[vannrox]

The Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational foundation that conducts research on violence in America and works to develop violence-reduction policies and proposals. The Center examines the role of firearms in America, conducts research on firearms violence, and explores new ways to decrease firearm-related death and injury.

Why do they HAVE non-Profit Status?
They are an arm of the DNC.

[vannrox]

BARF

[Pyro7480]

Where's the BARF alert?? These people are hopeless...

[Drango]

Was Bellesiles a co-author?

[lelio]

Yet how often are handguns actually used by women to kill in self-defense?
Note that this totally throws out the case in which a rapist grabs a woman, she shows a gun, and he runs off.
Its like saying seat belts only saved a life if your non-belted passenger dies in the accident.

[glc1173@aol.com]

You don't evaluate the success of burglar alarms by the number of burglars caught. You - and your insurance company, which gives discounts on homeowner's policies if you have a remote-monitored alarm - evaluate the success of burglar alarms in terms of deterrance.

VPC won't address the issue of how many women never have to shoot any attacker - due to the guy running when he sees her with it or hears her yelling "I've got a gun" or her stalker ex knowing that she's got one.

It's like capital punishment. When asked by a journalist whether he still believed that capital punishment deterred murder when Death Row was full of the undeterred, a police chief remarked that those who were deterred weren't conveniently gathered one place for counting!

GUN REVIEWS free from ad-money bias - emphasizing woman-friendliness of tested guns!

[stands2reason]

In the late 1980s, the gun industry began targeting women to counter slumping handgun sales among its primary market of white males.

Nice little racist comment. Now do these idiots have proof that minorities were specifically excluded from marketing campaigns? Somehow, I don't think so.

[Manish Boy]

In 1998, for every time a woman used a handgun to kill a stranger in self-defense, 302 woman were murdered with a handgun.

Hmm, that sounds like more women need handguns and self defense training. More on the first side would probably reduce the number on the second.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Yet how often are handguns actually used by women to kill in self-defense?

How about a much more useful question, how many times are handguns used to scare off a would be attacker?

[inquest]

Before a woman purchases a handgun for protection, she must pause to consider whether the grave risk—in 1998, a woman was 101 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun than to use a handgun to justifiably kill an attacker—is one she is willing to accept.

Talk about jaw-dropping. I mean, I knew these people didn't have much of a leg to stand on, but to just totally advertise their abject dishonesty... I really feel like I'm reading a Soviet propaganda rag or something. Their study didn't even pretend to justify that statement by showing how purchasing a handgun puts a woman at greater risk. It's actually kind of interesting that they were completely unable to give any support to the whole "the attacker might grab your gun from you" scare tactic.

[Berthold]

Currently, only a small minority of adult American women own a handgun. Before a woman purchases a handgun for protection, she must pause to consider whether the grave risk—in 1998, a woman was 101 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun than to use a handgun to justifiably kill an attacker—is one she is willing to accept.

...and if this number is so small, is it really statistically significant?

Another thought, if *more* women were armed, would the usage of women's handguns be higher? In other words, are they saying handguns are ineffective because they're rarely used with success (out of the total female population /or/ out of the female population that own guns)?

I think they *really* messed with the wording on this one to make you think handguns are rarely used with success, when in fact, they are only owned by a small segment of this particular population.

[NewRomeTacitus]

This study confirms: more women need to be armed.

[Jesse]

"They are an arm of the DNC."

Exactly. It isn't gun control these socialist elitists are after as much as people control. These are the same people as the radical environmentalists, the anti-growthers, the anarchists, tree-sitters and ban SUV'ers, the so-called pro-choicers, and the Kyoto fanatics...feel free to add to the list. Their role models are culled from the pages of Karl Marx, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and from the fatal legacies of Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, Janet Reno, and Fidel Castro.

They share the common groupthink delusion that they are the chosen ones; smarter, prettier, funnier: the zookeepers. The rest of us who do not share their vision are dumber, uglier, duller: the animals.

They know that caged animals are dangerous, and it is necessary to emasculate as many of the more dangerous animals "for their own good" as possible to remove any threat to their new world order. Like ants, in their ordered society, each member has a duty and a purpose to contribute to the common "good".

Hence, the disarmament faction of the DNC fascists, aka the Brady bunch, the VPC, etc.

I no longer engage in their debate on their terms, and I think freedom lovers should change tactics. Arguing about the lethality of a particular firearm is futile. Instead, I liken these fanatics to the rest of the control freaks that make up their coalition, comparing them to the Greenpeace, tree sitting, radical environmentalist, anti-freedom kooks.

[coloradan]

In 1998, for every time a woman used a handgun to kill an intimate acquaintance in self-defense, 83 woman were murdered by an intimate acquaintance with a handgun.

This statistic has always puzzled me. They present the number as if it should be shocking, and as if new legislation should be enacted to make the number less shocking. But what would this legislation be? If 83 women are killed for each one that kills in self defense, surely the first number should be smaller. Given that murders will continue to happen no matter what the laws are, the easiest way to do that is to encourage more women to kill in self-defense. And the way to do that is to get more women armed and trained in self-defense - so that more shootings happen and more of them are fatal. This appears to be what the VPC is trying to endorse - and now you know why they are the Violence Policy Center. Not the non-violence policy center, mind you. They are centered on a policy of violence.

[NH Liberty]

This article is utter rubbish.

The only thing that this article proves is that not nearly enough women are carrying handguns to protect themselves! Second Amendment Sisters, where are you???

The most amusing thing about this article is that these folks believe that because they've tacked a few footnotes onto its end, we will all slavishly come to believe that it is "scholarly" and, therefore, of course, true...

[SouthernFreebird]

Is this s'pose to scare us women into abandoning our guns?


While I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer even I know if someone is breaking into my house I have a beter chance saving myself and family hitting him with a bullet than with my purse.... they know it too and seek out those who aren't armed.

[RogueIsland]

This vomitus "study" summed up in one sentence: "Women are too stupid and incompetent to defend themselves with a gun. They should just sit back and accept rape as inevitable and stop trying to do anything about it. Who do they think they are, anyway?"

Shows you what the VPC thinks about women, eh?

[alethia]

If anything at all, this shows that the great equalizer in terms of self defense and defense of family is a handgun. Many women (and I am a part of this gender) are stupid about self-defense.

Martial arts are great -- yet in many instances, women are still at a disadvantage due to a man's size or superior upper body strength. The knowledge of how to effectively use a gun should be something every well-informed woman possesses.

[arthurus]

They render useless their statistics right off the top by asking howw many with handguns kill in self defense.They are not interested in the numbers who successfully defend themselves with a gun who don't actually kill someone. I have used my own twice in self defense without once pulling the trigger. When the bad guy determines there is somewhere else he would rather be and he is late to get there, the gun has been used successfully in self defense.

[FourPeas]

As a woman who owns guns, I am first offended that such a skewed report is targeted at women. My second reaction is sadness, caused by a firm belief that most women who read it will not see through the huge holes in logic, half-truths or obviously one-sided agenda. When talking to other women, they often cite many of the "statistics" reported here as why guns are "bad".

The longer we, as a culture, hold up feminization as a goal, the closer we get to losing our freedom.

FP

[FreedomPoster]

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