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Bang / Guns Title: For womb the bell tolls For womb the bell tolls THE LAST TIME liberal women got the idea to use their wombs as an argument for gun control, Representatives Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., and Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., were uttering such prattle as "women find they have a maternal instinct" for gun control. A reporter for The New York Times observed at the time that the congresswomen "seem(ed) to miss the irony that the same political party that claimed ownership of the position that women could be more than mothers is, in this instance, casting them primarily in that role." The Million Mom March (which infected the nation's capital on Sunday) was poised to set women's workplace gains back about 100 years. (The Moms' Web page adorably notes that the time for planning this event was nine months -- and "(a)s a mother, I know what can be created in this amount of time.") I'm all for motherhood, but as Bill Maher, host of "Politically Incorrect," is forever pointing out, it's not that hard to become a parent. (In fact, it is because having children can be accomplished by the weak-minded and incompetent that Maher is constantly lobbying for a licensing requirement for parenthood.) But somehow, merely the status of being a "mom" is supposed to trump facts and linear thinking. That was the theme of the Million Mom March: I don't need a brain -- I've got a womb. The Moms' Web page idiotically explains: "While we acknowledge that guns may be necessary for hunting, law enforcement and national security, the proliferation of firearms intended for one purpose only -- killing another human being -- has become untenable." It's sporting of them to allow the military and cops to have guns and all, but -- how does one put this? -- the reason the military and police have guns is precisely because their guns are intended for "killing another human being." That's why cops and soldiers carry guns, rather than, say, daisies. (And just for the record, a gun that can kill a deer can surely kill a human, too.) The fact that guns can kill another human being is the whole point. That's why they're so darn good at deterring violent criminals. By analyzing 18 years of data for more than 3,000 counties, the inestimable professor John Lott found that violent crime drops significantly when citizens are permitted to carry concealed guns. The greatest beneficiaries of concealed carry laws -- whether they personally choose to carry -- are women and the elderlyEconomist David Friedman explained the economic theory supporting the statistics in his book "Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life." (Of course, Friedman is not a "mom," only an economist, so take his crazy linear thinking with a grain of salt.) Friedman begins by accepting the hysterical, counterfactual claims of the anti-gun crowd that 90 percent of the time criminals will wrest guns from law-abiding citizens (which, for the record, is false). "Suppose," he says, "one little old lady in 10 carries a gun. Suppose that one in 10 of those, if attacked by a mugger, succeeds in killing the mugger instead of being killed by him -- or shooting herself in the foot." Even though the mugger will come out better on average than the little old lady, Friedman notes that "also on average, every hundred muggings produce one dead mugger." Mugging becomes an unprofitable profession because "not many little old ladies carry enough money to justify one chance in a hundred of being killed." Thus, even on implausible anti-gun assumptions, muggings will decline because muggers will have "rationally sought safer professions." Indeed, without a gun, crime victims may as well take the advice of Peter Shields, former head of Handgun Control Inc., who recommends that women faced with a rapist or robber "give them what they want." Maybe it's my womb talking, but I'm tempted to say, I don't care what the statistics are; I'm not sitting back and taking it. As luck would have it, the statistics do not support passivity in the face of a criminal assault. As John Lott has pointed out, studies purporting to show that women are more likely to be injured in a crime if they resist do so only by lumping all forms of "resistance" together, from bare-knuckled fighting to brandishing a gun. The most dangerous action a woman can take when faced with a criminal is to resist with her fists: That tends to annoy violent criminals, and the woman will very likely be seriously injured. But a woman who takes the advice of Handgun Control Inc. and passively submits is 2.5 times more likely to be injured than a woman who resists with a gun. So if you don't want to lie back and enjoy it, get a gun. Otherwise you may never become a mom.
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