Followup  You reduce false rape claims to people women changing their minds But if rape is sex without consent it does not require anyone changing his mind It can be people feeling ambivalent or curious beforehand Ambivalence or curiousity do not imply consent Cooperation does not imply consent And you cannot prove consent unless you have maybe signed a consent form into which you could have been tricked  coerced to sign Dont you see the huge plunge into plain old fashioned insanity the legal system takes when rape is sex without consent  I am aware that it is hard for women to get rape claims heard etc I am aware of that What I am trying to explain to you is this is exactly the result of exaggerated rape claims If rape was just a special form of assault there would not be little misunderstanding to what constitutes a rape and what not This would serve the potential victims as well as everybody else especially the legal system and the police  I am not familiar enough with the example of South Africa that you bring up From experience if a statisticly huge drop like  in a short time for something that is greatly influenced by social mores which usually take  to  years to change then this is most likely caused by a change in the way the figures are obtained  You bring up the example of date rape not being covered by the definition of sex by force You have some pretty messed up ideas Drugs are force For example the police tries to use knockout gas to remedy certain hostile situations and they refer to these gases as nonlethal force Similiar to another example where people are just holding you down not hurting you to rape you  holding someone down  by force  is force Locking someone up in a basement only to offer food and water in exchange for sexual service  is also using force if you have thought about bringing that example up  The second half of your post mostly rambles about how expensive guns are Yes they are way too expensive but the reason for them being expensive has a lot to do with government regulations regarding the manufacture and sale of firearms As for an unsightly bulge when carrying a weapon  Ive got some more unsightly bulges than that and women tend carry purses perfect for concealed carry So women have an easier time to carry guns   God I want it to be socially acceptable for men to carry a purse But then again it looks like total ass  Every civilized society requires all its citizens to be armed at all times Because violence is the very foundation of a state  The state removes the right to be violent to each other from the people and instead claims a monopoly on violence and resolves disputes with a legal system and enforces the laws with an armed police force But when the state is the only one controlling violence in its controlled territory nobody controls the state to prevent government abuse totalitarian laws dictatorships Aside from discouraging small time petty criminals an armed civil population has the benefit of being able to remove a government once it no longer serves its purpose  that is the wellbeing of the citizens  and replace it with a new government preferrably with the severed heads of the old goverment decorating the state capital just to remind the new goverment what happens when they step out of line As such any effort to outlaw an armed civil society must be punished harshly