Ronn Blankenship wrote:
> As this is not yet an ideal world, how would you recommend the average
> citizen defend him/herself from those who choose not to behave in an ideal
> way? Even in the cities, the police are likely to take at least 5 minutes
> to respond to a 911 call. In rural areas, it may take half an hour or
> more. What do you recommend that a woman being threatened by a rapist in
> her home do while waiting for the police to arrive?
>
Use a taser, or a pepper spray or a blade (as some on this list have
suggested); sic her dog on him or use her training in self defense. If worst
comes to worst she could also run out the back door. Or she could use her
gun. If you've read my post (and others on the same subject) you would know
that I've repeatedly said that I don't think prohibition is practical.
However, if she resorted to using her handgun and she had it locked away
(perhaps she has small children) would she be able to get to it in time? If
she did get to it, or she had it handy, did she have the nerve to actually use
it? And if she did actually use it, did she hit her target and do enough
damage to stop him before he got to her, overpowered her and took her gun? Or
if he also had a gun and she brandished hers, does a potential rape turn into
a murder? And what if one of them fire and miss? Where is the bullet
headed? Obviously the odds are very low that it will hurt someone, but they
aren't zero. And so on and so forth.
And of course having to have the means to defend yourself in the first place
is the symptom af a much larger problem than gun proliferation. We need to
work toward finding the root cause of the problem instead of suggesting we all
get the means to shoot it out. Criminals won't go away just because every one
has a gun. They will have more of a tendency to carry deadly force themselves
and will probably be much more wary to insure themselves that they get the
drop on you, but they ain't gonna go away.
Then again, in the interest of promoting responsibility, maybe we should give
all criminals hand guns. 8^)
Doug
