Single women and guns on TV

The TV show "Human Target" is a fun show to watch. Christopher Chance (Mark Valley) is an expert at self defense and his job is to protect people from life threatening situations. This episode is about the case that moved Chance from being an assassin to his current job of protecting people. In this case, he has decided to protect a witness named Katherine Walters (Amy Acker). The following exchange takes place at about the 12:50 mark.

Christopher Chance: [Hands Katherine Walters a gun.] Now you don't have to take this. I am just saying . . .

Katherine Walters: [Pulls back the slide and turns off the safety on the gun.]

Chance: Apparently you know what you are doing

Katherine Walters: I'm single and I live downtown.

Chance: [Nods his head approvingly.]

It is nice to see a show accurately acknowledge what women benefit the most from owning a gun. My own research shows that women benefit much more from owning guns than men do.

The reason is actually pretty simple. The vast majority of violent crimes are committed by men and when a man attacks a woman there is a much bigger differential in strength on average than when a man attacks a man. The presence of a gun represents a much bigger change in a woman's ability to resist an attack than it does for a man. Knives and baseball bats are particularly problematic, because women have to get very close to their attackers to use them, and male criminals tend to be much stronger physically than their female victims. When it comes to physical contact, women generally lose those fights. It turns out that pepper spray may not do you a lot of good when it is raining or snowing. A woman is just as likely to disable herself as the attacker when it's windy or when using the spray indoors.

The advantage of a gun is that it is ideal for keeping the criminal far away from the victim. And the victim isn't responsible for restraining the criminal, as police officers are when arresting suspects. A woman simply wants to keep the criminal away from her. In More Guns, Less Crime, I find that for each additional woman carrying a concealed handgun the drop in the murder rate for women by about 3–4 times more than one additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.

Only one of the Human Target episodes seems to have strayed into liberal dogma. That episode had an obligatory bashing of private health care when the final vote on the government health care bill was about to take place in the House.