(no subject)

[pictor]

As a followup from an extended conversation on another post of mine, I am curious where many of my friends stand on this.
[Poll #1307988]<input ... >

I have no intent that this become another place for debating this, I am just curious where people stand on this.

Comments

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

What is the state not doing that you think it should?

the state is not:
-testing rape kits
-taking domestic violence complaints seriously
-enforcing restraining orders
-responding fast enough to 911 calls to certain areas
-educating men on rape, on violence against women
-acting in any kind of feminist way
-training their police on gender issues in any meaningful way
-doing anything at all to prevent violence against women... they sort of half respond to it sometimes, but nothing in advance
-making sex work safer
-providing women with information about current risks

This whole "it will be used against you" thing is bullshit. Owning a car increases your risk of dying in a car accident too. But we train people, we license, we regulate, and we remove the right based on abuse, and we balance convenience with certain deaths in traffic accidents. Do you think women cops are at some great risks of happen their weapons used against them? No, because they are trained. When guns are illegal maybe people get them used against themselves because they were never trained.

"Sure, it works sometimes but the odds are still stacked way against you."
What odds? Where?

If a man wants to kill me, he can. Having a gun might even the situation. Yes, he might have a gun too, but he already likely has deadly force at his disposal in a fight with me, with most women.

If there are a bunch of kids around and people going to be hit by stray bullets I probably could get help and not need to fire, right?
What are these cases of women firing guns in self defense that killed bystanders?

I just clicked your link - yeah, a kid shot, a mom shot, a pregnant woman shot... by men. None of these shooters was shooting in self defense. You are arguing against the misuse of guns... irresponsible target practice? Two men arguing? That is not what I'm talking about.
Realize first that guns are not going away. Now examine why they are a tool/weapon the good guys/good girls aren't allowed to have.

Sometimes people poison people. Does this mean we shouldn't sell medicine? No, it doesn't, it means we should guard against its misuse, and punish when it is used to harm others, but recognize that sometimes an individual needs it to save their life.

[thesheryl.livejournal.com]

That's a good answer. I'm most worried about people who own guns and are completely irresponsible about it. And the effects of violence escalating when a gun (or guns) come into play. As with A's earlier post about the two men who shot each other in the Toys'R'Us. Two women got in a physical altercation so one man pulled out his gun. Then the other man pulled out his gun. Now two men are dead when, if neither of them had a gun to begin with, security and the police would have been called and there would have been charges of aggravated assault and disturbing the peace. I think one of the things people (including myself) are worried about is that the use of firearms in altercations will automatically result in "use of deadly force". In short; less injuries, more dead people.

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

"if neither of them had a gun to begin with"
or, if we didn't have stores they wouldn't be there.
or if we didn't have men.
or if, if, if.

Just because this is a variable that would have changed the situation doesn't mean that it is the one to change. Why is it that when someone dies from alcohol or cars (or both at once) we don't think of prohibition anymore? why do we choose regulation instead?

Also - this all presuposes that we even could remove the possibility of doing away with guns, which we can't. People shoot each other - including in stores and in schools and in homes - in places where they are not allowed to own guns. Guns exist, so I favour a harm reduction model, as I do with, say, drugs or prostitution.

I see what you are getting at regarding people getting into fights, but if you think of an attacker/victim situation the result when a woman uses deadly force to fend off a would-be murderer is not "more dead people", it is a different dead person. I guess I'm just not willing to trade my safety because of the way men fight. Men kill each other, and they kill women. But the thing people are scared of is arming women?