Gayle Trotter, a senior fellow at the conservative Independent Women’s Forum, made an appearance on Wednesday to pink up the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.
“Guns make women safer,” she testified. “Using a firearm with a magazine holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, a woman would have a fighting chance even against multiple attackers.”
But Trotter is wrong about women and guns, dangerously so. Far from making women safer, the presence of firearms in situations of domestic violence (which occur far more frequently than any other crime in the United States, Trotter’s “stranger danger” scenarios be damned) dramatically increases the likelihood a woman will be killed by her abuser. As Amanda Marcotte reported for Slate, the Violence Policy Center conducted research to quantify this point and found that 83 women were killed by an intimate partner for every woman who used a gun in self-defense.
Trotter added that, “Scary-looking” guns give women “more courage” when “fighting hardened violent criminals.” Here is something else that “scary-looking” guns do to women: Coerce, threaten and intimidate them into remaining in abusive, often deadly, relationships.
According to a recent study on firearms and intimate partner violence, “Even when guns are not fired at women directly, they are often used as a tool of intimidation to facilitate other types of physical and psychological violence,” with many women reporting that their abusers would “clean” their guns during arguments.
Yeah my BS detector was going insane as I watched this woman's testimony.
You know your Uncle Gryphen used to be self defense instructor back in the day, and this issue of guns came up more than a few times.
So let me tell all of you what I told my classes back then.
If you want an effective form of home defense, get a dog. It does not even have to be a big dog, just one that will bark it's ass off at the sound of somebody breaking in.
Most burglars obviously don't want to get caught, and the barking of a dog is going to alert the people in the home to wake up and be aware of what is happening. And to call the cops. And, as far as they know, grab a gun.
You don't necessarily have to own a gun to make somebody afraid of getting shot, or even perhaps of having their ball sack ripped off by an angry, defensive animal.
I am an advocate of alarm systems as well. I have one myself.
Really the idea is to prevent a burglary, or home invasion, in the first place. Make it seem challenging, and not worth the effort, and most likely it will never happen.
But I will tell you what WILL attract a burglar. One of those big glass display cases filled with guns, that's what! Having that on display does NOT deter a burglar, that is catnip to a burglar:
Firearms are a favorite target of most burglars. They can be sold on the illegal market or used to commit other crimes. Most people do not properly secure their firearms.
Unsecured fired arms are a burglars dream. Residents place them in closets, drawers or under beds. The seasoned burglar has seen all this before. They know where the uninformed will hide firearms.
When the NRA talks about criminals having guns, this is what they are talking about.
The bad guy does not have to sweat a background check. All he has to do is let the gun enthusiast go through all the paperwork, and then break in and steal the very weapons that he bought to "feel safe."
Happens every day.
You know Fido may not have an extended clip or hollow tip bullets, but he will also never be picked up and used to injure his owner. I'm just saying.
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