MSN Lifestyle Q&A - do girls need guns?

[spelsh]

Interesting Q&A I read this morning! I thought it was very positive!


http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/just-dreaming/article.aspx?cp-documentid=25767843&gt1=32060

 

[TexasBill]

She lives in Manhattan? I assume it's not Manhattan, Kansas, so my question is, "How the heck did she get to have a gun in New York City?"

Don't get me wrong, I am glad she does and I'm glad she wrote the book and didn't pull any punches for Ms. Pesta during the interview.

I would love for my wife and daughters to be able to carry guns. Unfortunately, my wife and older daughter work for a company that doesn't permit guns and Texas is still fiddling around with legislation to protect workers who lock a gun in their car. My younger daughter is in college and, even though she doesn't live on campus, she can't have a firearm on campus. Incidentally, while my older daughter doesn't like guns, my wife and younger daughter are quite familiar with them. My wife owns two pistols and my daughter's looking for her first.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I like an old-fashioned bibiliographic cite in addition to a link, because sites have a habit of moving links.

Abigail Pesta, Do Girls Need Guns? A controversial new book says every woman in America should own a gun. MSN Lifestyle,

An interview with Paxton Quigley on the latest edition of her book Armed & Female.

There was a question on why not disarm everyone and ban guns? Paxton answered bad guys can get guns, banning unrealistic, millions of guns around.

Misses the point in my opinion; my answer would be: Guns are not used to defend against guns. They are used to defend against bad guys. Bad guys tend to be stronger, more aggressive and often menace gang-style in numbers; a gun is more an advantage to a defender than to an attacker. A female family member ran four men out of her mother's house using a rifle. I'd like to see one woman do that if everyone was disarmed and guns were banned.

Otherwise, great interview, a neutral interviewer and good interviewee. Thirty years ago, an interview like that would not appear in a mainstream source like MSN Lifestyle.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

To Post #2: Quigley was interviewed over her book in Manhattan by MSN. Quigley lives in Los Angeles and took first place in the Charlton Heston Celebrity Shoot Women’s Division two years in a row.

 

[Tim the student]

Cool, that seemed pretty positive for our side. I wonder how much was edited out.

I don't think I cared for her statement that "Banning them isn't realistic. With the military out there, millions of guns are around." To me, it implies that the military is out taking their rifles out of the arms room, and committing crimes with them. Like a soldier can just "borrow" an M4 for the weekend to go do some raping or robbing. I think she would have been better served to reinforce her point that bad guys can get guns, or just point out that one doesn't need a gun to be deadly. A knife, fist, or bat will be just as deadly - especially against a presumably physically weaker opponent, who probably doesn't know any type of unarmed self defense.

She lives in Manhattan? I assume it's not Manhattan, Kansas, so my question is, "How the heck did she get to have a gun in New York City?"

I don't believe it ever said she lived there. It said that is where she and the author met. From quickly looking at her site, (and reading through the lines a bit) it looks like she lives in California.

 

[HOOfan_1]

I don't think I cared for her statement that "Banning them isn't realistic. With the military out there, millions of guns are around." To me, it implies that the military is out taking their rifles out of the arms room, and committing crimes with them.

Maybe she meant the Mexican Military, or any number of corrupt militaries around the world

 

[Carl N. Brown]

"With the military out there, millions of guns are around."

During the 1950s and 1960s a lot of the "street guns" I saw were war trophies, some were stolen or bribed from military or police. Wright & Rossi "Armed and Considered Dangerous" felon survey cited military and police as significant sources of stolen guns. The international traffic in illegal weapons draws on military stockpiles, especially abandoned weapons in warzones. As late as the 1990s, US weapons left behind in VietNam were showing up in shipping container lots "sewing machine parts" transshipped to shady clients. As long as the military and police are armed, stolen, bribed or extorted military and police weapons will end up on the black market, making commercial and civilian bans useless and pointless.

 

[hso]

I don't think we have to make excuses for a fundamentally incorrect statement on Ms. Quigley's part. The possession of firearms by the military has absolutely nothing to do with the question asked or what the correct answer should have been.

Her perspective has been all along that women are overpowered by attackers and that a firearm is the best effective means to stop the attacker. Knives, clubs, disparity in physical size/power are all legitimate reason to use a firearm to stop an attacker. Those will never go away and banning firearms will only leave peaceable person more handicapped in protecting themselves.

 

[9MMare]

I don't think I cared for her statement that "Banning them isn't realistic. With the military out there, millions of guns are around." .

It's an incorrect answer anyway IMO. Banning them is unConstitutional.

I dont mean to chime in with just a negative statement tho. I have her other book and like her....I'll look into the new book.

 

[Grey_Mana]

At the risk of defending someone who isn't here to defend herself,
a quote by MSN might happen to be accurate, but I expect fake quotes and mis-attribution.

I haven't read the book, but if he book doesn't blame the military's firearms for crimes in the book, it is unlikely she would throw that out in an interview.

 

[Neverwinter]

At the risk of defending someone who isn't here to defend herself,
a quote by MSN might happen to be accurate, but I expect fake quotes and mis-attribution.

The head and tail of the article indicate it as content from Marie Claire, reprinted with the permission of the parent company. I applaud them for this piece, which provides the viewpoint of a real woman whose life experience drove her to guns in a desire to protect herself. That article will reach a lot of women who might not otherwise be exposed to that kind of testimony.

 

[macadore]

Women yes, girls no. In my first concealed carry class there was a woman who was an attorney in Laredo. She was prompted to get a concealed carry license after someone jerked her car door open and tried to pull her child out. This was in the middle of the street in the middle of the day. The child was strapped in and she managed to drive off with her child. She wasn't taking any more chances.

 

[cambeul41]

Reading articles and books by pro-gun women can have more effect on women's thinking on the subject than all our masculine "logic." Don't get hung up on one out of context quote about the military. Do you expect to agree with anyone about everything?

 

[Tim the student]

Do you expect to agree with anyone about everything?

Don't you?

 

[9mm+]

There was a question on why not disarm everyone and ban guns? Paxton answered bad guys can get guns, banning unrealistic, millions of guns around.

Misses the point in my opinion; my answer would be: Guns are not used to defend against guns. They are used to defend against bad guys. Bad guys tend to be stronger, more aggressive and often menace gang-style in numbers; a gun is more an advantage to a defender than to an attacker. A female family member ran four men out of her mother's house using a rifle. I'd like to see one woman do that if everyone was disarmed and guns were banned.

I understand your point, but I think that Paxton's comments are not wide of the mark. It goes to the familiar adage that gun bans keep firearms out of reach for only law-abiding citizens. Criminals obviously have no respect for the law and will get guns on the black market quite easily. Gun bans and ownership restrictions significantly tilt the odds in the bad guys' favor. Chicago, San Francisco, New York, etc., not to mention entire counties like Mexico, are proof-positive of this.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I know that Quigley's talking points were probably kept to a minimum for the interview (and may not have been clearly reported either).

I understand your point. You know and I know that gun bans keep firearms out-of-reach only from law-abiding citizens.

However, the gun banners believe that a ban on guns will eventually disarm everyone and a gun-free world would be safer. Antigunners like to harp on guns-against-guns and the idea that if bad guys did not have guns, good guys would not need guns. I see that meme or talking point repeated. Guns are not always used to defend against guns, but against threats of death or greivous bodily harm from brute force, knife, club, gangs, and removing guns from everyone would not change for the better.

Frank Zimring likes to harp on the meme that the presence of a gun makes a violent situation more dangerous. A relative of mine was returning home from work when she was accosted on her own lawn by two men. She pulled a gun from her purse. The presence of the gun made the situation more dangerous for the two men: she was able to hold them off and get to a vehicle to flee.

I see a gun-free world as one where the strong, the brutal, and the gangs are free to prey on the weak, the peaceful and the out-numbered. That is the point I feel is being missed.

(And yeah I started as a "sporting purposes only" Fuddite in the 1960s and 1970s, and had to be convinced that guns for self defense were a good idea.)

I also have no faith in gun bans. I grew up in a county that was "dry" til 1968 and I know prohibition does not work. From knowing both cops and crooks as friends, relatives, neighbors, schoolmates, I had practical experience that criminals in the 1960s were getting their guns from other-than-legal sources.

James D. Wright and Peter Rossi, "Armed and Considered Dangerous", (Aldine 1986, 2nd ed 2008, ISBN-13: 978-0202362427), US NIJ Felon Survey of 1,874 convicts in 18 prisons in 10 different states. Felons "obtain guns in hard-to-regulate ways from hard-to-regulate sources". a link to the author's summation: http://www.rkba.org/research/wright/armed-criminal.summary.html

Handgun-using felons expected to be able to get handguns from "unregulated channels" within a week of release from prison*: friends (mostly fellow criminals), from "the street" (used guns from strangers), from fences or the blackmarket or drug dealers (who often run guns along with drugs).

Of gun using felons, 50% expected to unlawfully purchase a gun through "unregulated channels"; 25% expected to be able to borrow a gun from a fellow criminal, and about 12% expected to steal a gun. 7% cited licensed gun dealers and 6% cited pawnshops (usually through a surrogate buyer, family member or lover).

40% of the felons surveyed reported stealing firearms. Sources stolen from included: 37% from stores, 15% from police, 16% from truck shipments, 8% from manufacturers, 21% from individuals.

A few years back, two officers interviewed in Knoxville about a proposed gun law told the newspaper that one in five of criminals they encountered owned a gun, and of the criminals who owned guns 80% got them from illegal sources, so I suspect things have not changed much since the 1980s of the Wright&Rossi study or my experience in the 1960s.

-------------------------------------
*Surprise, surprise, surpise. A UK study after the infamous 1997 handgun ban revealed that UK gun using felons interviewed in prison expected to be able to get guns within a week or two of release if they wanted one. Gun sources: from smugglers, drug dealers, underground "armourers" who specialized in fencing guns stolen, converted blank guns, military surplus smuggled in, and the drug-smuggler/gun-runner overlap was also mentioned as a UK source of guns. Licensed gun dealers and pawnshops were not mentioned.

Home Office Research Study 298, Gun crime: the market in and use of illegal firearms, December 2006, details the "emerging criminal gun culture" in Great Britain.