Gender and Gun Control

A

abruzzi

New member
Interesting 5-24-00 article in The Atlantic tracks wide divergence in support for gun control based on gender:

TEXT FOLLOWS:Political Pulse:
Ho Hum, the Shootings Go On


So far, a tidal wave of public support for gun control has not swept over American politics


by William Schneider


May 24, 2000

The big surprise with the gun issue is what has not happened. The Columbine school shootings and other gun tragedies have not had the effect a lot of people predicted. A tidal wave of public support for gun control has not swept over American politics. Instead, a polarization over guns has arisen -- not between Democrats and Republicans, but between men and women.

President Clinton challenged Congress to pass a new gun control bill by April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine tragedy. When that didn't happen, Clinton went to Annapolis, Md., to attend the signing of that state's tough, new gun law. Maryland Democratic Gov. Parris N. Glendening said: "I predict that this will happen in statehouses across the country."

It doesn't look that way. Maryland is one of only eight states that have toughened their gun laws since April 1999. California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island are the other states. New gun law measures have failed in 10 states, including New York, Texas, and, notably, Colorado, where the Columbine killings occurred.

Why so little progress? That's what Clinton wants to know. "There are more than enough people in Congress who represent districts that would support this kind of action by more than 2-to-1 to pass this legislation in a landslide," the President said in Annapolis.

Clinton is right. Across the country, Americans favor stricter gun laws by nearly 2-to-1. But if you look at the polls over the past 10 years, the story changes.

In 1990, 80 percent of Americans favored stricter gun laws, according to a Gallup Poll. That number dropped to 70 percent in 1993, and 62 percent in 1995. There was a small uptick in 1999 to 66 percent, right after the events in Columbine. But last month's Gallup Poll shows the percentage back down to 61. Although 61 percent is a substantial majority, support for stricter gun laws has dropped nearly 20 points in 10 years. Polling by the Pew Research Center for The People and The Press has found the same trend developing just in the past few months. In March, 66 percent of Americans said gun control was more important than protecting the rights of gun owners. This month, the number who felt that way dropped to 57 percent. Still a majority, but a smaller one.

Why is this happening? In part, because the National Rifle Association has been making an argument many Americans find reasonable: The country doesn't need new gun laws. It needs to do a better job enforcing the laws that are already on the books. By 51 percent to 44 percent in the Gallup Poll, the public says we should enforce existing gun laws, which happens to be George W. Bush's position, rather than pass new ones.

Gun control activists argue that the choice between enforcing existing laws and passing new ones is a false one, because people want to do both. How else do you explain the huge majorities who favor a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and trigger locks on all new handguns? Or the three-quarters of Americans who favor the registration of all handguns? Or the two-thirds who want to license gun owners? Or the nearly 60 percent who want to limit the number of handguns an individual can purchase to one per month?

Those are precisely the measures Al Gore is calling for. Yet Gallup asked people twice this year which candidate would do a better job handling "the gun issue," and the answer was Bush, both times, by a small margin.

It appears that the aggressive tactics of gun control advocates -- including President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and the "million moms" -- has created a backlash. People who oppose new gun laws feel threatened, and they're being energized. According to The Washington Post, the NRA has gained 700,000 new members in the past 15 months, and may have a record 4 million members by November.

What kind of people feel threatened? Principally, men and gun owners. Among men who own guns, only 37 percent favor stricter gun laws. Among women who do not have a gun in the household, the number jumps to 81 percent.

Gender has an impact independent of gun ownership. Among female gun owners, 51 percent favor stricter gun laws -- 14 points higher than for male gun owners. Among men who do not own a gun, 64 percent support stricter gun laws -- 17 points lower than the figure for women without a gun.

According to the Pew Center, the gender gap on the gun issue has been growing. And it's having a powerful impact on this year's presidential vote. People who say we should enforce existing gun laws rather than pass new ones favor Bush over Gore by more than 3-to-1. Those who want to pass new gun laws favor Gore by about the same margin. That largely explains the gender gap in the presidential vote: men hugely for Bush, women narrowly for Gore.

What we're seeing looks like a repeat of 1994, when "angry white men" rose up against the Democratic Congress that passed the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. Nothing makes them quite as angry as gun control, or the threat of gun control, which is giving men a strong reason to vote against Gore. As of yet, Gore has not given women a strong reason to vote for him.
 
Hey, I'm doing my part... took a anti-gun female and turned her around. She is now a gun totten bubbit (as opposed to a bubba). She has even joined the NRA and has brought a few of her lady friends out to shoot with us. Only thing was is, I had to marry her to do it... :) Being serious now, she had an ex point a gun in her face. Threatened to kill her. Last year I bought her a nice Rossi .357 snub nose in stainless. Funny thing about it, after we spent some time on the range, her nightmares stopped. Between the dogs and the gun, she is no longer afraid of her ex tracking her down and killing her.



------------------
Richard

The debate is not about guns,
but rather who has the ultimate power to rule,
the People or Government.
RKBA!
 
Here's another article along these lines that you might find interesting.....

Dr. Michael S. Brown
March 27, 2000


One of the great ironies of the cultural war over gun rights is that
women are generally more anti-gun than men. Violence against
women is an extremely serious problem, yet women are constantly
told to forgo the most effective means of self-defense.

A young woman known to my wife was abducted and raped
recently by a sex offender on parole. She is now HIV-positive and
the assailant left town before police could build an airtight case.
Another woman in our area was forced to change her own name
and move to a new home because her attacker knows her identity.
A woman I know and two female family members were terrorized
by an intruder who entered their home at 5 AM. The man escaped
before police could respond to a 911 call and he has not been
caught.

Contrast this to a case in Arizona where an unarmed woman was
raped, shot and left for dead. The attacker then forced his way into
a private home where he was promptly shot and killed by a second
woman with a handgun. He will not rape again. Episodes like this
happen around the country, but are totally ignored by the national
media.

The bias against armed self-defense is one of the most insidious
forms of victimization of women. The dominant cultural
conditioning tells women that they are not capable of defending
themselves with a gun. They are told that if they arm themselves,
the attacker will simply take the gun away and use it against them.
Although this rarely happens, millions of women have accepted the
degrading concept that they are not capable of learning to defend
themselves and their children with a firearm, should they so choose.

Many women are afraid of guns because they have never been
encouraged to understand them. They are often afraid that guns go
off on their own. A man who provides firearms training to women
helps allay his student's fears with a story from his childhood. It
seems that his mother was a dressmaker and kept several sewing
machines in the house. The boy was terribly afraid of them,
because he thought that they might suddenly start up and sew
through his hand. Once he understood that sewing machines are
simply tools that will not function without human control, he lost his
unreasonable fear.

Some women have conquered the conditioning and acquired
firearms training. It can be an empowering and life changing
experience. They lose some of the fear that all women are forced to
live with, because they can now provide security for themselves and
their children. Once they discover that they can handle a gun safely
and responsibly, they resent the way they have been lied to all their
lives.

Although firearms accidents have steadily declined for the last
century, concern for child safety has been a major weapon of
anti-self-defense groups like Handgun Control Inc. While there are
legitimate concerns about keeping guns in a house with children,
there are many excellent options for childproof storage and many
effective ways to raise children safely around guns.

Unfortunately, firearms training and safety programs are also under
attack, since certain political factions have a vested interest in
perpetuating the myth of the incompetent woman. Women who feel
helpless and vulnerable are more likely to vote for greater
government control, while those who can provide security for
themselves and their families are not.

There are some women who are speaking out against this unfair
stereotyping and conditioning. Authors Camille Paglia and Claire
Wolfe have written in support of gun rights. Respected firearms
trainer Gila Hayes at the Firearms Institute of Seattle said that,
"Women are taught from childhood to fear guns and to believe they
are not capable of fighting back. They are literally taught to be
victims. When properly trained in gun safety and marksmanship,
they realize the gun is just a tool -- one with which they can save
their own lives."

There is always much discussion in women's media about what to
do when attacked. Armed self-defense is invariably discouraged.
Unarmed resistance has not been very effective, so the current topic
is whether a woman should ask a rapist to wear a condom. It is
difficult to understand how a nation that has been heavily influenced
by the feminist movement can sink to this level of collective
cowardice.

In 1966 the city of Orlando responded to a wave of sexual assaults
by offering firearms training classes to women. The number of
rapes dropped by nearly 90%. Thanks to the efforts of the
anti-self-defense movement, such an effective and common sense
solution to violence against women would be impossible today. No
doubt the folks at HCI would rather have women ask a rapist to use
a condom.

------------------------

Dr. Michael S. Brown is an optometrist in Vancouver, WA who
moderates a large email list for discussion of gun issues in
Washington State. He may be reached at mb@e-z.net
 
Saw this on another board... "Famous last words"..."I'm going to kill everyone." --Erick Ramirez Fuentes moments before he was shot dead by handgun owner Bricie Tribble. Fuentes had broken into Tribble's Arizona home an hour after he abducted another woman from a nearby WalMart parking lot, raped and shot her. Tribble's husband and nine-year-old nephew were also in the home.
 
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