Armed and Female
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 23 Oct 2002 12:00:00 GMT
From kaba:
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers. -- Thomas Pynchon, (Gravity's Rainbow)
From Quotes of the Day:
"A coupla months in the laboratory can save a coupla hours in the library." -- Westheimer's Discovery
Zola at The Laissez Faire Electronic Times - Rasputin Is in Charge - "How do I terrorize thee? Let me count the ways." [grabbe]
There is nothing like a few killings, and a few planted bombs, to incite the sheep to give up their "sentimental regard for individual liberty" and to fulfill their "obligations of empire."
Massad Ayoob at Backwoods Home Magazine - Armed and Female - Mr. Ayoob borrows the title of Paxton Quigley's excellent book to make a point, women need to be armed. He recommends a new organization called Mother's Arms.
For more than a century, the handgun has been called in American lore "the equalizer." There is truth here. The sad part of the truth is that a gun makes an emotional dwarf like Sirhan Sirhan equal to the destruction of a giant like Robert Kennedy. The happy part of the truth is that a handgun makes a petite and gentle female equal to the destructive power of an enraged adult male, or a gang of them.
...
It is not a choice of being predator or prey. A lot of people miss that, including one otherwise intelligent reporter who went through my school recently. If you become a wolf to ward off the other wolves, you have defeated your own purpose. You have, as my generation learned to say, destroyed the village in order to save it.
No. The ideal is to be the sheepdog. You did not come with intent to harm. You came with intent to protect. If the wolf approaches your flock, you will bark to warn him off. If he comes closer, you will threaten with your more aggressive presence. And then, if he is stupid enough to attack, you will do what instinct tells you to do to a predator who is trying to tear your lamb's throat out.
You will interdict the predator. And you will do what you must to stop him from harming that lamb, even if you must tear his throat out. And in the end, if you were not born to be the protector like the sheepdog, it will suffice if you are a mother sheep with a .38 Special. Because, when you think about it, if mother sheep had guns to protect their lambs, they wouldn't need sheepdogs at all.
...
Some men fear that women will be too faint-hearted to pull the trigger of a self- defense weapon. Faint hearts come in both genders. It's in the mind, not in the chromosomes. One offender climbing through a window looked at the gun in one of my female student's hands and said, "You ain't got the balls to shoot me, Bitch." He woke up in the hospital with his bullet-shattered arm amputated.
...
There has been a lot of misinformation about women and "the equalizer." The bottom line is, against violent, lethal assault, the firearm is simply the most logical and effective line of defense. When most women carry guns, most rapists will masturbate alone in the dark.
zem.squidly.org - Australian gun control advocates seek further firearm restrictions - Stupid, insane, or evil. How can people push for even more gun restrictions when the existing restrictions are the cause of the problem? Sheesh. [zem]
