IN DEFENSE OF THE GREAT EQUALIZER

by Jane Gaffin

Men need self-protection, too. But in keeping with the Lady Beware classes in the Coming Events column, this article is FOR WOMEN ONLY.

Personal security has become very serious business as crime continues to escalate disproportionatley in our community. Yet crime can only be rampant if it is condoned, excused, overlooked, allowed, and, yes, submitted to.

As much as possible, crime should be dealt with when and where it happens without fear of blame falling on the victims.

Crime doesn't run on a clock. It can occur anywhere at any minute. A victim can be traumatized, terrorized, maimed or killed within a matter of seconds.

After the latest bout of violence in this community, maybe we should rethink the responsibility for our lives and safety. Should we depend entirely on the police and the courts?

In broad daylight, a lone 31-year-old woman was dragged into a ditch and beaten unconscious while she walked along busy Mountainview Drive in the residential area of Porter Creek. An unknown male attacker is still on the lam and may never be apprehended. It gives everybody the willies because we may never know his motivation.

Self-defense classes for women have become popular. Women have been advised to arm themselves with everything from flashlights to whistles. Whoopi-do.

Cell phones offer comfort. Should one be so unfortunate to be the victim of an assault, rape or robbery, it will be difficult to call the police while the act is in progress, even from an area where the portable phone is operating properly.

Policeman Massad Ayoob, a cop of 27 years, and a father who taught his two daughters to handle guns properly at his knee, has seen enough violence in the streets to know the reality of crime.

Police work is reactive rather than proactive, he advised in a column for "Backwoods Home Magazine". "Anyone who says 'the police will protect you' hasn't been a cop," he related in his article "Of Kids and Guns".

"Those of us who have been, know that we can only respond to calls for our service. This means, basically, that you have to survive long enough to call us, and then you have to wait for us to get there."

A cell phone isn't the answer. A handgun is the great equalizer and the reason Ayoob leaves a gun at home with his "significant other" when he's at work.

Some Yukon women, discouraged by the red-tape involved with the abominable firearms legislation, unfortunately sold their self-protection.

In actuality, the gun prohibitionists who lobbied for unrealistic gun-control laws and the politicians who passed the legislation have sent a message that the state distrusts its honest, decent, law-abiding citizens more than it fears rapists, robbers and murderers!

They are saying our lives are not worth defending.

There's always the argument about getting the wrong person. Excuse me? I have documentation to show that law enforcers consistently kill and/or charge wrong people, and courts mistakenly send innocent men like Jamie Nelson to prison on women's accusations but without a shred of evidence.

I don't think I can be mistaken about a person who pulls a gun or knife on me and demands my money and/or body. This person definitely intends to harm me.

Countering violence by killing an attacker is said to breed an uncivilized society. Translation: it's best to allow those who do not respect our lives to trample on us, which is exactly what is condoned in Whitehorse.

There is no evidence to substantiate a claim that more lenient gun laws would translate into every assailant or house burglar being blown away by a gun. This isn't Zimbabwe. Yet.

Ordinary people don't have the stomach to go around murdering other humans without just cause. That just cause is a threat to her own life.

The argument is that if you shoot somebody, you'll be criminally charged. Yep. You most likely will be.

But laws are so goofy and excessive, you can be charged with disturbing the peace for shrieking and screeching your distress, too.

Ridiculous? Yes. Absurd. For sure. Insane? Definitely. But so was the case in which the burglar broke his leg and won damages against the homeowner, who was found liable for the personal safety of any visitors to his private property. The burglary was inconsequential.

Any item you might use in self-defense can be construed as a weapon if you inflict harm on another person. It may be hands, clunky gold-nugget rings (on fingers like brass knuckles), boots (feet in), fingernails, keys, kitchen knife, hockey stick, baseball bat, tie rod, walking cane, pit bull.

"The law is taking away people's guns and the criminals know this fact and are emboldened" explained Ottawa-based Linda Thom, Canada's first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in handgun shooting.

Honest and decent people, who try to be law-abiding citizens, are losing their rights and are afraid to defend themselves.

In the Criminal Code section on "self-defence against unprovoked assaults", the court's responsibility is to decide if the force is no more than necessary to fit the occasion.

"That is the hardship," noted Thom, an authority on guns, personal safety and legislation. "The ordinary citizen's actions are interpreted afterwards."

Women should not be lured into a false sense of security and confidence by believing they can learn physical self-defense techniques overnight to ward off a doped up thug, much less a whole gang of them armed with razors and chains. This is not a television screen script, but reality.

Not all females are athletic. And, as people age, their bodies are less agile. Arthritis or a bad hip can render two feet useless for running away. Furthermore, each situation is different and cannot be predicted.

In 1991, a couple moved from California's Monterey Peninsula to Oregon. The woman became apprehensive about her personal safety. She keeps books for her husband's real estate business and often travels alone at night or would be at home alone while her husband worked late.

Guard dogs weren't her style. She considered various forms of self-defense. "I think I'm sort of too old to do martial arts," the middle-aged grandmother recently told the "Christian Science Monitor", "and I really don't want to let anybody get that close.

"If you want to know the truth, I'd rather end it (encounter) sooner than later."

So, she packs a .38 caliber revolver next to her breath mints and Kleenex in a separate, hidden, tear-away Velcro pouch in a black handbag.

She can plunge her hand inside and shoot her attacker right through the purse. "I don't believe in killing people," said the sweet-voiced woman who cannot be identified for obvious reasons. "But I do believe in protecting myself."

The handgun is small and light. It can be carried constantly. It doesn't demand great strength or skill like a knife or the art of karate.

It does, however, require gun courses, a cool head under pressure and good hand-eye coordination. The beauty of the .38 is it can be used effectively by the lone jogger, the teacher, the elderly and the physically disabled against the young and mighty who are intent to inflict harm on an otherwise defenseless person.

The Oregon woman recognizes the huge responsibility of packing a pistol. It is for self-protection only. It was the urging of a friend that prompted her to apply for a concealed-weapon permit five years ago.

She keeps other loaded pistols in a gun locker at her home, which is located in a populated housing development considered "safe" by normal standards like Porter Creek should be.

"Things have gotten more dangerous," she told Lane Hartrill of the "Monitor". "People are more bold than they used to be. Generally, society itself is going to you-know-where in a handbasket."

She is quite aware of the paranoia about guns and the white-hot debate raging between concealed-weapon advocates and gun prohibitionists.

She believes Oregon's laws of thorough background checks weed out irresponsible people to ensure it's not just the criminals who have access to guns.

"Hopefully, I'll never need it," she was quoted as saying. "But that's not a reason not to carry it."

Just as some women's prerogative is not to play sports or be mothers, a few friends who know about "the protection", but would never carry a gun of their own, still appreciate her decision.

Everybody doesn't have to pack a gun to render a community safer. In places where concealed weapons can be carried legally, criminals don't know who does and who doesn't have one. So, they're not as prone to play Russian Roulette with their own lives by doing car jackings and assaults on lone women.

Although millions of Canadians own guns, this country has basically been disarmed, thanks mainly to the radical, do-good women's groups who view guns as instruments of violence that need to be removed from the hands of all those stupid, beer-swilling, macho, low-IQ, knuckle-dragging rednecks who "just luv their guns".

A Yukon woman's application to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense would undoubtedly be denied. Meanwhile, the criminals have the guns in this town. And they can buy an AK-47 assault rifle or any other prohibited or restricted weapon and ammunition on the black market or build a gun quite easily.

To put it crudely, my deah sistahs, we are the victims of our own gender's screw job. Those radical lovelies, the likes of Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, pushed until innocent women are now "desperadoes". We are faced with the ugly choice between self-protection and respecting an odious law.

Just as violent crime is not about sex or property, but rather about power and domination, unobeyable firearms laws are not about crime control but about the power of the state to take over the control of our lives.

This community is already feeling the fallout from that bad piece of legislation. It's payback time for us. But we can and must effect the change to the law rather than becoming criminals ourselves.

However, we'd better hurry. Our lives depend on it.

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Copyright 2004 diArmani.com