In the passage “A Peaceful Woman Explains Why She Carries a Gun,’’ the author explains why she decided to start carrying a gun. The author states that she carries a gun for protection. I believe that everyone has a right to bear arms in the right cases such as: self-defense or when another person is in danger and the option to “get help” from law enforcement has been decreased. In saying this I agree with her decision to carry a gun. According to the 2008 National Crime Victimization Survey, “more than 200,000 women reported being sexually assaulted and that only one in six sexual assaults were reported to the police.” As a result, women have higher rates of being attacked and sexually assaulted thus requiring the increased …show more content…
For example, she first talked about her experience while on a camping trip with another woman for several weeks. Their closest neighbors were two-young-men who discussed what they would do to her and the other woman past dark. She stated that nearby campers, families, and even rangers were not concerned by what these men were saying. Another time she encountered a problem was the time a car followed her and four men jumped out the car. She tried to get away by going forward to knock their car aside, but then another car came behind her and the men jumped back in their car and followed her until she lost them. After that along with countless other close calls, the author realized that she needed to learn self-defense. Her first step was taking -- Kung Fu lessons. In order to use Kung Fu effectively, she would need to practice every-day and get close enough to the attacker for Kung Fu to actually work. She soon let go of the thought of Kung Fu when she realized that even women who were good at Kung Fu could and were still getting raped and beaten because of their size compared to men. This realization led her to get a gun license to start carrying a …show more content…
She came across a group of men who had their vehicle parked midway down the road and bottles on the ground. When the men quickly noticed her looking at them, all four surrounded her small car and asked what she wanted. She responded by saying -- “This land is private I’d appreciate it if you’d pick up the cans.” They ignored her and tried to open her car door, while others rocked the car and thumped her hood. She asked them politely again to pick up their beer cans and again she was ignored. In response, Hasslestroms points at the beer cans with her pistol and the men pick up the cans and left quickly. Her decision to show her pistol changed the balance of power because the gun made them feel both afraid and weak (although it was four of them and one of