By Chris Wagoner:
I just finished reading an article on The Huffington Post website called “The Peculiarly American Fantasy of ‘Stand Your Ground.’” A supposedly very smart woman by the name of Dr. Caroline Light has a book that will be coming out next week called Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair With Deadly Self-Defense. Dr. Light wrote a commentary about her belief that it is a false notion that women who arm themselves are safer from attack than those that are not armed.
Now, I do not know about you, but I have had some college education myself—I got my degree. Still, I make no claims about being smarter than the next person. I do, however, lay claim to the idea that I have some amount of common sense, and that seems to be the one major flaw in Dr. Light’s article. You see, Dr. Light makes several statements that are counter to everything we know to be true about arming women, and attempts to justify her assertions with bizarre conclusions.
In one example, she claims, “According to gun rights activists, the expansion of armed citizenship will make women safer from rape and domestic violence.” As she promoted campus concealed carry, Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore asserted, ‘The sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head. ‘Such logic presumes that the greatest threat to college women are strangers—‘sexual predators’ lurking in bushes.” She repeatedly takes aim at the idea of arming women to protect themselves, then goes off course and tries to point out that most women are assaulted by someone they know. We know this; it is not a matter of dispute. What is in dispute is whether a firearm makes a woman safer from assault overall. She claims it will not, and that if she does defend herself, the criminal justice system treats women differently than men in these cases and treats them with “suspicion, especially when they fight back.” Really?
I am sorry, but the good doctor seems to be having a bit of a hard time tying one point to another; either a firearm makes you safer against assaults or it does not. If you say it does not, please show me how you come to that conclusion, as I have personally seen the opposite. Women who are armed and determined do not become victims as often as those who are not, and have a much higher survival rate. No attacker wants to be shot, especially when they are attacking what they assumed was a weaker, unarmed target. There is no possible way anyone with half a brain can argue that being armed is not a good way to defend yourself against a physical attack, male or female. But Dr. Light tries.
So, let’s educate The Huffington Post, which calls the doctor’s book “original” and “provocative.” An armed target is a “hard target” and is much less likely to become the victim of a serious attack or be assaulted by someone (referring to rape or serious physical abuse). Women have been defending themselves for years by carrying firearms, and now you are going to try and tell them that it does not work because the people who attack them are usually people they know? That makes no sense at all. But I guess if you have a PhD and write a book, some people will believe anything you say.
Well, to all those women out there who want to be able to protect themselves and their families or children by carrying a firearm, please do it! That is not only your right, but I feel that it’s a great statement that the lives of your family and children are important to you. Self-defense and defense of one’s family are basic human rights—even more basic than the 2nd Amendment.
Chris Wagoner is a Senior OpsLens Contributor and U.S. Army Veteran. He has been in law enforcement the last 35+ years. He specializes in LE Firearms Instruction, and is in charge of a large Police Academy in North Florida. In his spare time Chris is a freelance Military Reporter and owner/founder of the Largest Military Videos Channel on YouTube “3rdID8487”.
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