Monday, July 16, 2007

Compare and Contrast

Story #1 in this latest "Compare and Contrast" takes place in Revere, Massachusetts, the state with the "most effective gun laws in the nation", or so the commoners are supposed to believe, and gives us yet another variation on the First Rule of Gunfighting (Rule #1: Bring a gun).

Rule #1 (v. 16.3): Don't bring a wiffle bat to a rottweiler fight.

Neighbors used a rake, broom, and plastic bats to beat a rottweiler that was biting and dragging a woman it had attacked as she was walking to work yesterday, according to Revere police.

A police officer working at a detail ended the attack; he shot the dog twice, killing it.


What? A handgun proved to be immeasurably more effective at saving the woman's life than all the aforementioned household objects combined? Who could have guessed?

Joe Talluto, who resides next door to the house where the dogs were kept, said he heard the commotion through his kitchen window. He ran outside with two plastic bats to try to scare the dogs away, he said.

When he got outside , he said, he saw one of the dogs had the woman "on the ground, pretty much chewing on her arm." She had fled from the sidewalk to a backyard, where she was trying to defend herself with her purse.


Story #2 (previously posted here) comes to us from sunny Florida, a state that recognizes the right to self defense for all its law-abiding residents, regardless of socio-economic status or history of big money campaign contributions.

DELTONA -- Memories of an Easter Sunday pit bull attack four years ago came rushing back to Christine Bruce on Monday night as a pit bull charged toward her while she was jogging with her dogs.

Unlike four years ago, this time she was ready.

She pulled out her .38-caliber handgun and fired a shot at the charging pit bull as she was screaming at it to stop, she said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

The attack four years ago -- a pit bull ripped open part of a body cast on her right arm while she was recovering from spinal surgery -- prompted Bruce to start carrying the gun for self-defense, she said.


In Florida, and in most of the United States of America, women have the right to choose whether they want to use a handgun or a purse with which to defend themselves from animal attacks.

In many communities in Massachusetts, a woman's "right to choose" has been narrowed down for her, through the sheer benevolence and grace of her mayor or police chief, to which particular purse she wants to use.

It's more "progressive", and fewer cute, fluffy puppies are harmed or killed, that way.