Comments Elsewhere: Guns and Rape

Over at LGM, in their discussion of the abuse heaped on Zerlina Maxwell for some simple truth-telling, I made a few comments:

March 10, 2013 at 8:56 pm

Since nobody, for better or for worse, is seriously arguing that all guns should be banned…

I am, but nobody listens to me.

Hunting can be done with bow and crossbow.

Self-defence should be done with blunt and edged weapons.

Sexual coercion of all sorts should be stigmatized to the point where all rapes and sexual assaults are treated the way we treat child molestation, necrophilia.

Oh, and everyone should take a lot more history classes in college.

March 10, 2013 at 9:19 pm

Oh, and that “only criminals will have guns” thing? Yup, that’s the idea. If you’ve got a gun, and you don’t have a uniform and a badge, you’re a criminal, and should be treated like a dangerous rabid animal.

It’ll take some time to get the bulk of the guns out of circulation, yeah. But gradualism will only confuse things: Make ‘em all illegal for private ownership now, and let things get better more or less immediately, and from that point forward.

I’m open to a black-powder recreator exception for the weapons, but not for bullets: putting anything but black powder and wadding in the muzzle constitutes a felonious weapons violation.

In a different thread, I said

March 10, 2013 at 8:48 pm

According to NCVS there were 108,000 defensive gun uses in 2010. Even if we assume that half of them were someone’s fantasy, that’s 54,000 people not robbed, raped, beaten, or killed each and every year. Somehow or another all those people managed to clear leather fast enough to not be a victim.

I would assume that 90% were over-reactions or escalations that would not have happened without the presence of the gun, and that 9% were responding to the presence someone else’s unnecessary gun.