At the Washington Times: Why aren’t stalked women ever told to get a gun for self-defense?
Dr. John Lott has a piece with Holly Sullivan, the president of the Connecticut Citizen Defense League, on violence against women and the poor advice that women are usually given to protect themselves.
.
On this past Tuesday night, Ewen Dewitt brutally murdered 40-year-old Julie Minogue with an axe in her Milford, Connecticut home. Two of her children were at home when the murder occurred. Dewitt, an ex-boyfriend, had been stalking her.
.
“I’m scared he’s going to kill me,” she told police. In 2019, she had a protective order issued. Just a week before the murder, a judge had granted her a full no-contact restraining order.
.
The case clearly illustrates the limits of protective orders when the stalker is intent on murdering the victim. If the murderer is already facing the possibility of life imprisonment without parole for first-degree murder, how will an additional five more years in prison and a $5,000 fine deter such murders?
.
It is an important problem. Reportedly, 76% of women murdered by someone who had been an intimate partner were stalked.
.
Violence prevention advocates for women have a long list of changes they recommend. These changes require women to uproot their lives.
.
Among the advice: women should change jobs, travel routes, the time of day they leave home or work, move in with a friend or family, change the locks on their home, or do their shopping and other chores with friends or relatives.
.
A few recommend that women practice martial arts such as judo, jiu-jitsu, karate, or boxing.
.
But the most obvious answer is missing from these lists: women should get a concealed handgun permit and a firearm.
.
Men are typically much stronger than women, particularly in upper body strength. Unfortunately, real life isn’t like the movies, where one woman can knock out and overpower several well-trained men. Even well-trained women often struggle to defend themselves against much larger and stronger men. Men also tend to be faster runners.
.
A firearm represents a much bigger change in a woman’s ability to defend herself. Men can readily hurt women without a gun, and if a woman are already in physical contact with the attacker so that he can take away their gun, they are already in trouble.
.
The peer-reviewed research by one of us shows that murder rates decline when people carry concealed handguns, be they man or woman. But a woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about 3 to 4 times more than a man doing the same.
.
And this message is getting across to women. Between 2012 and 2022, in states that provide data by sex, concealed handgun permits increased 115% more quickly among women than among men. The percentage of women who say that gun ownership protects people from crime has also been growing faster than their male counterparts.
.
Connecticut could make it much easier for stalked women to defend themselves. Even after taking the required training and applying for a permit, it “generally takes eight weeks to obtain” a permit. And that’s an optimistic estimate by the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. the Connecticut Citizen’s Defense League has had to file a lawsuit against three cities where the process regularly takes a year or more.
.
But even two months may be much too long for a threatened woman. Even women who have proven to a court that they are facing serious threats must wait to get a permit. One solution would be to allow women with court orders of protection to carry a concealed handgun while they are waiting for a permit to be issued.
.
Many single women with children may also find it difficult to pay $140 for a permit-plus additional fees for fingerprinting and training. Connecticut’s concealed handgun permit cost is already almost three times higher than the average in other states. Despite this, 11.3% of adults in Connecticut have a concealed handgun permit – the twelfth highest state. And as crime in Connecticut has soared, the permit-possessing population has increased by 55,000 since 2019. Only 26% of permit holders in Connecticut are women, significantly less than in other states.
.
The high cost of permits disarms the very people who most need protection, including minorities who live in high-crime urban areas.
.
Police are important. Protective orders can help. But if we are going to be serious about protecting women like Julie Minogue, we have to let them protect themselves.
.
