dishes? A Transportation Problem Solution coming soon to the first JABDE book!