Heller: Useless idiots and Anti-”Anti-Feminists” reply
I really thought the opponents of the pre-existing Right to Keep and Bear Arms would be spilling out the seams by now, however the response has been muted. I have found a few.
This first person proves to me that Moscow, Idaho is not an exclusive oasis of bright and level-headed people (although I only had a few data points to begin with).
First off, you need to read this story, from which I’ll excerpt the following quote:
He told a woman who had been pulled from her car and beaten in the head that she or her mother needed to “purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself.”
Then you need to consider the mental gymnastics that needed to happen for this person to come up with this blog headline on the news story:
Tenessee Judge: Heller decision means it’s your fault if someone attacks you
Wow, what a leap. Besides the fact that the Judge never said anything like that, Sara here is obviously laboring under the impression that the police are able to and have a duty to protect everyone. First off Sara, I would suggest that the Judge was just offering some free advice. Second, consider researching the Warren v. D.C. case (links here, here, here and Google is your friend too.) Finally, if you do nothing else, click on this link (previously linked to by Uncle and Insty, but the URL has changed and it’s not redirecting properly).
Meanwhile, Jill over at Feministe – while not at all invoking the D.C. v. Heller decision – posts a timely opinion titled “Guns are a feminist issue?“.
Now, I was an active commenter on Feministe for well over a year. My intent was to understand this subculture and see what makes them tick and then blog about the experience. One thing I never understood was why these people pretend Feminism is a big tent philosophy that is wide open to everyone under the sun that believes in equal rights and equal protection under the law. In reality, to become one of the cabal you seem to need to have the correct liberal-left leanings and a firm conviction that the goverment is the solution to everything (crime, discrimination, wage differences, child support, the protection of the domestic supply of domestic partners from inexpensive overseas imports, the price that drug companies charge for birth control, everything). In the real world, every single weekend these people are revoking each others’ feminist membership cards.
I still don’t understand what an “anti-feminist” is, but it seems to cover a large swath of people from holy rollers who think that their religious book makes women chattel, all the way to people who support equal rights and believe that a firearm is an effective self-defense tool that can level the field between smaller, lighter and physically weaker people and their aggressors. I suppose that once you mentally sweep Laurel, Leah , Roberta, Tam, Kit, Breda, Mauser*Girl, Squeaky, Zendo Deb, and the rest of us equal rights supporters out of your pup tent, the echoes that you hear will surely agree that guns are icky-poo.
Anyway, she does the typical lying with a link to the Violence Policy Center statistics. There the VPC jumps to the horrible skewed presumption that the only self defensive records that should be deemed worthy of note are when a woman with a handgun (not a shotgun, nor a rifle) shoots and kills an attacker. Not counted are incidents where the attacker is wounded and lives. Nor is the incidents where the mere display of a firearm prevents an attack altogether, nor any incidents where a potential aggressor does not even decide to engage because the non-victim is not in a victim-disarmed-zone and might be carrying or be near someone who is discreetly carrying (see the map of this trend, Jill, and weep).
Update: added the “right to carry” image to the post instead of linking to it. It’s covered under the creative commons license and owned by Radical Gun Nuttery!
Laurel Says :
Ah, yes, perhaps now you understand why it’s such a trip to be a part of the gun culture around here. Moscow is definitely a mixed bag.
Feminists don’t tend to like me all that much. I believe in equality of the sexes, you see. So much so, that I don’t believe I need a man to protect little ol’ me – I have a right and duty to protect myself. But that means I am willing to get within a four-mile radius of (gasp) guns, and that just won’t do…
And, see, I believe women should have career choices available to them – and I believe that a perfectly valid choice, for a woman who wants to, is being a stay-at-home mom. I want to stay home for at least a few years after I sprout the little beastie presently in the oven. And that just won’t do, either, because how dare I choose not to be a career woman? Especially since I don’t believe I should have some sort of a legally mandated right to two years paid time off, like they do in Europe, because it’s a choice to have children and stay home. Our family is willing to make the sacrifices accordingly. I don’t think that choice should be paid for by an employer to whom I am not rendering any services. So, because I don’t believe I should receive special treatment, I’m apparently not a very good feminist.
I once approached the women’s center crew on campus, who were tabling with the Gay-Straight Alliance crew. I believe they were giving out information about Take Back The Night, the semi-annual anti-rape rally. I told them I think it’s a great idea, and, in fact, I’d love to work with them to get the campus policy against concealed carry revoked. I’d love to work with them to promote firearms safety and training classes, and to educate women on self-defense options.
They looked at me like I had two heads.
2008-06-29 00:41 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
There’s nothing wrong with being aware of, and wanting to take steps to lower the crime rate against women. However I have heard serious proposals that as part of the “Take Back The Night” thingy, the rights of men on campus to move about freely would be restricted. That tells you little something when a group of people wish to exercise a right by restricting the freedom of another group.
Similarly, free birth control or price fixed birth control pills merely shifts the cost onto the public at large.
I support their right to be a pamphleteer, but they’ll have to pay for their own damn photocopies.
2008-06-29 02:41 PermalinkAlcibiades Says :
The Feministe website seemed strangely happy when an Indian tribe (falsely) declared independence. It is one thing to seek redress, but I wonder and fear if they (Feministes) might welcome disunity.
2008-06-30 00:46 PermalinkSayUncle » Post Heller: a case of teh st00pid Says :
[...] Blaming Heller for a judge advising someone to arm themselves? [...]
2008-06-30 08:27 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Alcibiades, it’s best to toss any notion of logic out the window. If you are looking for a guiding principle behind their actions it’s basically whatever would benefit their subculture in the short run. They seem to embrace and discard every political philosophy that suits them for the moment.
So one moment it’s “keep your laws off my body” and the next minute it’s “force those 8 year old girls to beta test a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease because it benefits everyone via ‘herd-immunity’”
2008-06-30 10:46 PermalinkZendo Deb Says :
Responsibility and Blame – the left loves to paint anyone who advocates taking some action as blaming the victim, but only in the arena of violent crime.
Seatbelts: do wearing them make you responsible for being a car crash? Or not wearing them?
Fire extinguishers: Are you responsible for kitchen fires?
Or is responsibility more complicated than that?
http://wheelgun.blogspot.com/2005/11/responsibility-and-blame.html
2008-07-01 22:26 PermalinkSayUncle » Fun with feminism Says :
[...] to take responsibility for your own safety is a decision to leave the feminist sisterhood (via SM). Now, listen up, sweetie. I understand. I mean, guns are tools for self-defense. And, well, women [...]
2008-07-23 09:09 Permalink