NBC 15 (Mobile, Alabama) is
reporting that with news of a serial rapist on the loose, an increasing number of women are training for and receiving concealed carry permits.

Business, especially gun sales, has picked up since police announced a serial rapist on the attack in West Mobile. In the past week or so, the report says as many as seven women have bought guns at the Mobile Shooting Center.

"We have had a few come in and talk about, with the rapist being around them, having to buy some or they're feeling a lot safer to buy some from women that you would assume that wouldn't carry a pistol," store employee Jeremy Hickman told the news channel.

Mobile Police Chief Sam Cochran told NBC 15's Mike Rush that he respects their right to protect themselves within the law. In the as many as eleven rapes police believe may have been committed by the same man, the attacker got in his victims' homes through unlocked doors or windows. In that scenario, "if the question is, 'Can a woman use deadly force and shoot an intruder in her house when she feels threatened?' Absolutely she can," Cochran told NBC 15.

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According to the 2003 National Crime Victimization Survey, 93% of violent crimes against innocent citizens last year were carried out without the criminal use of a firearm. 96% of rapes and 75% of robberies were committed by criminals without firearms.

For all rapes, woman who resisted with a gun were 2.5 times more likely to escape without injury than those who did not resist, and 4 times more likely to escape uninjured than those who resisted with any means other than a gun.” (Southwick, Journal of Criminal Justice, 2000)

Not all women must choose to carry a concealed firearm to benefit from Ohio's self-defense laws.

In 1966 the police in Orlando, Florida, responded to a rape epidemic by embarking on a highly publicized program to train 2,500 women in firearm use. The next year rape fell by 88 percent in Orlando (the only major city to experience a decrease that year); burglary fell by 25 percent. Not one of the 2,500 women actually ended up firing her weapon; the deterrent effect of the publicity sufficed." (Congressional Record, 90th Cong., 2d sess., January 30, 1968, p. 1496, n. 7) Five years later Orlando's rape rate was still 13 percent below the pre-program level, whereas the surrounding standard metropolitan area had suffered a 308 percent increase.

KPHO Phoenix is reporting that Arizona legislators are again weighing whether to allow people to take guns in bars and restaurants if the bearers aren't drinking alcohol and if the establishments don't opt out.

Under a bill endorsed this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee, people could carry weapons in bars and restaurant but only in those establishments which didn't post notices prohibiting it. Also, a person could not drink alcohol while carrying a gun.

The story notes a similar measure was narrowly defeated in the Senate last year but two senators who voted against it then have since left the Legislature. The House approved it last year.

Related Stories:
Letter to the Editor: Prevent death with concealed weapon

Columbus nightclub: Disarmed CHL-holder watched helplessly as people died

Musings from a ''red-neck idiot''...

February 16, 2005
The (Ohio University) Post Online

By Curt Winzenreid

In response to Stephen Mette's letter in the February 15th edition of The Post titled "People need education, not weapons," exactly what type of education did Mette have in mind? For the recorded history of man, we have tried to "teach" members of society that murder and theft are wrong, yet they still happen every day in thousands, if not millions, of instances across the world. Obviously Mette has failed to realize that criminals don't follow the law. Criminals have no respect for the law and society, so why should they respect the right of an individual female to not be harmed?

The proper solution to the threat of rape or assault is to neutralize it by allowing females and males alike to defend themselves with the appropriate means. I do dare say that we should allow students to arm themselves. Regardless of what some people may have been told in some women's studies courses or in a self-defense seminar, most women don't stand a chance of defending themselves against a male attacker with their physical attributes alone. As Mette wrote, Ohio law prohibits the possession of a weapon on university property. I've advocated for more than three years that this inane law does nothing more than create a "victim zone" because only on a college campus is someone denied the appropriate means to defend themselves. I wonder why an attorney has yet to bring this blatant discrimination up as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.