"We've learned from the domestic violence movement that the maximum time of danger is when a woman is escaping.
That's where our country is.
We're not going to put up with the same financial system, fed up with the health care system, not supporting wars, by 2012 we'll be a majority, non-white country.
We can see that the country is escaping and also that the danger is present.
What we need is a big national movement, like MADD, that simply says no house is safe if it has a gun in it. That connects our home and our lives to the armaments everywhere.
I think we should do it big."
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I am all about movements, but personally I believe in the right to bear arms. Cities are different, but for people who live in more rural areas, guns are one of the ways to protect yourself when police can't get there in nearly enough time.
Sorry, but urban folks have the right to keep and bear arms too - remember, inner city people of color have to protect ourselves from the criminals and the cops!
So no, we can't have this double standard where White rural America can have guns but the Black and Latino cities cannot!
I made -no- comments about race in my personal opinion on gun laws. I made a comment about access to authorities.
Regarding the city, I didn't grow up in one and couldn't really give a good opinion on it.
but you're right. There have definitely been times when people needed to protect themselves -from- the authorities.
Like a friend of mine is fond of saying, you can't carry a policeman on your back. You can, however, carry a weapon. And I will not surrender mine. The police respond no faster in urban areas. They come when they please.
Or from dangers of the four-legged variety.
But to get back to feminism...nothing equalizes the physical power discrepancy between a large man and a small woman like a gun.
No... I don't think I'll let you have my guns. I enjoy them too much.
None of your business, anyway.
"no house is safe if it has a gun in it."
Well, technically, no house that doesn't have a gun in it is safe either.
The illusion of safety is really just most of the time.
If another is going to attempt to harm me, I would rather have the opportunity to reduce the power disparity between me and him. And I choose to have a gun to do it.
I really have a hard time understanding how my choice to own a gun and keep it for protection is somehow a world aparty from my roomate, who keeps a replica Japanese katana under her bed for the same reason, and has, more than once, crept into the hallway to investigate noises with it drawn.
I'm missing something here. I think this post says, "The country is on the brink of major change, and that means we have to get rid of our guns." What is the logic there? I just don't get the thinking behind this, regardless of how I personally feel about gun ownership. Also, why is gun ownership (or anti-gun ownership) a topic for feministing? I'm not trying to be difficult, I really don't get it. Can anyone explain?
I can't speak for Courtney but I think her sentiment is the same as Ani DiFranco's.
And women in the middle
Are learning what poor women have always known
That the edge is closer than you think
When your men bring the guns home
I'm also not seeing the connection between change and getting rid of guns.
I also grew up on a farm in a pretty rural to begin with part of the West. My father taught all of his kids how to respect firearms and handle them safely.
Hunting is a huge part of our family (yes, we eat almost everything we kill) and so are shooting competitions. Hell, people walk down the street with revolvers on their hips and nobody thinks twice. Ammo is pretty hard to get now, though, because everyone is worried that Obama is going to try and restrict it.
I'm a big proponent of the second amendment and I always get annoyed when people take it to mean that I think it's okay if the government puts a missile in everyone's backyard - it's the right of the *people* to bear arms! Argh! I haven't yet lived in an urban area but when I do I'm planning on bringing at least my handguns.
why is owning a gun against feminism? I actually happen to think that owning a gun is a major part of feminism because it allows me to be empowered. I can actually know that defending myself is not nearly as difficult if there is a gun in my handbag or holstered to my leg. Also, for teenage girls where I live, you are not allowed to carry pepper spray, leaving you completely unable to really defend yourself if you get attacked.
You couldn't do better than to quote MADD to show how unrealistic and unequal the suggestion is.
While many good things, in my opinion, have come from MADD, its policies and public opinions are not unilaterally helpful. Raising the drinking age has been a disaster of binge-making where I live.
Less tolerance for drunk driving is good, but alcohol related fatalities were on the decrease in the years before MADD came to prominence (at least based on a recent article in my local paper).
That said, as a female gun owner, I agree with the poster who pointed out that nothing equals the odds between a large man and a small woman more than the woman being armed and knowledgable.
The "and knowledgable" part is way more important than the "armed" part.
It's rather bizarre for me, as a Canadian, to see people here defending gun ownership. The statistics show that by far the most likely victim of one's own gun will be oneself, with domestic violence another huge risk. I live in a so-called 'dangerous' neighbourhood in one of the country's biggest cities, and I can't imagine how I would be able to walk outside at night -- heck, in the daytime -- if I had to worry about many of my fellow citizens carrying firearms around.
Besides, if I was threatened by a criminal with a gun, would I really want to threaten his/her life in return? How would I be justified in killing another human being under any circumstances? Even criminals' lives have value.
It's not about self-defense, and it's not about safety. It's about the fact that whether or not I own a gun is my choice, not yours.
Do the cops carry guns, where you live? In my town, they strap pistols to their legs (to be "tactical" -- same reason they wear black) and keep a machine gun in the trunk of every patrol car. Big, self-righteous, sleep-deprived, mostly male adrenaline junkies with guns? That's scary. A woman with a little humpback revolver tucked into her waistband? Is not scary.
For one thing, she's likely to be a better shot.
Exactly. It's about choice. It's baffled me for years how the feminist position is "supposed" to be anti gun when we are vocally for choice and personal responsibility in so many other areas.
Gun ownership is like abortion: you can't decide for me whether I am equipped to do this--or not.
Gun ownership is like sex: there are a lot of people who are gonna do it, anyway, without proper education, so making sure those who participate are responsible benefits everyone.
As far as "no house is safe with a gun," I am at least the third generation gun owner in my family--might be more but they are not around to ask. As far as I know there is not a single case of gun violence in my family.
My best friend, whom I met as an adult, also comes from a multigeneration gun owning family, also with no gun violence. She does have a murderer in her family, but he used a kitchen knife. So at least from anecdotal evidence, this is about 25 households wherein gun ownership has been just fine, but we need to get the sharp things out of the kitchen.
I look forward to the day when responsible gun ownership is part of the feminist reputation.
okay. You live in canada. Stay out of our politics. I carry a gun because I need it to protect myself. No one is going to protect me from the random crazy fucker on the street who decides to rape me. And the cops are conveniently never around when that happens. Oh and yes a criminals life does have value, that's why you aim to hurt, not to kill. There are ways of handling a gun safely. Oh and I feel safer knowing that there are many people out there with guns, it means if I don't happen to have mine with me on that day and I am attacked, if someone is close enough to hear my screams they are going to be more likely to do something about it because they too are armed and therefore more protected.
Pssst, from one American to another, we really have no leg to stand on when telling people from other countries to stay out of our politics. That sentence alone just makes your whole comment look extremely silly.
Also, given how much work we do to convince people that we're more likely to be raped by someone we know, I'm not sure a "random crazy fucker on the street who decides to rape me" argument is going to work well for you.
The problem with gun ownership in this country is that very few gun owners, even those posting on this blog, are really skilled enough to use it effectively in a situation.
Where it is carried is one major point of concern. That gun isn't worth the metal its made from if its in your purse and you throw it down during a chase. Another concern is removing the safety when you draw the gun and decide to fire.
That is if you can even maneuver the gun in your state of panic and fear for your own safety (which I'd hope you were in instead of premeditation).
Guns aren't bad. But the way we treat guns so offhandedly, as seen in some of these comments, is. If you seriously intend to use a firearm to defend yourself, you must go to the firing range. You must practice self defense with a weapon. Not once. Not when you are getting your permit. But every week.
I don't care how much respect anyone has for firearms, thats only part of the equation. The other part is maintenance of your skills with that weapon.
Otherwise its just 300 dollars of false comfort.
Definitely. In college, one of the papers I wrote included information on how accurate both criminals and cops were with their guns. It measured how many shots were fired vs. how many shots actually hit something, as well as fatal hits. Criminals were downright pathetic, and even cops, who presumably are trained and have to keep their training current, didn't have a very high hit rate. And keep in mind that all this shooting that was being measured happened in the heat of the moment while running or hiding or crime-committing, not standing on two feet in a firing range where you have all the control. Just having a gun means jack shit in terms of keeping yourself safe.
I like how you're making all these assumptions about gun owners. Really, you're presuming we're all a bunch of untrained gun nuts? Really?
You are also making a lot of assumptions about the type of situations gun owners would get themselves into. No one is going to attack a woman with a bulge on her hip.
I think you need to stop basing your opinions on what you see in the movies.