Monday, November 7, 2011

Rape Prevention

Go Upstate.com published a rebuttal to Sheriff Chuck's advice. According to the author, carrying a gun is not the right way to protect yourself against rape.

Repeated studies have shown that people who own a handgun are at a high risk of that gun being used against them. Unfortunately, people who perpetrate violent crimes are often more adept at using, and more ready to use, handguns.

The fact is that very few rapes are perpetrated by strangers. We warn our children, our friends and family members to be careful of strangers when we should be warning them about those they know. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, most sexual assaults (approximately two-thirds) are perpetrated by someone the victim knows and trusts.

How willing and able would you be to pull the trigger on your relative, friend, spouse, boyfriend or someone else you know?
You know what the problem is, pro-gun folks who suggest that a gun makes you safer have an agenda. They're desperately trying to justify their own decision to own and carry a gun. In a free country like the United States you're certainly able to carry a gun if you want to, but it's not the smart move.

The gun-rights extremists love to point out anecdotal situations in which a gun MIGHT have helped, but they reject all the other anecdotal situations in which the gun did more harm than good.

Studies have backed this up, as the article mentioned, but I always prefer to use common sense. Assuming that no negligent discharge ever happens during the entire time you own the gun, and assuming no gun is ever stolen from you, and let's say you never get depressed and take you own life with the gun and that you never go off the deep end over work or economic or relationship stress. Let's say it never happens that on a dark night you mistakenly shoot somebody who didn't need shootin', let's assume all that.

As protection against rape the gun is still practically useless. If your rapist is one of the 75% who know their victims, it'll be too late by the time push comes to shove. If the rapist is one of the 25% who don't know their victim, he'll probably be quicker and better prepared and more willing to use violence than you.

Like all gun ownership and concealed carry, the gun can make you FEEL safer, but that's illusory, ungrounded in facts and irrrational. It's a bad decision to carry a gun when the chances of it saving you are so low and the chances of it causing harm are so high.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

8 comments:

  1. Personally, I have never seen a headline that read, "Armed Woman Raped" or "Pistol Packin' Mama, Assaulted".

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  2. Does the name "Meleanie Hain" mean anything to you?

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  3. Does the name Lorena Bobbitt mean anything to you.

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  4. Loreena Bobbitt? Lemme see; abused woman has asshole husband; he has too much to drink; she cuts off his manquipment while he's passed out, in his own bed.

    Yep. That's a perfect example of a pistol packin' mama or armed woman (with a gun, you meant, yes?") preventing a rape.

    Moron.

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  5. Yes, Lorena Bobbit was a woman who went to jail for domestic violence against her husband. Her husband was tried and acquitted of rape.

    Are you calling attacking an unarmed sleeping man AFTER a crime 'rape prevention'? You seem to have a serious confusion about facts,once again.

    I'm guessing that once again you went off with something that you think supports your position, when it in fact does the opposite.

    Perhaps, as just one example of what is wrong with your claim that this has anything to do with rape, you were unaware of Lorena Bobbitt's statement to police explaining her reason for the assault - and it wasn't rape (per Wikipedia, follow the footnotes):

    "However, when Lorena was arrested the night of June 23rd, she told the police, "He always have orgasm [sic], and he doesn't wait for me to have orgasm. He's selfish."[4]

    The correct resolution for the Bobbitt domestic problems was a good divorce attorney, not a kitchen knife and violence, Anonymous. Once again, you get it wrong because you don't do your homework first.

    You consistently have some faulty assumptions Anonymous, which get in the way of what could be a better discussion between you and us.

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  6. I moderated this comment for Anonymous, but for some reason I do not see it appearing here, so I am republishing that comment again - apologies if it subsequently shows up twice.

    Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Rape Prevention":

    And your example had nothing to do with my original comment.


    You are correct anonymous; Laci the human addressed your original comment. I was addressing your subsequent comment.

    Let me address an additional example to supplement the Melanie Hain one Laci used; there are in fact numerous examples of women who have their own weapons for defense turned against them, including instances where a woman is facing multiple assailants - too many to stop effectively; but the examples which most come to my mind are the 1 in 3 female members of our military, where at least some have been armed, and all have been trained in hand to hand self-defense, but are raped any way.

    Whether addressing your first comment or your subsequent one, your argument is a failure. Do your own research better; weapons do not automatically prevent or stop rape. That is an illusion, one might say delusion.

    Beyond that assertion, you also fail to take into account instances of rape that first incapacitate women, for example those using date rape drugs.\

    Rather, you demonstrate the excessive reliance on weapons, while neglecting too many other aspects of the problem.

    It is the faulty one-trick-pony response.

    Try again.

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  7. An unarmed gun advocate getting killed and an armed person confronting an attacker are not the same thing. Period.

    But I do agree that the amount of rapes that happen to women in the military are a disgrace.

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  8. Whether you're talking about preventing rape or preventing any other crime by carrying a gun the quesion is the same. Does a gun make things better or worse?

    To me it's a no brainer, it makes matters worse.

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