Are you familiar with Heather MacDonald?
No.
Did you read the whole essay?
Yes.
The violent crime statistics in this essay are jaw dropping.
It' a good essay further down. Not my point. Scan the rest of the comments in this thread and notice there is good indication many never got that far solely due to her opening paragraph.
She frequently writes a very anti-crime and pro-police agenda as well as anti-illegal immigration essays.
So you're something akin to a fan? That means you're resistant to my advice; but it's advice worthy of consideration. Explain that opening paragraph that sounds way too disapproving of self defense. It looks like an incrementalist type introduction to whittling away at self defense. (That relates to another discussion I had with EV and so I used it as an example) Pro-police has a tendency to look askance at self-defense at any level for sometimes good reasons For example, police coming on a scene will find it difficult to identify good guys from bad during an ongoing tussle. No police authority on earth wants to confront that dilemma. Still, your have a right to self-defense. This is my longer point neverdem: "progressives" have gotten as far as they have in taking down our rights through incrementally employing "what-if" dilemmas such as that. The ideas expressed in that opening paragraph destroys the urge of many readers to read further. And as you point out, there is good info afterwards. Thus, as an introductory paragraph -- perhaps meant as nothing more than a CYA to her police buddies -- this opening paragraph sucks.
I never saw her push a gun-grabbing agenda.
Look, it's not a full-blown anti-gun nor anti-self defense salon piece --it's only in the anteroom so to speak. My criticism was to demonstrate the way incremtalists have been so successful. When "be wary" becomes a bad thing to advise, we are way far gone.
Also, who ever expected Ann Coulter to back Romney, or in the manner she has? I, who have a long history of defending Dennis Prager, never thought I'd be so disapproving him. Over the years at Salem Broadcasting he's turned into a Medhead -- and he STILL can't add. Things change. Welcome to Obamanation: it's not just a pun any more.