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Comment rescue: If Melanie Hain "deserved it" for carrying a gun, then rape victims are "asking for it" by wearing short skirts

Wow. Aside from the asshole [the grammar suggests that there was really only one of you] who has been celebrating Melanie Hain's death in the comment section of my previous post, there was this by Kim B.--which is clearly superior to anything I wrote, and which captures part of what I was trying to say quite nicely:

it's unfortunate that Melanie Hain's death is even being connected to the soccer game incident when the two are unrelated. She was the victim of domestic violence. Period. This is not an issue of gun control - her husband would have had access to weapons no matter what condition the second amendment was in - this is an issue of domestic abuse. Saying that she "deserved" to be shot by her husband in her own home while she was unarmed and unawares is something akin to saying that rape victims are "asking for it." One in three or four women in our country experience domestic abuse in their lifetime; justifying Ms. Hain's very tragic death in any way just perpetuates what is already a massive problem in the United States. If she thought the system were protecting her (and her children) from abuse, she may not have felt the need to carry a weapon.

I've been there. After I left an abusive situation, I found out the hard way that there is very little the law can do to protect you from further abuse after you get yourself out- I spotted the aforementioned ex-boyfriend letting himself into my house after breaking the lock. He'd been planning to wait for me to come home alone. The only thing that stopped the harassment in my case was very openly carrying a taser. I'm not condoning it, but I am saying that I wished we lived in a society where women do not feel like they have to arm themselves as a last resort.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Oh how wrong. This has everything to do with Melanie as pistol packing mama. To call this domestic violence (which of course it is) but not understand that violence uses weapons at its disposal is to be a partner in future crimes. Anger comes and goes. Of course he could have killed her some other way, but when the passion is high, and a gun is near, death is the outcome. If he had to look for another weapon, time would have been on her side. If he used his hands, she would have had a better chance.

But when you have a gun, you use it. There is no other conclusion to come to as to why, in homes with guns, people die more often from guns.

Of course her death is tragic. But do not make the fatal error of logic that this is only dv. These people solve problems with guns. This is called stupid. And dead.
Nancy Willing said…
Good comment anony.

The philly paper has an account of the murder-suicide today and it indicates that Melanie's weapon was loaded and nearby in a backpack. Both of these parents were legal gun carriers without a history of violence.

But the NYT had a story recently on a Bloomberg gun show sting operation where undercover "buyers" openly said that they couldn't pass the legal background check. The guns were sold to them anyway time after time.
Anonymous said…
"A man who thought there was an intruder in his house shot and killed his fiancee the day before they were to be married, police said Friday."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091010/ap_on_re_us/us_fiancee_shot

Hip Hip Hooray for guns!

anonone
Nancy Willing said…
I just read you post below and have a comment about this sentence ~

"What's unfortunate, as Liberalgeek cautioned, is that the story is much more complicated and much more tragic than early reports would have indicated."

I followed these links and do not find anything that leads to evidence that five years ago, when she was in the news as the gun-toting soccer mom, she and her husband had domestic issues which forced her to take up arms. It just isn't there.

I don't necessarily buy it. Now, five years later she decides to end her marriage. Would she have lasted those five years if the levels of abuse suggested were in fact a part of their daily life? I wonder. No doubt no one will be able to say either way.

Her mom is cited in today's philly.com article without reference to particular violence on Scott's part.

I took Melanie to be a 'rugged individualist type' who like her lifestyle and wore her gun as an overt part of that expression of self not as some cowering "fearing for her life and living with it for a decade" situation.
Hube said…
LOL. You schnooks haven't refuted Kim's point one iota -- that this is akin to "asking for it" when a woman is raped.

Disgusting.
A1: of course people kill people with guns, and sometimes tragically. But let's hold a rational debate on comparative advantage, not trade anecdotes. I can match every single instance you bring up with at least two cases from the same week wherein people saved their own lives or those of their children through judicious use of firearms. Neither anecdotal case does anything to prove anything other than one of us (both of us!) is not above scoring cheap debate points.

Nancy--(1) the Hain story was not five years ago, it was last year; (2) your assertion that because those stories did not mention spouse abuse suggests it was not there are ... at best torturous and at worst a denial of reality. Why would Ms. Hain have ever mentioned that in any context. Read comments from people who have known her and you will see that--like most spousal abuse--it was an open secret in her home town. You can do better than that.

And--as was pointed out in the post--Melanie's husband would have had a gun in the house no matter what gun control laws read.

My own speculation revolves around whether the sheriff who attempted to revoke Melanie's LTC knew her husband or not. That would make an interesting wrinkle.
Anonymous said…
OK, Steve, bring it on:

"In 1998, for every time a woman used a handgun to kill a stranger in self-defense, 302 woman were murdered with a handgun."

http://www.vpc.org/studies/myth.htm

"A 1997 study found that having one or more guns in the home made a woman 3.4 times more likely to be the victim of a homicide. Additionally, when looking at whether a woman would be killed at the hands of a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or close relative, the authors found having one or more guns in the home made a woman 7.2 times more likely to be the victim of such a homicide. "

http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/womenfs.htm

"In 2000, for every one time a woman used a handgun to kill a stranger in self-defense, 222 women were murdered in handgun homicides."

http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/womenfs.htm


All the national crime statistics show that a gun in the home is hundreds of times more likely to injure or kill someone in the home than to be used in self-defense. This is consistently born out year-after-year by national crime statistics.

The statistics show that you can't "match every single instance you bring up with at least two cases from the same week wherein people saved their own lives or those of their children through judicious use of firearms."

And we're not even touching on kids killed by guns in the home.


anonone
Nancy Willing said…
Hube - the Glenn Beck of Delaware. A desparate noise-maker at best. A despicable attention-seeker whose life filter is that of pure hatred at worse. I am certainly not buying into 'she deserved it' shit others may be serving up.

Steve - you are right, I had thought it was an older story. I haven't read much about it.

There's no way to know whether she had armed herself to play chicken with her husband as to stay on some kind of even-footing but I can't imagine how arming one's self for self defense because one's spouse 'carries' as his job description is any way to live.

If she suspected that he was likely to use that gun on his family, she wouldn't have stayed there in his house with her kids.

You are right to wonder whether there is a link between the law enforcement employees. It should be investigated.
Nancy Willing said…
This Philly article is enlightening FWIW

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20091008_Glock-toting_soccer_mom_shot_dead.html


Meleanie Hain and her gun-toting ways came to national attention last year, when she filed a federal lawsuit against Lebanon County and Sheriff Mike DeLeo for revoking her gun permit.

He did so after parents complained about her wearing the Glock at her 5-year-old daughter's Sept. 11, 2008, game.

The suit sought more than $1 million for violating her civil and constitutional rights. A hearing in the case was postponed in May.

Because of sheriff's comments, "people think I'm still an idiot," said Hain - a vegetarian and self-styled Krishna "pseudo-devotee" - about the suit last year.

DeLeo, an NRA member, said he revoked the permit out of concern for the safety of children.

Nevertheless, a judge reluctantly restored her permit last October.

Her husband, who works in law enforcement and taught her to shoot, was avoiding the publicity last year, out of fear of losing his job, Meleanie Hain told the Inquirer in December.
Mike W. said…
As usual the anti-gunners in comments are flat out wrong.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2009/10/meleanie_hain.html

Scott Hain shot Meleanie with HIS gun. He was a Law Enforcement Officer in PA, and since they said the 9mm he used to kill her was "registered" to him I'm betting it was the gun he carried on duty.

There is no such thing as a "registered" gun for civilians.

BTW, since he was an LEO most of the gun control laws you folks clamor for wouldn't have applied to him anyway. Are you folks going to push for disarming cops now?

The fact is even in the greatest gun control utopia some of you folks yearn for Scott Hain STILL would have had a gun.

Anon - Using the VPC as a source? You're kidding right? Come back when you have actual facts.

Steve - Do you really think Anonone is capable of having a rational discussion on this topic?

If she suspected that he was likely to use that gun on his family, she wouldn't have stayed there in his house with her kids

Nancy, you and I both know that domestic violence victims often don't remove themselves from the relationship even though doing so is in their best interests.

You folks blaming her for being a domestic abuse victim are despicable beyond words. You disgust me.
Anonymous said…
Just want to weigh in on the Krishna angle. I'm a twenty-year Krishna devotee, female, and pro-gun. I don't understand why the press needed to add the Krishna angle to the story. Due to the fact that we're not a mainstream faith (yet), we may attract more wacky people than other churches, but that has no bearing on the situation being discussed. Krishna devotees' views on gun ownership reflect the general populations, or if anything, we're more anti-gun as a group. That said, if she wore the gun exposed to a children's soccer game, I think she's an irresponsible nut and as a parent I'd have her flayed for scaring little children.
Anonymous said…
To those of you out there who seem to think they know this story, I'd like to tell you how wrong you are. Its funny how people who did not know anything about what went on in this home are spinning stories. Stop making assumptions that Scott EVER laid a hand on Melanie before this unfortunate and final decision. Please go check with the city of Lebanon and you will find no neighbors ever heard a single raised voice, no ploice presence ever at the home and NO PFAs or any other protection orders. The facts are that many very dark issues swelled in this home...none of which where any prior domestic abuse what so ever by Scott towards Melanie. One day soon the truth is going to come out, I personally will make sure of this.
tailcoat said…
Thanks for entertaining me,I really enjoy reading it.

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