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This is a long article, however it is worthy reading for the research minded, results oriented firearm activist.
This is the availability thing still being trotted out. It started with the Kellermann paper in the 1990's and despite that study being refuted, this direction has continued.
This is bedrock material for the American anti-gun organisations.
http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/pdf/home.pdf
The non-sequitur lies in the constantly assumed premise that if there is no gun there'll be no murder.
Notice how everytime there is a new CCW measure passed, the anti-gun groups all claim that the streets will run red with blood?
That doesn't bear out -- ever, but it is the mantra that they constantly claim.
Same thing with the sunset of the Assault Weapons Ban.
http://washingtontimes.com/culture/20050606-115612-7425r.htm
When the federal assault-weapons ban expired last September, its fans claimed that gun crimes and police killings would surge. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun-control advocates, warned, 'Our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis.'
Rather than getting angry, we should be taking examples of this, where ever in the world that they happen, and pointing these facts out, as politely and diplomatically as possible.
Remember, the audience is likely "anti-gun" and your decision to "give them a piece of your mind" plays right into their prejudices against gun owners.
This kind of information can be sent to newspapers, especially newspapers from other countries as short, spell-checked, grammer checked letters to the editor. Keep in mind that in many cases, the expert is simply the person who travelled the furthest to get to the meeting.
Newspapers love publishing letters from far away readers, it tells them that their words are making a difference world wide.
Your words can to! This is effective in that it will tell those who spread this false information that the eyes of the world are on them.
It can be sent to school boards, city councils, congressmen, senators, and the White House.
Your efforts can help make a difference!
TIZ
Here is the email address to comment on the article below:
[email protected]
Webpublished at http://www.theinfozone.net/salw1.html
Guns And Gender Violence - a Lethal Combination
November 16, 2005
Johannesburg, Nov 16, 2005 (UN Integrated Regional Information
Networks/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- Victoria [not her real name]
thought she had the law on her side when she left her abusive partner and
successfully applied for a protection order against him.
According to provisions set out in South Africa's 1998 Domestic Violence
Act and reinforced by recently enacted firearms legislation, the order gave
the police powers to confiscate the gun that had repeatedly been used to
terrorise her.
She also had the full support of People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), a
Johannesburg-based NGO that provides legal assistance, shelter and advice to
women suffering abuse at the hands of violent partners.
POWA's legal advisor even accompanied Victoria on the day in September
when she had to face her former partner in court to apply for maintenance
support for her four children.
After leaving the courthouse, she walked her daughter to the shelter
where she was staying. Her former partner followed them for about two
kilometers before fatally shooting them both, using the same weapon the
police had earlier confiscated.
Just how and why he was able to obtain the gun is still under
investigation, but for Carrie Shelver, POWA's public awareness manager, the
case highlights the limitations of even the best intentioned laws.
"Legislation can only go so far," she said. "It's really about changing
mindsets and changing the institutions that create those mindsets."
The 16 days that fall between 25 November (International Day of No
Violence Against Women) and 10 December (International Human Rights Day)
have been set aside by the United Nations as a period of awareness raising
on the issue of violence against women.
In South Africa the campaign has been seized upon by government and the
media as an opportunity to put domestic violence in the spotlight. But NGOs
like POWA, which work towards the eradication of violence against women year
round, have their doubts about the long-term impact of such campaigns.
"We do support it, but what happens on day 17?" asked Shelver.
Guns And Violence
In South Africa the presence of 3.7 million legally registered guns and
an unknown - but by some estimates even larger - pool of illegal firearms
has added a lethal dimension to many cases of domestic violence.
According to the Medical Research Council (MRC), a woman is shot dead by
her current or former partner every six hours, and such cases rose by 78
percent between 1990 and 1999.
Naeema Abrahams has researched the role of guns in domestic violence for
the MRC's Gender and Health Research Unit. Looking at all the female victims
of homicide in South Africa in 1999, Abrahams and her team found that one in
three were killed with a gun; of those, half were shot by their intimate
partner, and 71 percent in their own homes.
The study also found that in 20 percent of cases, the women were shot
with a legally owned weapon.
"The men often get a legal gun to protect themselves against crime, but
it becomes a weapon used against their partners," Abrahams explained. The
study showed that women whose partners worked in the security industry were
particularly at risk.
"It's availability," Abrahams noted. "You have a fight, and it's so easy
to just pull out a gun. It's different from being stabbed or hit with a fist
because women can't protect themselves."
The Domestic Violence Act was intended to give women greater protection
but Shelver reports that so far, its impact has fallen short of
expectations.
"Women are increasingly quite disillusioned. They say, 'how is this
piece of paper going to stop a bullet from hitting me?'"
Recent research into implementation of the Act, conducted by the South
African Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), found
that police rarely took the step of confiscating weapons from alleged
abusers.
Tiny Moloko, POWA's clinical manager, supported the finding. "Quite a
few women say they've applied for protection orders but that the guns
haven't been confiscated," she noted.
Stricter controls surrounding gun ownership have come into effect in the
last couple of years and exclude anyone with prior convictions of domestic
abuse from obtaining a licence. The problem, says groups like POWA, is that
in many cases women do not report abuse to the police or are intimidated
into withdrawing charges, so that a history of violent behaviour often goes
undetected.
Lisa Vetten, programme manager for gender violence at CSVR, said there
was evidence of a history of abuse in 20 percent of cases where women were
killed by their partners, but that women only laid charges in three percent
of cases.
"A lot of women are actively encouraged by the police not to pursue
charges," Vetten said. "I think not all of them [the police] take domestic
violence as seriously as they should."
In many cases, she added, women might not know they had the right to
have a gun removed and the police failed to notify them or to proactively
confiscate weapons from abusers.
Groups like POWA and Gun-Free South Africa, an anti-gun lobby group, are
working to educate women about their legal rights, and provide skills
development to police, court officials and health workers who come into
contact with women experiencing domestic violence.
Meanwhile, grisly stories about men killing their partners or even their
entire families before killing themselves continue to be splashed across the
pages of South African newspapers on an almost weekly basis.
Vetten confirmed that cases of intimate femicide-suicide in South Africa
have increased and that the proliferation of guns was probably a major
contributing factor. But both Vetten and Shelver disputed the commonly held
notion that the prevalence of gun violence and intimate femicide in South
Africa was simply the legacy of the country's apartheid years.
"Violence against women is a global phenomenon," said Shelver. "Lower
levels of such violence exist in countries with better laws to protect
women."
Getting Through To Men
According to Moloko, the reasons men gave for shooting their partners
were often mundane, but the underlying motivations were the desire to assert
power or control. Such motives might have more to do with male socialisation
than South Africa's violent history.
The Men as Partners (MAP) Programme, an initiative started by the
international NGO, EngenderHealth, and run by a network of affiliates
throughout the country, works to challenge male assumptions about gender and
encourages men to take a stand against domestic violence.
EngenderHealth's programme manager for South Africa, Dean Peacock,
suggested that in a society where men have lost both income and jobs, they
might use gun ownership and violence against women as ways to regain their
sense of power.
After going through a series of workshops, male participants often began
to question their definitions of masculinity, including the equation of
manhood with violence towards women.
"I grew up in an environment where beating ladies was the order of the
day, and it just made you think it was normal," said MAP workshop
facilitator Li Buthelezi. "If I was pissed [drunk] I would just lift my hand
and 'klap' [slap] her a couple times - it was just me showing my manhood.
After MAP you start seeing women differently; you see them as equals."
Abrahams believed that given the proper allocation of resources and
training, the Domestic Violence Act, combined with new laws governing gun
ownership, could have an impact on levels of gun violence against women. The
key, said Abrahams, lay in the level of commitment to implementation by
government and police.
In Shelver's view, it was effective implementation that was still
lacking.
"In practice, there are a lot of problems around implementation. The
problem is not getting gun removal into the protection order, but in getting
police to implement it," she said. "In some cases guns are removed and then
handed back."
This is the availability thing still being trotted out. It started with the Kellermann paper in the 1990's and despite that study being refuted, this direction has continued.
This is bedrock material for the American anti-gun organisations.
http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/pdf/home.pdf
The non-sequitur lies in the constantly assumed premise that if there is no gun there'll be no murder.
Notice how everytime there is a new CCW measure passed, the anti-gun groups all claim that the streets will run red with blood?
That doesn't bear out -- ever, but it is the mantra that they constantly claim.
Same thing with the sunset of the Assault Weapons Ban.
http://washingtontimes.com/culture/20050606-115612-7425r.htm
When the federal assault-weapons ban expired last September, its fans claimed that gun crimes and police killings would surge. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun-control advocates, warned, 'Our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis.'
Rather than getting angry, we should be taking examples of this, where ever in the world that they happen, and pointing these facts out, as politely and diplomatically as possible.
Remember, the audience is likely "anti-gun" and your decision to "give them a piece of your mind" plays right into their prejudices against gun owners.
This kind of information can be sent to newspapers, especially newspapers from other countries as short, spell-checked, grammer checked letters to the editor. Keep in mind that in many cases, the expert is simply the person who travelled the furthest to get to the meeting.
Newspapers love publishing letters from far away readers, it tells them that their words are making a difference world wide.
Your words can to! This is effective in that it will tell those who spread this false information that the eyes of the world are on them.
It can be sent to school boards, city councils, congressmen, senators, and the White House.
Your efforts can help make a difference!
TIZ
Here is the email address to comment on the article below:
[email protected]
Webpublished at http://www.theinfozone.net/salw1.html
Guns And Gender Violence - a Lethal Combination
November 16, 2005
Johannesburg, Nov 16, 2005 (UN Integrated Regional Information
Networks/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- Victoria [not her real name]
thought she had the law on her side when she left her abusive partner and
successfully applied for a protection order against him.
According to provisions set out in South Africa's 1998 Domestic Violence
Act and reinforced by recently enacted firearms legislation, the order gave
the police powers to confiscate the gun that had repeatedly been used to
terrorise her.
She also had the full support of People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), a
Johannesburg-based NGO that provides legal assistance, shelter and advice to
women suffering abuse at the hands of violent partners.
POWA's legal advisor even accompanied Victoria on the day in September
when she had to face her former partner in court to apply for maintenance
support for her four children.
After leaving the courthouse, she walked her daughter to the shelter
where she was staying. Her former partner followed them for about two
kilometers before fatally shooting them both, using the same weapon the
police had earlier confiscated.
Just how and why he was able to obtain the gun is still under
investigation, but for Carrie Shelver, POWA's public awareness manager, the
case highlights the limitations of even the best intentioned laws.
"Legislation can only go so far," she said. "It's really about changing
mindsets and changing the institutions that create those mindsets."
The 16 days that fall between 25 November (International Day of No
Violence Against Women) and 10 December (International Human Rights Day)
have been set aside by the United Nations as a period of awareness raising
on the issue of violence against women.
In South Africa the campaign has been seized upon by government and the
media as an opportunity to put domestic violence in the spotlight. But NGOs
like POWA, which work towards the eradication of violence against women year
round, have their doubts about the long-term impact of such campaigns.
"We do support it, but what happens on day 17?" asked Shelver.
Guns And Violence
In South Africa the presence of 3.7 million legally registered guns and
an unknown - but by some estimates even larger - pool of illegal firearms
has added a lethal dimension to many cases of domestic violence.
According to the Medical Research Council (MRC), a woman is shot dead by
her current or former partner every six hours, and such cases rose by 78
percent between 1990 and 1999.
Naeema Abrahams has researched the role of guns in domestic violence for
the MRC's Gender and Health Research Unit. Looking at all the female victims
of homicide in South Africa in 1999, Abrahams and her team found that one in
three were killed with a gun; of those, half were shot by their intimate
partner, and 71 percent in their own homes.
The study also found that in 20 percent of cases, the women were shot
with a legally owned weapon.
"The men often get a legal gun to protect themselves against crime, but
it becomes a weapon used against their partners," Abrahams explained. The
study showed that women whose partners worked in the security industry were
particularly at risk.
"It's availability," Abrahams noted. "You have a fight, and it's so easy
to just pull out a gun. It's different from being stabbed or hit with a fist
because women can't protect themselves."
The Domestic Violence Act was intended to give women greater protection
but Shelver reports that so far, its impact has fallen short of
expectations.
"Women are increasingly quite disillusioned. They say, 'how is this
piece of paper going to stop a bullet from hitting me?'"
Recent research into implementation of the Act, conducted by the South
African Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), found
that police rarely took the step of confiscating weapons from alleged
abusers.
Tiny Moloko, POWA's clinical manager, supported the finding. "Quite a
few women say they've applied for protection orders but that the guns
haven't been confiscated," she noted.
Stricter controls surrounding gun ownership have come into effect in the
last couple of years and exclude anyone with prior convictions of domestic
abuse from obtaining a licence. The problem, says groups like POWA, is that
in many cases women do not report abuse to the police or are intimidated
into withdrawing charges, so that a history of violent behaviour often goes
undetected.
Lisa Vetten, programme manager for gender violence at CSVR, said there
was evidence of a history of abuse in 20 percent of cases where women were
killed by their partners, but that women only laid charges in three percent
of cases.
"A lot of women are actively encouraged by the police not to pursue
charges," Vetten said. "I think not all of them [the police] take domestic
violence as seriously as they should."
In many cases, she added, women might not know they had the right to
have a gun removed and the police failed to notify them or to proactively
confiscate weapons from abusers.
Groups like POWA and Gun-Free South Africa, an anti-gun lobby group, are
working to educate women about their legal rights, and provide skills
development to police, court officials and health workers who come into
contact with women experiencing domestic violence.
Meanwhile, grisly stories about men killing their partners or even their
entire families before killing themselves continue to be splashed across the
pages of South African newspapers on an almost weekly basis.
Vetten confirmed that cases of intimate femicide-suicide in South Africa
have increased and that the proliferation of guns was probably a major
contributing factor. But both Vetten and Shelver disputed the commonly held
notion that the prevalence of gun violence and intimate femicide in South
Africa was simply the legacy of the country's apartheid years.
"Violence against women is a global phenomenon," said Shelver. "Lower
levels of such violence exist in countries with better laws to protect
women."
Getting Through To Men
According to Moloko, the reasons men gave for shooting their partners
were often mundane, but the underlying motivations were the desire to assert
power or control. Such motives might have more to do with male socialisation
than South Africa's violent history.
The Men as Partners (MAP) Programme, an initiative started by the
international NGO, EngenderHealth, and run by a network of affiliates
throughout the country, works to challenge male assumptions about gender and
encourages men to take a stand against domestic violence.
EngenderHealth's programme manager for South Africa, Dean Peacock,
suggested that in a society where men have lost both income and jobs, they
might use gun ownership and violence against women as ways to regain their
sense of power.
After going through a series of workshops, male participants often began
to question their definitions of masculinity, including the equation of
manhood with violence towards women.
"I grew up in an environment where beating ladies was the order of the
day, and it just made you think it was normal," said MAP workshop
facilitator Li Buthelezi. "If I was pissed [drunk] I would just lift my hand
and 'klap' [slap] her a couple times - it was just me showing my manhood.
After MAP you start seeing women differently; you see them as equals."
Abrahams believed that given the proper allocation of resources and
training, the Domestic Violence Act, combined with new laws governing gun
ownership, could have an impact on levels of gun violence against women. The
key, said Abrahams, lay in the level of commitment to implementation by
government and police.
In Shelver's view, it was effective implementation that was still
lacking.
"In practice, there are a lot of problems around implementation. The
problem is not getting gun removal into the protection order, but in getting
police to implement it," she said. "In some cases guns are removed and then
handed back."
