Then at gunpoint he forced the grocery shopper to perform sex acts. No police were there to save the victim. Criminology research and common sense tell us that had he carried a gun and known how to use it, he would have been much more likely to escape injury. But he lives in Santa Monica, a city that would deny him his right to carry a self- protection gun even if he asserted it. And if he sues the police or the city for allowing this terrible crime to happen, he will discover what all other such victims have learned, to their sad amazement the police had no duty to protect him.
Similar stories abound in other cities where gun ownership is limited to criminals and the police.
In Washington D.C., New York, and Chicago unarmed potential victims must rely on luck and the mercy of violent predators. But contrast Santa Monica with Orlando, Florida in the late 1960s. During a rash of rapes similar to the Southside Rapist's spree, the Orlando Police Department trained more than 2,500 women in the use of guns for self-defense. The rate remained constant for the rest of Florida and the United States. Truly, our government denied the hapless Santa Monica victim the means of self-defense and simultaneously denied a duty to protect him from harm.