A gun blog friend, simonov over at guntards.net posted a clip of Paula Zahn talking about the statistics showing that pregnant women who are killed are often killed by guns. A lot of gun bloggers out there have been ripping into Paula, saying she’s using bad logic and blaming guns. My friend got into the debate as well and wrote:
"Now, aside from the preposterous notion that pregnant women are at particularly high risk for being crime victims,"
In a response on his forum I have to disagree on this one a little. In my studies of criminology I've found that women are more likely to be abused and murdered when they are pregnant. Apparently there are a lot of guys out there who like the extra push-ups part of the relationship, but are none to happy to find their spouse or girlfriend is going to bring forth a screaming little brat.
"Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than four percent of the murders of men." Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003
Also, most violent crime happens between people who know one another.
If you visit Guntards and watch the clip you’ll notice the criminal profiler, Pat Brown, moves away from guns and talks about the patterns of psychopaths. She says that psychopaths are drawn to weapons – gun collections or knife collections, and that it is an expression of their desire for power and control. If they lose control of someone in their life such as a spouse or partner, they may act in violence and use the tools they’ve been drawn to. I would point out, and I think that she would also, that there is not an inverse relationship. We can't count the guns in your closet to determine if you are a psycho. If we could we would just make guns legal for everyone and go from door to door with a calculator.
The question is, does this say anything about guns? I think it does. I think it means that we need to have more programs to teach women how to defend themselves with firearms against attackers they might know. What about a prenatal defense fund that could sponsor women in how to shoot and that could offset the cost of a reliable handgun - say a Smith and Wesson M&P?
Siminov responded in the thread and asked, “If pregnant women really are at more risk, then what kind of men should they really avoid? Obviously guns can't be an indicator since the really dangerous men out there are already felons who are unable to legally possess them. Is there any indication in the statistics as to how many of these men who prey on pregnant women already have violent crime records?”
Like the profiler Pat Brown says in the interview, it is the obsessive control behaviors that women need to look out for in men. If a man is a true psychopath they may be very good at dissembling and present themselves as fun, friendly, gentle, and protective. My guess is that these behaviors flip once the person perceives that there has been an emotional investment made by their partner.
I would recommend to Paula and our readers take a different approach. The Police Explorer study guides downloadable at http://www.learning-for-life.org/exploring/lawenforcement/ call firearms “the great equalizer.” As my readers know, I was in the police explorers as a young teen, and these were the kinds of materials we learned. (Back then you couldn’t download the information, as there was no internet, but the group leaders gave us presentations on such information.)
The fact that such abuse happens means that we need to maintain strong social services, and this again is where a liberal argument comes into the debate. There need to be well-funded police departments, there need to be counseling services and battered women’s services, we need strong communities and families so that women know there are resources that can help them get out of bad relationships.
For me, one purpose of maintaining the right to bear arms is that those who are weaker need effective tools to defend themselves. Pepper spray doesn’t cut it. A single shot Taser with cartridges that cost $25 each (what kind of reasonable practice can you get with that) doesn’t cut it.
What I like about the interview is that Paula brings up guns as the “shock factor” for her show, but Pat Brown makes it clear that it is behavior that is the important thing. People who have control issues, who are manipulative and power obsessed will cause harm, regardless of what tools are available. What we need to do is to help train women to protect themselves.
Let's all email Paula and invite her to the range.
This is a photo by Oleg Folk. Check out his website at http://olegvolk.net/gallery/technology/arms/?g2_page=4