From: ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy)
Subject: Re: Democratic platform explicitly demonstrates hypocrisy!
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<1992Jul27.060747.19187@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 18:23:42 GMT

<In article <1992Jul27.060747.19187@leland.Stanford.EDU> coyote@leland.Stanford.EDU (The White Blackbird) writes:
<   In article <1992Jul26.202254.20526@rice.edu> kossack@qvi.com writes:
<   = In article <6dgm6rr.crisp@netcom.com> crisp@netcom.com (Richard Crisp) writes:
<   = >the Democratic platform recognizes that a woman should have a right
<   = >to have an abortion if she so desires (a good idea, btw). Implicit
<   =                                [ ... ]    
<   = >The hypocrisy is that in the case of abortion they are readily
<   = >willing to accept that the law will be broken and it is a matter
<   = >of keeping things safe by regulating it. In the case of guns, they
<   = 
<   = 	Well, in my mind, the Democratic Party's hypocricy in the 
<   =    case of abortion is that the party platform implies that it is 
<   =    acceptable for a woman to use abortion to kill her child, but 
<   =    that it is unacceptable to use a handgun to kill a rapist.  
<   = 
<   = 	In other words, Clinton is telling women to lay back and 
<   =    enjoy rape, since they can simply abort the fetus afterwards. 
<   =    Clinton, therefore, completely ignores the threat of AIDS from 
<   =    a rapist (you think he's going to use a condom?) and the mental
<   =    and physical trauma resulting from sexual assault.  How caring. 
<   =    As much as I dislike Bush, I can not in good conscience vote for 
<   =    a man who tells women that they shouldn't defend themselves. 
<   = 
<   = 

<   This has got to be in the top ten for the farthest stretched analogy
<   I've ever heard.  The assumptions are numerous and farfetched.  For
<   example,

<   1)  Carrying a gun is something everyone could and should do.  In,
<   fact, relatively few people can *carry* hidable weapons legally.

	However, many women can and do carry hideable weapons
	illegally; they would prefer to be judged by 12 than
	carried by 6. 

	Women constitute the fastest-growing group of firearms
	owners in the U.S.

<   2) If you have a gun, you can protect yourself.  In the case of rape,
<   or in any crime, it is difficult to reach any weapon safely and use it
<   effectively (even as a deterent).  In fact, having a gun on your
<   person may be a good way to get yourself killed.

	Please support this urban legend. The fact of the matter 
	is, women can and do repel assaults with firearms every
	day. Most cases don't reach the media or the police, because
	of 1. above. 

	According to criminologist Dr. Kleck, over 645,000 crimes
	are stopped every year with HANDGUNS alone.
	Most such incidents are not reported.

<   3)  Most rapes are violent ones.  Again, this is a false assumption.
<   Most rapes are perpetrated by people who know the victim, so, having a
<   gun would be difficult to use to protect yourself.

	"Knew the victim" includes rather a large set of people;
	a woman who is poor and lives in a poor neighborhood is
	quite likely to know the local gang-bangers. If she gets
	gang-raped, she "knew" the attackers, yes? A woman who
	is in the process of divorcing an abusive husband and
	moves out, may have her door kicked in by him and be
	raped; she "knew" the rapist. What if the last thing
	either of these women hear from their attackers is,"If
	you tell anyone, I'll kill you, bitch"?

	What should she do, in such a case? The Clinton
	campaign seems to say,"Lay back and take it; the police
	will be by in a few hours".

<   etc etc etc.

<   I remember a story Stephen Jay Gould used to tell when he was
<   attacking creation-science.  The gist of it was this.  If you assume
<   your hypothesis is true, and merely use the label "science" to try and
<   somehow persuade others to accept it, rather than to truly test it,
<   then it's not science at all.

<   The same could be said of logic.  It's a powerful tool if you use it
<   the correct way--to test hypotheses and to form credible arguments.
<   Misusing it, however, makes you look like a complete buffoon.

	Indeed it does, indeed it does; the anti-freedom people
	who want to disarm single mothers, disarm the elderly,	
	disarm women who are fleeing abusive spouses....they
	are indeed buffoons, are they not?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.guns,talk.abortion