General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm from the UK where debates about guns don't exist. [View all]Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)home invaders, rapists. The UK has its share, too, for various reasons, the US takes the cake.
Women are frequent targets of criminals. Watch those true crime stories on TV (I Survived, 48 Hours, Forensics, Nightmare Next Door, etc.), and you'll see time and time how women are abducted, tortured, strangled, buried, dumped, raped, stabbed, shot...anywhere, any time. From parking lots, in their houses or apartments, from schools, walking down the street at night, walking down the street in broad daylight.
Women are at a disadvantage to criminal men, when it comes to protecting themselves. A weapon evens the fight. And it is a fight, when a criminal decides to attack you. Men have more muscle, and are therefore stronger, they have the element of surprise, and their arms are longer, plus they're criminals with a plan at hand.
A gun may not make the fight end up differently, but at least it gives her a chance. A woman in hand to hand combat with a male criminal is almost surely gonna lose. Which is why women are killed daily.
If a woman is able to pull a gun out of her purse and say, "Say hello to my little friend," she has a chance of getting out of the situation alive. Without it, statistics show that she will likely die.
I have a gun. I can shoot it. I have used it before to prevent an intruder from breaking in. I will probably be getting a shotgun (the sound of a shotgun being cocked sets fear into the hearts of criminals, so that they are likely to run instead of confront). But a handgun is best when you're too late to get the shotgun out, and you're seconds away from hand to hand combat. Shoot at the chest, the largest target area. The goal is to stop him in his tracks, before he can get close enough to reach you with his (longer) arms.