From: [j r cosby] at [prism.gatech.edu] (Julie Cosby)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: women and gun ownership
Date: 29 Jul 1994 17:46:43 -0400

[cci 90292] at [aol.com] (CCI 90292) writes:

>The gun industry and NRA is using feminism and women's fear of violence to
>"target" women as its next big customer.  They say:  "If you want to be
>empowered as a woman, it's time to buy a gun, just like the big boys." 
>The truth is, guns are killing us, not protecting us, and if anyone is
>going to put a stop to this scourge or gun violence, it has to be women. 
>What do you think?  I'm only interested in hearing from women, not macho,

OK, you've asked me what I think. BTW---I'm female.

>gun-toting NRA dudes.  How can we protect ourselves without resorting to
>the gun madness?

Now you seem to be telling me what to think.

I think that I disagree with you on this. That's what I think.

I *am* the NRA.

I own guns (legally), and I practice shooting them.

I became an NRA member and a gun owner for the first time this year.

I have *always* been a strong supporter of the US Constitution and the
individual rights that are reaffirmed in it.

I'm also a rape survivor. I know about violence first hand. I've survived it.
I also survived the abusive relationship within which the rape(s) occurred.
One of the things that the person who abused me did was point a gun at my
head and pull the trigger. Lucky for me it wasn't loaded, but I didn't know
that at the time.

I'll tell you something. I looked down the barrel of that gun. Take it from
me, I wasn't half as scared of the gun as I was of the bastard holding it.

Isaac Asimov once said, "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent."

I was really mad when I first read that, because I thought he was blaming all
the victims of violence who resorted to defending themselves in a last-ditch
effort to protect their lives or bodies after being attacked.

I thought he was saying that anybody who did anything violent, even in self-
defense, was incompetent.

It took a couple of years before the real meaning of his words dawned on me.
He WAS NOT saying that anyone who behaved violently for any reason was
incompetent. He was saying that incompetent people who cannot function in the
world and get the things they want and need in any other way WILL resort to
violence to get those things.

That's when I realized that what he said was one of the wisest things I'd
ever heard. As I looked around myself at the world I realized that it's true.

People compete. People compete for money, for jobs, for education, for honors,
for respect from their peers. Men compete for the most beautiful or most 
desirable women. People who are insecure inside and have low self worth seem
to compete even more vigorously for the outward symbols of the "good things"
in life. 

People with self-respect don't hurt others when they don't get everything 
they want in the day-to-day competition of life. They are confident that if
they keep trying they can by their own efforts achieve, earn, or win many of
the things they want, and they enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when they
succeed at getting something they want as the fruit of their own efforts.

Men without self-respect, if they're incompetent at socializing with
women, will rape, because they won't believe that they are worth the love
and sexual affection of a desirable, worthful woman.

People without self-respect, if they can't earn the money for the things they
want, will steal. Such people will murder out of envy or jealousy.

Incompetent people will not just meekly lie down and accept that they cannot
have the things (or people) that they want. They will resort to violence to 
get those things once they realize that they cannot achieve, earn, or win
them.

You may not like it, but there are always going to be losers. There are always
going to be people who lose regardless of how much someone else tries to help
them not lose.

My (deceased) sister-in-law was, briefly, married to such a person. They were
married when she died. He was in jail for his third DUI when she died of 
cancer. He had been convicted for robbing a house. He and one of his buddies
got drunk and decided to go rob this house. They got caught because they went
back for the hanging baskets of potted plants. You can't do much with that
kind of combination of stupidity and dishonesty.

I own a gun and I practice shooting regularly so that I'll be able to use it
properly, so that when I encounter a person who is both stupid and dishonest
who is intent on raping or killing me or my (future) husband, or my (future)
children, I will have the best possible chance of me and my loved ones all
surviving the encounter.

You can spout all the anti-gun noise that you want to. You can tell me that
guns are "macho" and are "masculine", and accuse me of trying to be like the
"big boys" if I own or carry one. I don't care. I've *been* raped, and I've
decide that I would much rather defend myself than sit back quietly and be
"ladylike".  

You apparently don't think that it's "womanly" (prior generations would have
used words like "ladylike", "feminine", or "seemly") to defend yourself
adamantly and with the most effective tool possible. The oppressors sure have
sold you a bill of goods. I hope you don't have to learn how badly you've
been misled the hard way, like I did.

For some literature that will help you detoxify from some of the learned
helplessness drummed into you by the would-be oppressors and rapists in our
culture and their enablers, I suggest that you read Marion Zimmer Bradley's
Darkover novels and short story anthologies---with particular emphasis on
the Free Amazons (or Renunciates).

DISCLAIMER: To the men I have gotten to know and respect while reading and
posting to this group---please don't take my criticisms of lesser persons
than yourselves (persons of lesser integrity, honor, and individual respect
for the rights of others) as in any way denigrating to you personally.
I am *most certainly* not referring to any of you when I speak of the
oppressors, rapists, and would-be rapists, murderers, thugs and thieves that
are loose on our streets. I know that most of you support taking violent
criminals out of circulation just as much as I do myself, and I appreciate
you for it.

Julie

-- 
   Julie Batson
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
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