Women shouldn't have to choose between safety, mobility
Women today flex their power and freedom as never before -- in the workplace, in leadership positions, in the presidential race. So it's jolting when a serial rapist terrorizes a neighborhood.A serial rapist is among the lowest of the low. What these goblins take can never be returned or restored. A predator with sufficient strength and skill to overpower women, and a total disregard to the lives he ruins. It is not a very large step from serial rapist, to murderer.
Despite hard-fought battles for equality, this basic truth does not budge: The female half of the city's population is far more vulnerable to sexual assault; they are the ones whose freedoms are strangled.
When a string of attacks occurs, such as the five in Lincoln Park and Lake View in recent weeks and another on the South Side, this personal safety issue clouds the quality of life in an area. It becomes more than a crime story. It becomes a life lesson that we are compelled to repeat, to our daughters, sisters, female friends, mothers and grandmothers.Mayor Daley would leave the women of Chicago defenseless against the goblins, easy prey for those who enjoy taking by force what they will never be offered.
We implore them: Travel in groups in well-lit areas, carry your keys in your hands, lock your car doors, look alert, cross the street if someone sets off your radar. And if someone attacks, kick and fight and scream at the top of your lungs. It is far better to scare someone safe than to comfort them in a hospital emergency room. It is a brutal crime with lifelong implications for victims -- about 1,500 a year in Chicago -- and their loved ones.
So, what are the good public servants of Chicago doing to help women defend themselves?
This week, two North Side aldermen organized free self-defense classes and handed out pocket-sized pepper spray and safety tips to 1,500 women. That's empowering.No! Handing out pepper spray in not empowering. To properly empower women against goblins, you need to give them the tools and skills that allow them to meet force with superior force. Pepper spray just pisses goblins off. At the very best, the goblin runs away to rape again another day. Worst case, he rapes and kills the woman. The most efficient rape prevention tool available to women is a firearm.
2 comments:
works for me!
Years of Tammany Hall politics have resulted in these egotistical scabs who fancy themselves royalty, with their let-them-eat-pie-crust attitudes.
Chicago is not a kingdom, it's a costly failed social experiment that is exporting crime to the whole region, and attempting to force broken government on the surrounding counties.
The only way out of this mess is for the state to assert itself. No one could argue that there is even the most minute shred of anything that resembles equality with Chicago's policy, law and attitudes toward self-defense with weapons.
I recommended that the state assert the codified liberties in Article 1, Section 22 of the Illinois Constitution, and begin investigating uses of taxpayer funds to infringe on the citizens' right to keep and bear arms, where those citizens are not engaged in criminal enterprise. (You have to allow for rampant revolving-door justice.) The general assembly should also bar public officials from using public funds to pay for miniature personal armies, and require these public officials and their miniature private armies to meet the same qualifications and be barred from weapons possession for the same reasons as are Chicagoans.
Furthermore, a study should be commissioned by a group outside the administration's influence, one chosen by the general assembly, to determine the requirements and the median wait time for average residents to obtain weapons and permission for carry. An IA investigation should be conducted by an uninvolved office should any in the Chicago administration obtain weapons and licensing shorter than the median wait time for the general population.
In fact, Daly should be barred entirely from having even a private miniature army while holding office; he should depend on the same public servants as does the rest of the populace.
Honestly, there is no reasonable case for "need". The mayor is an expendable public servant, as indicated by the four year term duration and the meager salary. Though someone who collects that salary for four years can afford to move to the suburbs afterward. An average city resident is exposed to much more risk, and likely will not be able to escape it as easily.
However, I'd like to note that without Daly's outspokenness, the city aldermen would probably have already formed Foie Gras Swat Teams to dispatch French chefs with extreme prejudice.
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