From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: What Problem Is Supposed To Be Solved, Here? (Was: Dressed for Rape)
Date: 12 Jan 1993 22:10:47 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rocket.sw.stratus.com

In article <9301061141.17@rmkhome.UUCP>, rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) writes:
> >	Maybe she reads the newspapers and is aware that violent
> >	attack isn't as rare in Massachusetts as it was 40 years
> >	ago?

> And according to the newspapers, specifically the Boston Globe and the
> Middlesex News, the state attorney general's office has released statistics
> that show that women are more in danger from being killed by husbands and
> boyfriends than any other circumstance.  This statistic must be fairly
> accurate if the police chief's association of Massachusetts has publicly,
> in print, stated that they are willing to be lenient about giving gun
> permits to women who have domestic violence related court orders in effect.

Here's what the article says (excerpts):

"Nearly 75% of Massachusetts women who were murdered during the
first half of 1992 knew their killers intimately, according to the
state Executive Office of Public Safety.  A dozen more women have
allegedly been killed in the state by intimates since then, figures
show.

"'The irony is that women tend to think of threatening criminals as
people in the street, and they fail to look within their own house-
holds where the greatest threats lie,' said Jack Levin, professor of
sociology and criminology at Northeastern University."

"The total number of Massachusetts women murdered dropped to 44 in
1991 from 54 in 1986.  As a percentage of total murers, the number
of women killed has also been decreasing in the state, the Boston
Sunday Globe reported.

"But 1992 was the worst year for domestic murders in Massachusetts
since 1986.  At least 26 women -- wives, girlfriends, and female
relatives of the intended targets [sic???] -- were killed.

"The study, prepared for Public Safety Secretary Thomas Rapone,
found that the number of women killed by husbands, lovers, and ex-
boyfriends has climbed steadly since 1988.  In that year, domestic
violence was deemed responsible for 29% of the deaths in which the 
circumstances leading to a woman's murder had been identified.

"Within a year, the figure had risen to 55%.  It continued to
climb through the first six months of 1992, when 72% of the female
victims whose alleged murderers were identified died in domestic
violence.

"'Contrary to men, women are being killed by people they know.
They are not being killed by strangers,' said Charles McDonald,
a spokesman for the public safety office.

"More than 50,000 Massachusetts women have taken out restraining
orders against estranged husbands or boyfriends,  But just this
year, restraining orders failed to stop half a dozen men who were
intent on killing women who had fled them."

(The rest of the article is various claims that the legal system
cannot solve this problem.)

The argument so far in this thread (recap) has gone:

My wife is having trouble getting a pistol license.
Why does she need a license to carry?
Maybe to save her life someday.
But most women in the state are killed by intimates.

Isn't it strange, then, that the state will arm me, but not her?

Note also that this article does NOT mention how many of the
women were killed by other than guns.  Indeed, the most celebrated
cases of the year were that of a young hood who knifed his girl and
then threw her off a dock so no one else could have her; and the
fellow who did his kids in with a knife and his wife with an axe.

It also doesn't mention how many of these killings occurred in
the female's home.  Yes, I can arm my wife on the power of my
license, but she can't take the gun out of the home.  And she
has "relatives" and "ex-boyfriends" (some of whom are real wackos --
if you count things like writing slurs on her car with Magic
Markers for 16 months straight) just like anyone else.
-- 

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Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns