Female Gun Rights Advocate's Outrageous Testimony

[doggie]

Not only does she think hordes of bad guys will attack a young woman with children so of course they need assault weapons to fight them off. but then she is against Violence Against Women Act because woman will make tons of false reports and hurt all the innocent men out there not beating their wives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/3 ... 83098.html

WASHINGTON -- Lawyer and gun rights activist Gayle Trotter gave vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee at a Wednesday hearing on gun violence. Trotter, a senior fellow at the conservative Independent Women's Forum, argued that a proposed ban on assault weapons would "disarm" vulnerable women and "put them at a severe disadvantage" in fights with multiple criminals.

Trotter painted a picture of mothers under siege in their homes, and when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) questioned the details of one example she offered, she told the lawmaker he didn't understand the issue. "You are a large man, tall man, a tall man," Trotter said to laughter from the audience.

[docmom]

I heard this on NPR last night. It made me so mad I actually turned off the radio and shouted profanely. Statistically (yeah, I know, work of the devil) it has been clearly shown (before the NRA persuaded congress to stop funding gun research) that a gun in your home is many more times more likely to be used by a member of your family to commit suicide or homicide than it is to repel intruders. And yet these idiots insist upon trotting out the "protect my family" clause every time!

[tanksmom]

Not only does she think hordes of bad guys will attack a young woman with children so of course they need assault weapons to fight them off. but then she is against Violence Against Women Act because woman will make tons of false reports and hurt all the innocent men out there not beating their wives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/3 ... 83098.html

WASHINGTON -- Lawyer and gun rights activist Gayle Trotter gave vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee at a Wednesday hearing on gun violence. Trotter, a senior fellow at the conservative Independent Women's Forum, argued that a proposed ban on assault weapons would "disarm" vulnerable women and "put them at a severe disadvantage" in fights with multiple criminals.

Trotter painted a picture of mothers under siege in their homes, and when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) questioned the details of one example she offered, she told the lawmaker he didn't understand the issue. "You are a large man, tall man, a tall man," Trotter said to laughter from the audience.

Sigh. For all the fundies that read here I'm going to give you a quick lesson in how they name a bill. Just because it is called the "Violence Against Women Act" does not mean that it only protects women at the risk of hurting the menz feelings. It protects someone who is at a disadvantage for any reason from being beaten/hurt/abused. That someone can be a woman, it can be an illegal immigrant, it can be a child. Politicians like to think up catchy names for bills so that people remember them.

Another 2 examples, Meghan's law allows me to go online to see if there are any registered sex offenders who live in my area. I am allowed to use it even though my name is not Meghan. If my child is kidnapped they will issue an Amber alert (originally named for Amber Hagerman) even if my child is not named Amber. See, easy to remember names do not limit the protection under the bills.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Sigh. For all the fundies that read here I'm going to give you a quick lesson in how they name a bill. Just because it is called the "Violence Against Women Act" does not mean that it only protects women at the risk of hurting the menz feelings. It protects someone who is at a disadvantage for any reason from being beaten/hurt/abused. That someone can be a woman, it can be an illegal immigrant, it can be a child.

yeah thats why they dont like it :/

[formergothardite]

yeah thats why they dont like it :/

Exactly. They really don't care about women, children and illegal immigrants are especially not cared for.

[JenniferJuniper]

Lawrence O'Donnell ripped her to shreds when she idiotically agreed to go on his show last night.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/hea ... cate-trott

[Dark Matters]

Trotter seems to assume that a mother with an assault rifle will have the training and experience to focus on protecting her children while being able to ignore their crying and the chaos around her. Waving a big gun around doesn't equal knowing how to use it properly and being calm and focused enough to do so.

If there's five attackers, per her example, I think what's more likely is mom and kids end up dead (or gravely injured) and the attackers end up with a shiny new gun.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I thought it was interesting that NPR also ran this story: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170456129 ... g-a-gunman

In short, a concealed carrier is there at a mass shooting, does a "drop it or I'll shoot back" at the gunman, and gets shot for his trouble - he's now paralyzed.

So there's a remark in there, that I suppose the thing to do would be to shoot first and not give a warning. However, the shooter wasn't actively engaging anymore at the time this guy confronted him, so if he had done that, it's likely it would not be actual self-defense by then. But giving a warning, well, the other guy already is ready to shoot (gun out but more importantly, psychologically already obviously willing to go for it), so, he does.

Point being I think a lot of the "oh someone should just shoot back" gets oversimplified in the extreme. In cases where the shooter IS still going at it, yeah, go ahead and try to shoot him I guess and if everything goes perfectly you might lessen the future body count, but the people who seem to have an idea that carrying can prevent ALL the casualties usually never seem to be considering that the guy who starts the shooting has the element of surprise. He's gotten the drop on you before you get your chance to think "so should I shoot back or not?" In some giant crowd where you're not noticed maybe it's one thing (and you can pick the guy off from the side of the room like in so many Internet Tough Guy scenarios) but also if the victim is only you or you and your kids/few friends, if you go rooting for your purse, someone who's already shooting at you or your friends/kids isn't going to hesitate to just shoot you, is he?

Just some random thoughts, I guess. Not so much on the philosophy of anything but just thinking timing in some actual confrontation. For people not trained in combat and walking around already thinking they're IN combat (say, army troops actually on a patrol) the whole "oh, time to shoot, do I really want to shoot, I am willing to kill these people?" takes some non-zero amount of time, y'know?

[doggie]

If there is a horde of bad guys breaking into this Christians law abiding house there is a very good chance there is something not so law abiding going on in that house.

Nothing like a 3 year old planning with that loaded assault rifle to make life interesting.

[klavierspieler]

Jon Stewart did an hilarious sketch on this woman tonight on The Daily Show. It's not up on the web yet, but Jon also pointed out that though she was arguing that women should be allowed assault weapons for self defense, in the anecdote she told of the mother defending her children from intruders the mother used a shotgun, which would remain legal under the proposed legislation. When one of the senators pointed that out and asked for clarification, she claimed she "didn't remember" what kind of gun the woman used. :? What the hell was the point of bringing it up then?

Also, in the article, it mentions that she thinks women have "more peace of mind" and "more courage" if they have a "scary looking gun." There are realistic and scary looking paintball guns out there, if all that's needed is for the gun to look "scary" let's just issue everyone a paintball gun and be done with it. :roll:

[YPestis]

This is a bit off topic, but I'm sick and tired of the gun lobby that so arrogantly taunt everyone with their clout. Their prez is constantly in the news bragging about how this or that won't get passed because they have such an extensive network of lobbyists. I rarely feel indignant about a special interest group anymore, but their hubris astounds me.

Every article about gun control seem to point out how out funded the gun control people are against the NRA. It seems the NRA has learned tricks from the tobacco lobbyists and then some. That's why I have started to avoid the gun control issue altogether. No matter how ridiculous the NRA claims are, no matter how much Jon Stewart makes fun of them, or Anderson Cooper tries to find common ground regarding gun control, it seems like a futile battle. I think the above npr article shows how stupid the idea that tossing people more guns will make people safer, because tossing more weapons into a situation always made the world safer, right?

[doggie]

I am sick of the gun lobbyists because they profit so much from mass shootings.