No woman should obtain a restraining order unless she believes it will help her circumstance no mater what police may say. The fact that so many of these murderers also commit suicide tells us something. It tells us that refusing to accept rejection is more important to them than life itself. By the time they reach this point are they really going to be deterred by a court order? A glib response is that the temporary restraining order can’t make things worse.

But here’s the rub. The restraining order does hurt by convincing the woman that she is safe. The bottom line is that there is really only one good reason to get a restraining order in the case of wife abuse. And that is that the woman believes the man will honor it and leave her alone.

If a victim or a professional in the system gets a restraining order to stop someone from committing murder they have probably applied the wrong strategy.

Gavin de Becker
The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence
[This is an excellent book. It was recommended to me by Rolf (and here). Ignore the few times Becker drops some anti-gun nonsense into it. With his personal history I almost give him a pass. Everyone I have convinced to read (or listen to) this book have told me it was awesome.

The last sentence it the money quote. If someone is not deterred by the penalties associated with murder you can be absolutely certain they will not be deterred by the penalties associated with the violation of a restraining order. The only method of prevention is to make it physically impossible to commit the murder. This gives us only three options to save the life of the innocent victim:

1. The perpetrator is incarcerated or executed prior to assault.
2. The intended victim cannot be found by the perpetrator.
3. Physical force is used to defend the innocent victim before the assault has caused permanent injury or death.

We do not have a Department of PreCrime so the first option is off the table.

The second option is extremely difficult, expensive, and requires a very challenging change in lifestyle if you have a smart and determined pursuer. The physical and emotional costs associated with this option may be out of the reach of many people.

The third option requires people with guns. If they cannot afford hiring others to protect them then they will have to protect themselves. There is no substitute for a gun. Embedding multiple jacketed hollow-points in an attacker is not a guarantee that a victim will escape injury, or even survive, but it does dramatically improve the odds.

No anti-gun person can sincerely claim they are concerned about the safety of women who are being pursued by people intent upon violence unless they value the safety of the attacker more than that of the intended victim. These people either have an extraordinarily warped and dysfunctional sense of morality and/or they are incapable of rational thought.—Joe]

Anti-Second Amendment advocates argue that because violent criminals have black market access to firearms, law abiding innocents should not. They argue that because rapists and murderers may illegally possess firearms the law abiding innocent women and men should not carry them. They don’t defend your Constitutionally protected choice and instead better enable the choice of criminal to make you a statistic.

They want to be able to have a choice as what to do after you’ve been raped. But want to restrict your choices of how to prevent your rape.

Dana Loesch
Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America
[I recently finished listening to this book and was quite impressed. Usually in a book of this type I find little new material and a significant number of errors. That was not true in this case. I seem to recall one minor error but I didn’t write it down and I don’t recall what it was now.

I addition to detailing her personal fights with anti-Second Amendment advocates, such as Piers Morgan and Shannon Watts, she articulated sound arguments and gave insightful analysis to both the principles and factual data regarding the right to keep and bear arms.

I have many more QOTDs in the queue from this great book. Thank you Ms. Loesch.—Joe]

the attempted commercial introduction of the Armatix has floundered so badly that it remains the sole example that Brady can cite as even approximating a “smart gun.”  Thus, were it to trigger the New Jersey law, the result would surely collide with the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.  There, the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to possess arms “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes.  Even the Brady Campaign cannot seriously argue that all handguns other than the iP1, an $1800, 10- shot pistol chambered in .22LR, are not commonly used for lawful purposes.

NRA-ILA
December 4, 2014
N.J. Attorney General Rejects Brady Campaign Bid to Trigger Handgun Ban
[Elaborating even further, it seems likely the entire NJ law will declared unconstitutional simply because it makes illegal those guns which are in common use.—Joe]

What it shows though is the power of setting the narrative, and that’s done in print on paper, even in these days of the Internet.

And The New York Times and their cronies control it and do it. Despite reality, despite the ludicrous absurdity of their claims about so-called assault weapons that can’t even be defined, they were able to twist the national civil-rights debate about guns into a knot for ten years, and then only fess up ten years later. Two decades lost to mythology — by “the paper of record.”

Alan Korwin
December 3, 2014
“The Assault-Weapon Myth” (NY Times Headline)
[It’s only by perpetuating the culture of deceit that they win.

It’s time to prosecute the perpetrators.—Joe]

While the NRA portrays itself as protecting the ‘freedom’ of individual gun owners, it’s actually working to protect the freedom of the gun industry to manufacture and sell virtually any weapon or accessory.

Josh Sugarmann
Executive director of the Violence Policy Center
December 1, 2014
Connecticut dodges answers on Sandy Hook school tragedy
[I find it very telling that ‘freedom’ is in quotes.

Sugarmann has no respect for, and perhaps does not even recognize the existence of, individual freedom. If he did then he would recognize that the freedom of individual gun owners is dependent upon there being a free market offering for sale the types of firearms the individual wants.

For example, would we have freedom of religion if the book publishing industry were only allowed to publish religious texts if they were consistent with Islam? Protecting the freedom of the gun industry to design, develop, and manufacture whatever gun or accessory there is a market for protects the specific enumerated right of the individual to keep and bear arms of his choosing. Sugarmann has clearly stated he does not want individuals owning handguns or “assault weapons.” This rhetoric is a means to that end.—Joe]

Ammunition is not protected under any stretch of any amendment.

samsingh
December 1, 2014
Comment to L.A. City Council tentatively approves new gun control measures
[This constitutional scholar has further study to do.—Joe]

The problem we have is not with death, so much as it is the violence, which is ironic since we seem to want to curb the very right and the very tool that protects us from said violence.

L.Bearer
January 20, 2013
Comment to Please Take Away My Right to a Gun
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]