Skip to comments.

Posted on 11/08/2001 2:23:05 PM PST by real saxophonist

Bogus gun pitch deceives women

By KAREN BROCK

In its efforts to sell handguns to women, the gun industry -- from pro-gun magazines to the gun store counter -- is quick to cite the violent scenarios that women are led to fear most: the stranger who attacks and mugs in a dark alley or who breaks into a woman's home to rape and kill.

Yet these are among the least common dangers women, in reality, will ever face. Far more likely is an attack at the hands of someone she knows: a husband or intimate acquaintance (i.e., her ex-husband, common-law husband or boyfriend).

The recent Violence Policy Center study "When Men Murder Women" reveals that, as a group, women face the greatest danger from those men with whom she is or has been intimately involved, especially when there is easy access to a handgun. More than 11 times as many females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers in single victim/single offender incidents in 1999. Only 13 percent of women homicide victims were killed during the commission of another felony, such as rape or robbery.

Adding a handgun to a volatile domestic situation only increases the risk of fatal violence to a woman. The study found that 60 percent of the homicides in which a female was killed by an intimate acquaintance involved a gun, with nearly three-quarters of those involving a handgun.

Guns were used to murder women more often than all other weapons combined.

The deadly combination of guns and domestic violence has been identified by researchers, advocates and Congress. In 1994, Congress passed the Protective Order Gun Ban, which prohibits gun possession by a person against whom there is a restraining or protective order for domestic violence.

In 1996, Congress passed the Domestic Violence Misdemeanor Gun Ban, which prohibits anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence or child abuse from purchasing or possessing a gun.

So why do women generally believe they are more likely to be targeted by strangers than those they know best? The answer rests with the firearms industry and the National Rifle Association, both of whom have actively perpetuated the stereotype of the "dangerous stranger" as the primary threat to a woman.

The genesis of this greedy deception began in the 1980s, when the gun industry realized it had saturated its traditional market of white males and targeted women as the next great untapped market. A key element in this push to sell guns was the promotion of images of women in perpetual peril from lurking strangers. These images generate fear and, after all, fear sells guns.

(However, the gun industry and its allies cannot disguise the fact that guns are used to kill women far more often then they are used for a woman's self-protection. One statistic tells the tale: In 1999, for each instance in which a woman used a handgun in a justifiable homicide, 120 women were murdered with handguns.)

It would be irresponsible to suggest that strangers cannot pose a lethal threat to women, or to deny that such crimes are particularly disturbing. Nonetheless, the fact remains that if a woman is murdered in the United States she will most likely be killed by an intimate acquaintance using a handgun. By recognizing that the greatest threat she faces is from a man she knows, women should act in their own self-interest -- and not in the gun lobby's financial interest.

ON THE WEB

When Men Murder Women: www.vpc.org/ studies/dv4cont.htm

Karen Brock is a health policy analyst with the Violence Policy Center in Washington.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.