I can’t believe no one beat me to that headline. (reference)
So some scumbag rapist bus driver set his sights on a US warrior woman. She was none too thrilled and opened up a can of whoop-ass on him.
Prosecutors said that she knocked the knife from his hand, broke it in two, bit him in the hand, forced him to the ground and locked him between her thighs, the Daily Mail reports.
Damn. Nicely done.
BAM Said The Lady!
Kathy Jackson at the Cornered Cat linked to an important story from Limatunes. Both links are recommended, but they are difficult and potentially triggering reading. They deal with being restrained, abducted, beaten, and raped.
We all know that fear induces the fight or flight reaction, but we don’t talk about the third option. Sometimes, we freeze. We shut down. Lima was pulled out of a public place by her hair and couldn’t even cry out for help. And there was no good Samaritan that jumped in either. She was on her own in her nightmare.
This is why we hope for the best and prepare for the worst. This is why we look at the very real violence that happens in our world every day. We hope it never comes to visit us. But the only way we can prevent the freeze is to have a plan for the worst. This is why we scan for exits when we find ourselves in new surroundings. This is why we learn to use the tools we carry. We hope to take flight. Barring that, we want to be ready for the fight. We can do neither if we freeze.
They don’t tell us much about her, actually. Maybe she wasn’t compliant. What we do know is that she wasn’t shot and she didn’t shoot him either. And this
The woman had bruises on her face, head, torso, arms and legs, as well as bite marks, broken ribs and a collapsed lung, the report states.
As Hall was being booked into the Tulsa Jail, officers reportedly recovered from his pocket a piece of the woman’s ear.
Do not think for a moment that evil does not exist. Here is a man capable of doing this to the mother of his child. With nothing more than his hands and teeth.
And then there is this man. (h/t Rachel Lucas) Law enforcement had the luxury of being just seconds away and yet he pushed his own grandmother into a wall in order to attack his ex-girlfriend right there in the courtroom. Bet the judge didn’t even have to consider whether or not to approve her paper armor.
Hands. Feet. The hope of rescue. This is what those pushing for gun control would leave us. Be a good victim and maybe, just maybe, your attacker will leave you maimed with a collapsed lung. If you’re very lucky, you’ll be able flag down help.
They tell me that by bringing a gun I’m doing nothing more than escalating the violence. I intend to introduce as much defensive violence to the situation as I possibly can in order to rapidly de-escalate the predatory violence. Because I don’t want them to find my ear in an attacker’s pocket. If that’s escalation, so be it. My life is worth protecting with deadly force. I have no intention of being a good victim. I will not be complaint and well behaved.
Kathy Jackson has an excellent post up with some realistic tips for staying alert in real life. Because really, no one wants to be that guy. And really, go read it.
I wanted to relate a story and give you one little piece of knowledge. When I got off work today, we ran by the bank to make a deposit. It is unseasonably warm in our part of the world and so we had the windows down. We generally shut off the engine when sitting in the bank drive-thru since our little car is LOUD.
So there we were minding our own business. We’d already sent our little cylinder to the teller inside and were chatting about things. I happened to hear the man in the next lane speaking to the teller. He was sending his cylinder back because he wanted his cash “in hundreds.”
(insert record scratch sounds here)
Do. Not. Do. This.
Ever
Full stop.
He has no idea who I am. I now know that he has at least $200 cash on him. He is alone. I have a description of his vehicle. I would have is tag number if I so desired. I could take his picture. I know what he is wearing. I am in a car. He would think nothing of it if I pulled in behind him immediately. He is not likely to notice if I follow him for miles.
I drive a black Sentra. Were it not remarkably loud, you wouldn’t notice it because there’s about a billion of them on the road. And it makes perfect sense for the person in line beside you to wind up behind you. I’m background noise.
What if?
What if that person in the next lane isn’t me? What if they hear you ask for that cash back/withdrawal in hundreds? How far will the bad guy follow you for at least $200?
Getting cash in the drive-thru is not a terrible idea. You are in your car already and can go where you want. You will not need to make the walk to a parking lot and it can be relatively private. You can do this in such a way that no one else knows.
Did you know I was a bank teller once? Worked a drive-thru even.
All that empty space on the withdrawal slip? You can write there. It’s okay. Perfectly normal and acceptable for you to tell the friendly bank teller how you’d like your cash back by writing in that space. You get the cash you need in the manner you request, and the person in the next lane doesn’t know whether you made a deposit or a withdrawal. Easy as that.
Slipping notes to bank tellers is not always a bad thing.
We’ve all spent enough happy afternoons vanquishing paper foes at the range to know that paper doesn’t stop bullets. It doesn’t even alter the course of that ball of lead. All it does is provide us evidence of the shot. A document to be reviewed in the aftermath.
A restraining order is much the same. Not only can that piece of paper not stop a bullet, it cannot restrain a person bent on violence. We saw this play out a few days ago in Milwaukee. That piece of paper required him by law to turn in his firearms, but it’s just paper.
That paper forbade him from contact with his estranged wife, but it’s just paper.
Much like our paper targets, it’s a document to be reviewed in the aftermath. Yet this is where the antis would have us place our faith. In paper. In laws. Officers that can only act in response to an act of violence and not in the direct prevention of.
I’d far prefer the story had an ending like this.
“When I had the gun, I didn’t think I was actually going to have to shoot somebody,” the 6th grader recalled. “I think it’s going to change me a whole lot, knowing that I can hold my head up high and nothing can hurt me anymore.”
You see, the law didn’t stop the man from breaking into her house. The officer didn’t get there in time. But thankfully, this 12 year old girl had something far more powerful than a piece of paper protecting her. Yet the antis would have had her remain cowering in fear in that closet. Personally, I don’t want to think about what the criminal had in mind when he sought out the source of those frightened cries. You can safely assume that he wasn’t just interested in whatever valuables were in the house. They would leave this girl to his mercy.
Paper or lead? I know which carries more weight.
(h/t to Stranger and James Rummel)
Colonel Mustard was no where to be found.
This homeowner first decided to be compliant and was bound with duct tape in his own bedroom by an intruder. Suddenly, compliance didn’t really sound like the best course of action. So, Tim got nimble; Tim got quick; Tim grabbed a candlestick!
Now, I’m very glad that Tim survived this particular encounter. It serves as a great reminder that the weapon is between your ears. With the odds stacked against him, Tim improvised. Good!
But, Tim also had a firearm in a place where the bad guy could get to it before he could. Bad.
And Tim didn’t get perforated by his own gun because it only had one bullet, and it wasn’t in the chamber. He got lucky. Ugly.
Your home is no place for a fair fight*. Stack the deck against anyone that should decide to enter your home uninvited. Keep your best defensive tools close and at the ready. Don’t put your hope in the benevolence of criminals.
*In a fair fight, there are referees; the only things at stake are trophies, medals, and pride. If your life is at stake, don’t fight fair.
With Todd Akin’s horribly ignorant and insensitive comment blasting across the news, we’ve got everyone and their dog talking about rape. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an excellent conversation to have. Mr. Akin himself just proved that there are still people woefully, and frighteningly, misinformed. He’s not being smeared, he just got caught in his ignorance. In case anyone is still in the dark, yes, it is easier to get pregnant during consensual sex. No, a woman does not have some kind of goalie in her vagina that keeps unwelcome sperm out. It can and does happen.
As usual, everyone is talking about what I assume Akin was referring to as ‘legitimate’ rape. You know, because coercive rape isn’t really rape rape I guess. Forceful, violent rape by a stranger happens. We’ve all heard the advice. Don’t go out alone. Be aware or your surroundings. Don’t got to bad parts of town. Don’t dress provocatively. So on and so forth. And sure, if you dress in a potato sack and never leave the house alone, you’ll probably never be raped by a stranger. Works great for all the Muslim women. They get raped by men they are supposed to be able to trust, to rely on to protect them instead. Awesome.
What about the prostitute? (And if you are planning to make the is it rape or shoplifting joke, you can leave now.) Yes, it’s certainly a high risk line of work, but I’m not going to make a judgment on why anyone chooses it. She made an informed decision and consented to a particular act. She did not consent to be beaten and gang raped. Is that still legitimate rape?
Maybe that’s too ambiguous. She certainly didn’t follow all the advice out there. So maybe we shouldn’t get our haircut either. No, she’s not going to get pregnant since her rape was by instrumentation. Still pretty damn legitimate if you ask me.
There’s nothing inherently wrong in the advice given to women to lessen the risk of rape, but it is often short-sighted. The stranger hiding in the dark alley is real, but not common. The majority of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. It’s the friend that pushes things too far. The family member that takes advantage of their authority. The boyfriend that has decided he’s earned it. The guy at the party that thinks it’s okay just because he can.
What is too often forgotten is that we’d all love to live in a world where a woman could pass out drunk and naked in the proverbial dark alley and be perfectly safe to sleep it off. The fact of the matter is, we don’t live in that world. Advice to stay out of that situation is not apologizing for the crimes of others, it’s just trying to avoid unnecessary risk. But in addition to avoidance, we should be teaching young men and women that people have value. Your life and your body are precious, and you have the right to protect it by any means necessary. The only time that value is forfeit is when someone chooses to deprive another human being of their life/body. Meaning, if you say no, it’s no. If someone tells you no, it’s no. The moment you defy that, you forfeit any value your life had and deserve to have it ended by the victimized party.
Honestly, I wish things like this would work.
But it’s missing teeth. It’s as effective as a no gun sign on a business. Instead, I’d prefer the implication of, “Attempt to rape me, and I will end you.” Coupled with the assumption that the proposed victim has the appropriate tools and know how to do just that. Dead attempted rapists can’t impregnate anyone, so whether or not to abort becomes a moot point. Sounds a lot more effective than the imaginary goalie in the vagina.
I mean really, I only have 2 choices? Safe or sorry?
BS. I reject that. Life isn’t safe. It’s got sharp edges and hard surfaces. It’s got dirt and disappointment. Sometimes you will suck and you will fail.
Suck it up, cupcake.
You want to be stronger, better, faster, etc. than you are today? You’re going to have to push your limits. Guess what happens when you hit them? Pain. Suck. Fail. And then you back off and heal*. Learn your lessons and get back in the game.
Or don’t. Be safe. Be stagnant. Don’t take risks. Insulate your little world. Just don’t expect me to play along.
Yeah, A Girl and her Gun got hurt training. It happens. It’s no reason to avoid training. It’s no reason to stop pushing yourself. No one is asking you to do the training she has chosen. But before you criticize her choices, did it ever occur to you that maybe it’s not just training, it’s therapy? How many people out there are willing to stare their fear in the face?
It’s real easy to judge from the outside. Should I have taken a defensive pistol course with my neck all mangled? Should I have maybe called it a day when it started to spasm so badly that I couldn’t get my elbow up? Should I have maybe mentioned the issue to my instructor before class?
Ya know what? My neck has been messed up for a long time. Turns out, not even daycare was safe. I attempted to do a flip in the moonwalk. (The inflatable bouncy thing, not the backwards dance walk thing.) I landed on my head. Had to crawl out of the thing on my stomach because I couldn’t stand back up.
I’ve lost count of the number of car accidents I’ve been in. I wasn’t at fault, but sometimes not even the passenger seat is safe.
I carry a gun because life isn’t safe. My life comes with bumps, scrapes, bruises, and even broken bones. I didn’t stop playing when I landed on my head. I didn’t stop driving after my car was broadsided. I didn’t stop dancing after spraining my ankle or being dropped on a stage. My life isn’t safe, and I’m not sorry.
*Yes, I know. I should learn to back off and heal at some point before my body takes that choice from me. Yes, I am stubborn and thick headed sometimes. I’m sure none of my readers can relate.