LTE: Carrying a weapon helps lower crime rate

May 1, 2005
Marion Star

Dear Editor:

Re: "'The gun demands respect,'" April 4:

I'm curious - what made Ms. Daley chose Mr. White out of the 299 people who have received licenses up to the end of last year? Would readers have been more interested, perhaps, in a woman protecting herself from an abusive former husband or a newspaper or pizza carrier who works in a job with risks rivaling that of law enforcement officers?

Also, I can't help but consider her gender as I read of her puzzlement about why CCW became law in Ohio.

Did Daley know that raw data from the Justice Department's annual National Crime Victim Survey show that when a woman resists a "stranger rape" with a gun, the probability of completion was 0.1 percent and of victim injury 0.1 percent, compared to 31 percent and 40 percent respectively, for all stranger rapes? For all rapes, woman who resisted with a gun were 2.5 times more likely to escape without injury than those who did not resist, and 4 times more likely to escape uninjured than those who resisted with any means other than a gun. (Southwick, Journal of Criminal Justice, 2000)

Did Daley know that not all women must choose to carry a concealed firearm to benefit from the reformation of Ohio's self-defense laws?

In 1966 the police in Orlando, Florida, responded to a rape epidemic by embarking on a highly publicized program to train 2,500 women in firearm use. The next year rape fell by 88 percent in Orlando (the only major city to experience a decrease that year); burglary fell by 25 percent. Not one of the 2,500 women actually ended up firing her weapon; the deterrent effect of the publicity sufficed. (Congressional Record, 90th Cong., 2d sess., January 30, 1968, p. 1496, n. 7) Five years later Orlando's rape rate was still 13 percent below the pre-program level, whereas the surrounding standard metropolitan area had suffered a 308 percent increase.

Did Daley know that there exists an organization that can help her find these sorts of facts before writing a story? Heck, we could even have found her a woman who has been raped, and who carries to make sure it never happens again so that she could have interviewed her.

There are many reasons for which we lobbied for and Ohio legislators passed House Bill 12. She may not realize it, but one of them is Jillian Daley.

Chad D. Baus
Northwest Ohio Coordinator and Spokesperson
Ohioans For Concealed Carry