The Ultimate Women's Issue

 Mike McDaniel has a message for women: get a gun, get training, and carry that gun everywhere.  It is the ultimate women's issue. But before coming to that conclusion, he discusses Less-lethal weapons and the ultimate women's issue. He discusses the disadvantages of less-lethal weapons for women especially in fighting against a male attacker.

What, then, should men, and particularly women, carry to save their lives if the worst happens? Obviously, concealed handguns are the best choice. A great many manufacturers make many models in serious calibers that not only conceal well, but shoot well. I can’t say it often enough: preserving the Second Amendment is the ultimate women’s issue.

However, the women’s press is full of articles about less than lethal weapons, usually depicting them as devices that will stop an elephant in its tracks, and are infallible at saving lives. The Lamestream Media usually leaves the topic alone, not wanting to give anyone any ideas, on the general theory lesser weapons are gateway drugs to guns. Either way, they’re producing bad, and potentially deadly, advice.

I’ll deal only with two less-lethal weapons: pepper sprays and knives.

I believe that everyone should carry a knife...as a tool for cutting things. At a minimum, everyone, male and female should carry a pocket, or purse knife. Whether it is slicing open boxes, cutting a rope, or any of a thousand other things needing cutting, a good, sharp pocket knife is an essential. I also carry what is known as a rescue knife that has a window breaker and a seat belt cutter. One never knows what the future holds, and besides, it also has a blade which may be useful for cutting things.

What a knife is not is a weapon unless one has had extensive training. Even so, one doesn't want to come into contact with an attacker if at all possible to stop him at a distance. And a gun is a stand-off weapon. It allows the possibility of stopping the attack before the attacker has a chance to do damage to the victim's person.

Then there's:

Pepper Spray: It’s marketed in containers of various colors and sizes, with or without hand straps. It comes in three primary types: sprays that produce a reasonably tight, liquid stream, sprays that produce a sort of fog, and sprays that produce a sticky, gel-like stream. I can count on one hand the number of times I used the stuff during my police career.

It’s designed to irritate the eyes, throat and lungs, producing a burning sensation on the skin. It does this reasonably well. The problem is not everyone is affected. Police officers tend not to use it, particularly indoors, because when they do everyone gets dosed, and the cops and crooks end up coughing, snorting, their noses running and eyes burning, but still have to wrestle it out. Many people are so drugged or drunk they barely notice the pepper spray. Some people just get really mad and determined to hurt the person that sprayed them. It causes relatively few to suddenly become cooperative, but sometimes the threat of being sprayed does. That’s a very slim possibility on which to bet one’s life. Another problem is wind and precipitation greatly hamper effective employment. It has to be aimed, and from close range, and digging it out of pocket or purse is slow and clumsy.

Getting into grappling range of someone who wants to beat, rape or kill you is, for obvious reasons, to be avoided. That’s one of the primary advantages of firearms; they’re distance weapons.

...snap...

The best possible defensive tactic is the Pythonesque King Arthur option: run away, run away! If that’s not possible, the next best option is a handgun which one carries every day, and with which one is intimately familiar and confident. It really is the ultimate women’s issue.