Pimping Propaganda for Police Statists

Date sent: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 11:30:07 -0800
From: "Sean Oberle" <Analysis@keepandbeararms.com>
To: <viewpoints@chron.com>
Copies to: <director@keepandbeararms.com>
Subject: Brock Nov. 9 Essay

Re: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/1125492

To the Editor,

Karen Brock's November 9 essay, Men, Handguns a Most Dangerous Mix for Women, is bald propaganda. I note with a chuckle that she repeats the false distinction of her organization, Violence Policy Center (VPC): that the firearm industry somehow fools women into fearing attacks from strangers rather than from those they know. Leaving aside that VPC never has provided evidence of this alleged misdirection, whether a woman knows her attacker has nothing to do with whether the firearm is useful.

I am left wondering just what VPC is suggesting by comparing women who purchase guns to men who kill women with guns. Is VPC suggesting that the men use the women's own guns to kill the women? The group provides zero evidence of this. Is VPC suggesting that if a man kills a woman with HIS gun that makes HER gun, a different gun, dangerous to her? That would be laughably illogical on its face.

In the end, Brock and VPC have erected a strawman argument so that they can repeat a variation of a long-discredited gun control factoid: comparing murders and suicides to self-defense killings, which falsely suggests that the only method of defense with a firearm is to kill. It excludes all acts of self-defense that involve injuries, warning shots or simply showing the weapon.

Sean Oberle
Gun Control Analyst, KeepAndBearArms.com
analysis@keepandbeararms.com

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