[PLUG-TALK] More Guns

[Keith Lofstrom]

> "Keith" == Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> writes:
Keith> If Nichole Brown Simpson had been packing heat, we would merely
Keith> have to look in the coffin to determine whether her assailant
Keith> was O.J.  Simpson or some Mysterious Drug Dealer.  [...]

(KHL note of correction:  it is Nicole, not Nichole)

Russell Senior <seniorr at aracnet.com> writes:
> How do you figure?  My understanding was that she was grabbed from
> behind and her throat slit.  I didn't get the impression there was a
> lengthy discussion before hand.  I don't see where the gun, neatly
> tucked in her purse or perhaps her cleavage, could have substantially
> helped her out there.  Furthermore, had the murderer known that she
> was packing, they could have worked around that fact as well, either
> by increasing their stealth or by selection of weapon.  

Good question!  See http://www.corpus-delicti.com/simpson.html for
one reconstruction of the events of Sunday, June 12th, 1994 .  There
was significant time between when she was attacked (and left face
down on the sidewalk) and when her head was lifted by the hair and
her throat cut.   Plenty of time to remove a gun from a purse.  We
do not know what happened before the first stabbings; there might have
been time to perceive the assailant and the assailant's state of mind.
In any case, the throat cutting was a coup de grace, probably to keep
her from surviving to identify her assailant to police.


N.B.S. was indeed not armed.  She thought the police and the courts
would protect her from O.J.'s violent attacks.  Lethally wrong. 

I would be the first to agree that a gun alone was not the best answer.  
Getting the hell out of there with her kids would have been a better
answer.  However, see Hannah Nyala, "Point Last Seen:  A Woman's
Tracker Story" - sometimes the law aids a wealthy stalker.  Perhaps
the best answer would have involved getting professional protective
help - See Gavin De Becker, "The Gift of Fear".  But sometimes
finances preclude the security agent that goes along with the gun.

Owning a gun is a recognition that (1) the world can be a violent
place, and (2) the law is not there to protect you.  While a gun is
not always the best answer, it can be a concrete way to reinforce
an attitude of self-responsibility.  What is the most likely thing
a gun would have done for N.B.S.?  By purchasing it, she would be
acknowledging that she was in a potentially lethal situation, and
that she herself was in charge of protecting herself.  If she then
sought professional private help, along with training in other forms
of self-defense, she would have had a broader range of options.  And
if she trained herself and her children about guns, and took care to
see that it was locked up when it was not under her control, that 
would eliminate >90% of the risks that guns commonly pose to their
owners.

Her assailant was a coward.  Self assured, competent women are less
likely to be attacked by cowards.  The cowards move on to easier 
victims - they may be nuts, but they aren't stupid.  


> A gun is not a panacea.  The US military has plenty of guns in Iraq
> and are still getting steadily sent home in a rather inanimate
> configurations.

Nobody is claiming a gun is a panacea.  Explosives, mortars, and 
arial bombardment are necessary to have a complete panacea.  :-)

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom           keithl at ieee.org         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs