Sunshine - Clearly this is a fact based and rational choice on your part (not highly emotive or reactionary) since you're able to reasonably, calmly and rationally make your case for why guns are adequate protection for women against male violence. Oh wait, you couldn't even keep your cool in an online discussion about guns and violence...which makes me wonder how well you'd do under the very real pressure of pointing a gun at someone with the intent to kill them. Have you ever killed anything with a gun? I have. I've chosen not to do that again. Have you ever had a gun pointed at you as a threat? I have. I found that my most useful tool was my own ability to be calm and I managed to talk my way out of that situation. So, clearly you're making all kinds of assumptions about what other people know and have lived through. Really, sad as it is, your experience isn't unique.

No one's telling you what to do. We're just, as fellow women, warning you about how often guns get turned on women and used against them. A man's superior strength, speed and agility still puts you at a physical disadvantage if you don't know how to use his size and strength against him, even if you have a gun. I'd suggest - not tell, just suggest - you learn how to break a nose, gouge an eye out, and how to get someone bigger than you down on the ground where their size isn't much of an advantage. This is all pretty basic self defense stuff (being "sporty" and doing some hiking has nothing to do with being able to defend yourself, as you've obviously learned).

You know, my major issue with you carrying a gun is that you don't sound like you're the kind of person who should carry a gun. You're neither calm nor rational about the subject, and you resort to hurling insults since you're working purely on emotion so you clearly don't have a particularly good ability to manage conflict. All of these add up to you being just the kind of woman that gets her own gun turned on her in her own house, or getting all worked up and shooting someone in an emotional outburst since you don't seem to be able to manage them very well. You sound like you'll be a danger to more than just yourself.

Or, of course, you could just be a shill for the gun industry *lol*




www.wagv.org/


Page 1
WOMEN AND GUNS
For years, the gun industry and gun lobby have perpetrated the myth that owning guns will protect
women from violent crime. The industry's goal is to create a new market by persuading women to
purchase guns and join the ranks of gun enthusiasts. Its sales strategy is based on promoting fear. [1]
The result has been the increasing purchase of guns by women, although not in the numbers the gun
industry would like. Only approximately 10 percent of women own guns.[2]
Separating out facts from myth makes clear that women are endangered rather protected by the
proliferation of handguns.
Myth: Guns protect women from gun violence.
Fact: Rates of female homicide, suicide and unintentional firearm death are disproportionately
higher in states where guns are more prevalent.[3]
Fact: In the US, regions with higher levels of handgun ownership have higher suicide rates.[4]
Although women have higher rates of depression than men, it is the handgun-suicide connection, rather
than depression, that accounts for higher suicide rates.
Myth: Handgun ownership increases women’s ability to defend themselves.
Fact: In 1998, women were 101 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun than to use a
handgun to kill in self-defense. Women were 302 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun
than to use a handgun to kill a stranger in self-defense. Women were 83 times more likely to be
murdered by an intimate acquaintance with a handgun than to kill an intimate acquaintance in
self-defense.[5]
Fact: In the rare cases in which women do use guns in self-defense, it is most commonly against an
attacker known to them.[6]
Myth: Guns protect women from rape.
Fact: Guns are rarely used by rapists - less than 2 percent of rapes are committed with guns,
while almost 70 percent are committed with personal weapons (physical violence). Women would
be safer knowing self-defense to fight off an attacker than using a gun which can easily be turned against
them.[7]
Myth: Women need guns to protect against stranger rape.
Fact: Stranger rape is not the greatest danger for women as most women (75 percent) are raped by
offenders known to the victim. 60 percent of rapes are committed against victims under the age of 18
who are forbidden by law to own a gun.[8]
July 2005
Endnotes:
Page 2
1. Susan Glick, “Female Persuasion: How the Firearms Industry Markets to Women and the Reality
of Women and Guns,” Violence Policy Center, 1994. www.vpc.org/studies/fpstudy.htm
2. Tom W. Smith, “2001 National Gun Policy Survey of the National Opinion Research Center:
Research Findings,” National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, December 2001.
www.norc.uchicago.edu/online/guns01.pdf
3. Matthew Miller et. al., "Firearm Availability and Suicide, Homicide, and Unintentional Firearm
Deaths Among Women."
Journal of Urban Health
79: 26-38 (2002).
4. David Hemenway and Matthew Miller, "Association of Rates of Household Handgun Ownership,
Lifetime Major Depression, and Serious Suicidal Thoughts with Rates of Suicide across US
Census Regions."
Injury Prevention
8: 313-316 (2002).
5. Violence Policy Center, “A Deadly Myth: Women, Handguns, and Self-Defense,” 2001.
www.vpc.org/studies/myth.htm
6. Ibid.
7. FBI Uniform Crime Reports, The Structure of Family Violence: An Analysis of Selected Incidents.
Washington, D.C., 1998.
8. Glick, “Female Persuasion: How the Firearms Industry Markets to Women and the Reality of
Women and Guns.”