Here is a message we need to get out to people....guns save lives!!
>Resent-Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 20:08:08 -0600 >X-Sender: vin@dali.lvrj.com >Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 19:01:32 -0700 >To: vinsends@ezlink.com >From: Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz) >Subject: Oct. 20 column -- women need guns >Resent-From: vinsends@ezlink.com >X-Mailing-List: <vinsends@ezlink.com> archive/latest/753 >X-Loop: vinsends@ezlink.com >Resent-Sender: vinsends-request@ezlink.com > > > FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA > FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 20, 1999 > THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz > Give these women guns > > > The newspapers reported Donna Hernandez of Las Vegas did everything she >could to protect herself. Fearing that her estranged husband was going to >kill her, she repeatedly informed the police that she feared for her life. >She even went to court and got protection orders. > > Seven of them. > > It didn't help. Two weeks ago, Donna Hernandez was found stabbed and >strangled in her home. Her ex-husband is now in jail, facing murder >charges. > > About a third of all slayings in the Las Vegas Metro police jurisdiction >stem from domestic violence. In October of 1997, 17-year-old Maureen >McConaha obtained a protective order against her ex-boyfriend. Weeks later, >she was shot to death. The ex-boyfriend, Johnny Walker, is awaiting rial >on murder charges. > > In January of 1998, police found Judy and Ronnie Norman dead inside the >couple's Las Vegas home. Next to their bodies police found a protective >order that Judy Norman had taken out against her husband. Police ruled the >deaths a murder-suicide. > > In October of last year, Brenda Denise James was shot to death in front >of her six children, days after she applied for and received a protective >order against her ex-boyfriend, Robert Lee Carter, 30. A murder charge >against Carter is pending. > > While court-issued protective orders are "a good tool for law >enforcement, they don't stop a bullet or knife, and we need to make sure >everyone knows that," offers Clark County Domestic Violence Commissioner >Patricia Doninger. > > "We have to find a better way to protect people like Donna Hernandez," >says a frustrated District Judge Nancy Saitta. > > But that better way has long been available. God may have made women, but >Colonel Colt made women equal, and carrying the tool he invented remains >the constitutional right of every American. > > The problem is, so far as can be determined, Donna Hernandez, Maureen >McConaha, and Brenda Denise James did (start ital)not(end ital) do >everything they could to protect themselves and their children: They did >not buy and carry handguns, and acquire the skill to use them. > > Police cannot provide an armed bodyguard for every woman who's been >threatened. Therefore, police should actively recommend that such women >acquire appropriate, effective weapons for self-defense, and the minimal >training necessary to handle them safely. > > In fact, if any arbitrary "background check" or "concealed-carry permit" >paperwork delays stand in the way of a woman who holds such a valid >"protection order" and wishes to acquire a handgun, our state lawmakers -- >and particularly U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, a proponent of women's rights >and an avowed supporter of the Second Amendment -- should immediately >introduce legislation to provide for aninstant waiver of any such waiting >periods or bureaucratic delays, authorizing the immediate, legal placement >of a handgun in any such woman's purse. > > Those with an irrational phobia of firearms -- though they would never >propose that we send our boys to Bosnia armed with nothing more than a >whistle on a key ring -- will whine that "A woman is in greater danger if >she has a gun; the assailant will just take it away and use it on her." > > In fact, Gary Kleck, professor of criminology at Florida State University >in Tallahassee, examined the statistical evidence for that concern in his >book, "Targeting Guns." > > Guns are taken away from their owner and used by an assailant in fewer >than 1 percent of defensive handgun uses, Professor Kleck determined. Nor >is there any indication that more widespread gun ownership would turn our >neighborhoods into "shooting galleries": Dr. Kleck also found that in more >than 90 percent of defensive handgun uses, the weapon isn't even fired. > > "It's one of the great lies of the anti-gun people, that people are so >incompetent that they're going to have their guns taken away from them," >says David Kopel, research director of the Independence Institute in >Golden, Colo. and author of the book "Guns: Who Should Have Them?" > > In fact, if the authorities would send out a notice that the victim is >now armed, along with the court "keep-away" order, most of these attacks >might never occur, at all. > > "There's very strong evidence that knowledge that victimshave guns is a >great deterrent to attacking," adds Don Kates, a criminologist with the >Pacific Research Institute in California. "The National Institute of >Justice has sponsored extensive surveys of criminals in prisons, and ... >they attest that they were far less likely to commit crimes against people >when they knew that they were likely to be armed. > > "The other thing is, it is universally reported that women respond much >better to firearms training than men do, because the problem with men is that their testosterone levels get in the way," Mr. Kates explains. >"They're supposed to already know about guns, and so you have to get them >to unlearn things that they know that are wrong, and they're very stubborn >about that." > > So, if at-risk women find it easy to learn to use guns safely and >effectively, why aren't they all urged by authorities to go out and get >themselves a Smith & Wesson? > > "That's to admit that the whole system is a complete failure," explains >criminologist Kates. "Noticethat the whole thing with restraining orders >is a failure designed to remedy a failure. We already have laws against >violence, so why do we need restraining orders? Because police won't >enforce laws against violence within the family." > > October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a time when our political >leaders annually call on us to reflect on the number of domestic-violence >incidents that occur each year, and to take action to stop them. > > OK then. Let's stop mooning and moaning. Let's o something that works. > > It's not big, sturdy men who fear to be the last person leaving the >shopping mall late at night, walking across that darkened parking lot. It's >America's women. > > Let's really reduce violence against our womenfolk. Let's give them guns. > > >Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas >Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers," is available at >1-800-244-2224, or via web site >http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html. > >*** > > > > >Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com > >"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John >Hay, 1872 > >"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and >thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series >of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken > >* * *