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Most of the posted comments are favorable:
http://www.baltimoreexaminer.com/local/crime/121808kanecolumn.html
Put guns in the hands of gals
By Gregory Kane
Examiner Columnist | 12/17/08 10:17 PM
A few years ago I did a story about a joint education program that involved a partnership between Johns Hopkins Hospital and Dunbar High School.
Neither that program nor that partnership is pertinent to this column. The woman who walked up to me after she learned that I was doing a newspaper story is.
"Please," she pleaded, "don't put my name or my picture in the story. My ex-boyfriend doesn't know where I am, and I don't want him to find me."
I didn't say it at the time, but I sure as heck thought it: Honey, I said to myself as the woman walked away, your ex-boyfriend needs an attitude adjustment. The kind given in the workshop sponsored by those famous and esteemed Americans Mssrs. Smith and Wesson.
I believed it then, and I believe it even more now: Women need to be armed with handguns. And even if that's not true of every woman, it certainly is true of those who find themselves menaced by whack-job boyfriends or husbands or whack-job ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands.
In fact, I once proposed that Congress pass a national, MANDATORY must-carry permit for Americans, but with one stipulation: Only women would be allowed to carry handguns. Men couldn't, on the grounds that our record with firearms has been, oh, what's the word I'm looking for?
Spotty?
I was joking, of course. A little.
What is definitely not a joke is what happened to Veronica Williams outside a district court on North Avenue last month. A man stabbed her repeatedly before a police officer tried to use a Taser to subdue the assailant. When that failed, the cop shot him.
Veronica Williams eventually died from her stab wounds. Police have identified her husband as the killer. Marty Burns, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore State's Attorney's office, said Cleaven Williams was indicted earlier this week for murdering his wife.
Burns also said that Cleaven Williams had to appear in court this week on first and second-degree assault charges stemming from a warrant issued in 2003. That warrant wasn't served until after Cleaven Williams was arrested for allegedly murdering his wife on Nov. 24.
That was the day Veronica Williams went to district court seeking a protective order against Cleaven Williams. I hate to criticize the dearly departed, but that was Veronica Williams' biggest mistake. She should have gone to her nearest gun shop and bought a .25-caliber or .32-caliber pistol a woman could easily handle and then put Mr. Cleaven Williams on notice: This handgun is my protective order.
Maybe Veronica Williams didn't have it in her to commit the type of violence defending herself with a handgun would have required, so she relied on the state to protect her. Those of us who advocate a right-to-carry for law-abiding citizens and a liberal interpretation of our Second Amendment rights know one thing above all else: The state can't protect us. Sometimes we have to do it ourselves.
That especially applies to women who find themselves menaced by obsessive, controlling, jealous, violent men. Such men desperately need therapy, but if they can't or won't get it, then women in danger from them are left to their own devices. One of those devices is self-defense, not a protective order.
When one of these whack jobs gets it in his head that he absolutely, positively MUST harm the woman he claims to love, I don't think the penalty for violating a protective order will be much of a deterrent. If he's willing to face the penalty for murder, then he's not going to sweat the penalty for violating a protective order.
Some will argue that a woman carrying a handgun won't be much of a deterrent either. Maybe it won't. But if the woman's aim is true, the handgun would sure as heck be a stopper. That's the truth we need to face about out-of-control men who want to murder their wives, girlfriends, ex-wives or ex-girlfriends: They need to be stopped.
The state can't stop them. Armed women can.
Gregory Kane is a columnist who has been writing about Baltimore and Maryland for more than 15 years. Look for his columns in the editorial section every Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at gregkane@mac.com.
[align=right]13 Comments [/align]
Most of the posted comments are favorable:
http://www.baltimoreexaminer.com/local/crime/121808kanecolumn.html
Put guns in the hands of gals
By Gregory Kane
Examiner Columnist | 12/17/08 10:17 PM
A few years ago I did a story about a joint education program that involved a partnership between Johns Hopkins Hospital and Dunbar High School.
Neither that program nor that partnership is pertinent to this column. The woman who walked up to me after she learned that I was doing a newspaper story is.
"Please," she pleaded, "don't put my name or my picture in the story. My ex-boyfriend doesn't know where I am, and I don't want him to find me."
I didn't say it at the time, but I sure as heck thought it: Honey, I said to myself as the woman walked away, your ex-boyfriend needs an attitude adjustment. The kind given in the workshop sponsored by those famous and esteemed Americans Mssrs. Smith and Wesson.
I believed it then, and I believe it even more now: Women need to be armed with handguns. And even if that's not true of every woman, it certainly is true of those who find themselves menaced by whack-job boyfriends or husbands or whack-job ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands.
In fact, I once proposed that Congress pass a national, MANDATORY must-carry permit for Americans, but with one stipulation: Only women would be allowed to carry handguns. Men couldn't, on the grounds that our record with firearms has been, oh, what's the word I'm looking for?
Spotty?
I was joking, of course. A little.
What is definitely not a joke is what happened to Veronica Williams outside a district court on North Avenue last month. A man stabbed her repeatedly before a police officer tried to use a Taser to subdue the assailant. When that failed, the cop shot him.
Veronica Williams eventually died from her stab wounds. Police have identified her husband as the killer. Marty Burns, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore State's Attorney's office, said Cleaven Williams was indicted earlier this week for murdering his wife.
Burns also said that Cleaven Williams had to appear in court this week on first and second-degree assault charges stemming from a warrant issued in 2003. That warrant wasn't served until after Cleaven Williams was arrested for allegedly murdering his wife on Nov. 24.
That was the day Veronica Williams went to district court seeking a protective order against Cleaven Williams. I hate to criticize the dearly departed, but that was Veronica Williams' biggest mistake. She should have gone to her nearest gun shop and bought a .25-caliber or .32-caliber pistol a woman could easily handle and then put Mr. Cleaven Williams on notice: This handgun is my protective order.
Maybe Veronica Williams didn't have it in her to commit the type of violence defending herself with a handgun would have required, so she relied on the state to protect her. Those of us who advocate a right-to-carry for law-abiding citizens and a liberal interpretation of our Second Amendment rights know one thing above all else: The state can't protect us. Sometimes we have to do it ourselves.
That especially applies to women who find themselves menaced by obsessive, controlling, jealous, violent men. Such men desperately need therapy, but if they can't or won't get it, then women in danger from them are left to their own devices. One of those devices is self-defense, not a protective order.
When one of these whack jobs gets it in his head that he absolutely, positively MUST harm the woman he claims to love, I don't think the penalty for violating a protective order will be much of a deterrent. If he's willing to face the penalty for murder, then he's not going to sweat the penalty for violating a protective order.
Some will argue that a woman carrying a handgun won't be much of a deterrent either. Maybe it won't. But if the woman's aim is true, the handgun would sure as heck be a stopper. That's the truth we need to face about out-of-control men who want to murder their wives, girlfriends, ex-wives or ex-girlfriends: They need to be stopped.
The state can't stop them. Armed women can.
Gregory Kane is a columnist who has been writing about Baltimore and Maryland for more than 15 years. Look for his columns in the editorial section every Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at gregkane@mac.com.
[align=right]13 Comments [/align]