“A Gun Person in an Academic World”
By: Glenn E. Meyer, PhD
Note: The author was born in New York City
and is full professor in the Psychology Department at Trinity
University in San Antonio, Texas. He received his doctorate in 1975
and has written numerous professional articles and books in the
areas of visual perception, cognition and statistics. He recently
has been studying the influence of weapons type used in defensive
gun usages on simulated jury decisions. A convert to the world of
defensive firearms, he has been an NTI practitioner & has studied
with several well known trainers.
I consider myself a touch of a rare breed in a couple of ways. I am
a gun activist and supporter of the Second Amendment and am vocal
about in a liberal arts college environment. Second, I’m not a dyed
in the wool conservative. As a colleague put it: “You’re a strange
breed of cat”. I am rather well-known for being a 2nd advocate and
confuse folks who think I am necessarily right wing. Certainly, not
as bloody internet battles attest to. One department member, in
fact, defended me in a conversation she related. This causes
confusion but leads to more credibility of my support of the 2nd. I
get asked by clearly left leaning faculty about guns and several
want to go to range and learn about guns. I am also clearly much
more tactically trained than my most of my conservative gun buddies
and the typical CHL. I’m the one that shoots IDPA while they punch
paper sedately.
How did this journey start? I grew up in New York City. Personal
firearms ownership was very difficult and I cannot think of knowing
anyone in my immediate circle that owned a firearm. There was Uncle
Jack who did go shoot pheasants and had a shotgun. I did spit out
little lead pellets at his house when we ate his kill but that
wasn’t really being a gun guy. My uncles did serve in the military.
One was lucky enough to be a pilot at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 and
another was one of the GIs surrounded at the Battle of the Bulge but
they evidenced no interest in guns later in life. Nor did my
cousins. I did really like toy guns and shooting a pump 22S on the
boardwalk but that’s it.
I can’t say that we had the conceptualization of the 2nd Amendment
as really being important. Perhaps it was an anachronism like the
3rd Amendment. Defending yourself against others was for fists. My
dad boxed. I took a dilettante’s interest in Judo. I’ve thought
about this a bit. Given the experience of the Holocaust, why weren’t
we interested in personal defense? It is a cliché in the gun world
to assume Jews should be ardent 2nd Amendment advocates. Several
factors are in play. First, most of us didn’t come from a gun
culture. When you don’t have a hammer or never used a hammer, then
you don’t even know what a nail is. It didn’t enter our minds. As I
said before, guns were tools of the government and we certainly knew
that governments may not be our friend and why emulate criminals?
It, on the surface, would seem that if we removed guns from
criminals we would be safer. Getting our own guns – why? It seemed
reasonable that the protection of a democratic (small D) state would
protect our rights more than gun ownership. Civil rights legislation
and lobbying got us some protection of our rights to employment and
entry to education. My mother had to use a false name to get a job
as her “Jewish” sounding name would have led to her being fired or
not hired. Certainly, the 2nd Amendment didn’t seem a solution to
this kind of discrimination. Legislation and social action seemed
to work. When crime got bad, we moved to the suburbs.
My views on the matter changed dramatically as I aged. After
graduate school and a post-doc, I moved to Portland, Oregon. Gun
ownership was much easier but one needs a seminal incident to induce
a personal paradigm shift. There were several. First, a student
called me at home to tell me that because of a grade I had given
him, he was going to kill himself on my front lawn (he had a drug
problem which led to bad performance). Seemed reasonable that
someone killing himself might take a whack at me and family. Of
course, I called the cops and the school. So SWAT teams and
bodyguards rushed to my place – NOT! The law said: “Well, when he
shows up – call us!” Might they increase drive-by frequency on our
street that night? Uh – no! The school – fill out a form – Monday.
This is not cool. So we get out the tennis racket and ski poles to
fight our lives. Nothing happened, though and the kid dropped out.
A second nasty incident also was formative. In between marriages
(sigh), I was invited by a young lady to go to a Yo-Yo Ma concert.
He is a dude that plays the cello, very exciting and quite the
intellectual event (Yeah Right, but a date is a date). At that
point in time, the Portland area was home to some virulent Aryan
nation types. They had been trained by some California neo-Nazis to
pull up to a minority, shout racial epithets and if the person
responded, to jump out and beat them. They would claim mutual combat
as a defense as the person gave them the finger back. An Ethiopian
immigrant was killed in this manner, leading to sentences and a
successful major lawsuit against these organizations. So, going from
the parking ramp, to the concert – up pulls a car of these guys –
they yell at me – Hey, Are You a Jew! Tactical Response – say no and
run for the theater. Works OK but, you sure feel helpless.
Third, a good friend of mine was a professor of Eastern Asian
history. Two things happened to him. First, his wife’s ex-husband
did the psycho act. Second, he invited a controversial (leftist)
speaker to campus. This was related to the Viet Nam war and led to
some pretty frightening vandalism and death threats from what were
annoyed ‘operators’ of that era. My buddy was a pretty good martial
artist, big, Harley riding, scary looking, knife guy, etc. He
decided it was time to buy a gun. He got a SW 640 – the stainless 38
SPL snubbie as a concealed option. He learned how to shoot it and
practiced at a local range which was pretty upscale. Unlike Texas
ranges I shoot at now where a cease fire is called for goats on the
range and you have to step over fire ant hills, Portland ranges have
coffee bars. We talked and I decided that it was time to be a touch
more proactive in taking care of myself. So I tried it and I was
hooked. Being a ‘scholar’, it seemed to me that one should study and
I signed up for the NRA Personal Protection which would qualify me
for a CCW permit. You could just have taken a two hour course – some
of them were pretty crappy though. The admissions dean at my school
did that (hey – another academic gun guy?) and the instructor
demonstrated gun safety by blasting a 1911 over the heads of the
class – oops! My class was quality and we shot SW 3rd generation
9mms. In our class, I was introduced to the great debates for the
CCW permit holder:
1. A guy is stealing your VCR – should you charge down the stairs,
racking your shotgun and then shoot him dead?
2. You are in Burger Barn and a robbery starts. A gun is pulled on
the cashier and you stand up, bellow the warrior’s creed and open
fire with your steely eyed dealer of death head shot marksmanship.
The instructors tried to make us thing about the pros and cons of
various actions. This debate still goes on today on the Internet and
in the world of FOF.
As a professor-type, I decided to read and study on the issue. I
read gun books by gurus and scholarly books on the history of guns,
gun rights and gun control. I became firmly convinced that the
Second Amendment existed because of two core fundamental issues: The
right of citizens to protect themselves from evil-doers and the
right of citizens to be able to resist tyranny. Also, I as shot
more, the sense of personal empowerment was different from most of
my experiences before.
I also did not hide my new interests at work in Oregon. In class, I
might casually mention that I shoot. I told my friends. While Lewis
and Clark was a quite ‘liberal’ liberal arts school, I suffered no
shunning or disdain from my colleagues. One reason is clearly that
I’m socially liberal and was not seen as a conservative. I broke the
mold of the gun advocate being a hide bound conservative (no offense
to anyone). In fact, the students were quite interested. I taught an
advanced statistics class and for our end of the semester
celebration, the class went to the range. We rented guns and shot.
This led to a major story in the school newspaper: “Glenn Meyer
Leads Psych Majors Shooting”. The story described our outing in
detail (the author was in class and went on to be a lawyer). It had
a big picture of me in front of a group of humanoid targets with
some nice COM groups. The story ended: “Lewis and Clark College had
just been witness to the baptism of a handful of new gun
enthusiasts. A day such as this I thought I would never see at L&C
has materialized before my eyes!”
That year, I saw a job ad for Trinity University in San Antonio.
Trinity was a good school and offered the possibility of a step up
and I applied. I think firearms were crucial in getting the job. In
the department, then there were two good old boys. Hunting and
fishing were more important than the job to them. When I was
interviewed – would I fit in? After all, to two TX boys, I was an
alien – a New Yorker by birth. So, they asked me what I liked to do
for fun. Perhaps, I like the ballet and reading obscure Victorian
novels. I mentioned that I pistol shot a bit. DAMN! – a trip to
their lease was arranged. This panicked a female faculty member who
thought that I was bowing to their male dominance hierarchy and
conforming to get the job. She fearfully wandered the halls,
worrying that the good old boys would shoot the candidate. Anyway we
went out to tactically deal with the dreaded beer can and jugs of
water. The boys brought a Glock 23 and a 7.65 Luger. Given the
people I’ve meet, I’m not a super shot but certainly I out shot the
boys and I got the job.
Universities are seen as antigun pits of liberal weirdoes but
Trinity and Lewis and Clark weren’t the case or at least were
accepting. Arriving in Texas, I quickly found out that some faculty
were gun types and at my instigation, we formed a solid group of
shooters. We hunt together as three of them own contiguous ranch
properties and shot together. I’ve gotten one of them to go to IDPA
matches. Can’t get them to seriously train though. This is
frustrating. Lots of gun rag talk about equipment but won’t do the
tactical thing. I have a theory about that for another day. Why
don’t people train? I do tease them with columns from Clint Smith
about fat computer science range commandos.
Again, universities and guns – The University of Texas at Austin –
home of hippies, leftists and God only knows what nightmares to the
standard RKBA person led to another epiphany. When I got to San
Antonio, I picked up a pamphlet on the UT continuing educations
courses. Perhaps, there would be a course on wine, basket weaving,
depressing cinema or farmhouse cheeses of America (TX does have a
growing and well respected set of cheese artisans and I am expert in
their selection). However, there was a course on handgun basics from
Karl Rehn of KRTraining. Huh? So I signed up and now am the graduate
of his Advanced Tactical sequences, NRA instructor course, and his
guest instructors from Insights and OPS. From knowing these folks,
I became involved in the now defunct Tactics List, met John Frazer
of the NRA and got my name sent to Don Kates and was invited to the
Academics for The Second Amendment Meeting where I met a large
number of progun scholars. That led me be interviewed by the
Newhouse Newspaper syndicate on the personality of gun owners. It
was interesting that several locales of the paper printed factual
versions of the story but the New Orleans paper had an inflammatory
headline. Through Kates, I was asked to write several pieces for the
Encyclopedia of Guns in American Society (ABC-CLIO ).
At the Academic for the Second Amendment meeting, I got to shoot
some fully auto guns - great fun, silly NFA. I passed on the Joe
Olsen’s 50 BMG as I was nursing a recovering broken wrist. A 50 AE
casing from a pistol did bounce off the side of the lane and bop me
in the head, even though I was far back. Ouch!
Through the Insights mailing list and my scholarly big mouth, I was
invited to the NTI which I regard as a life changing experience as a
gun scholar, shooter and citizen.
At school, I am overtly pro-RKBA. I mention that I shoot in class; I
use Lott’s analysis of CCW laws and crime reduction for examples of
experimental design in class. I designed a statistics tutorial web
site for a major textbook company and used Lott in that. I have gun
related posters in my office. I have corrected major introductory
psychology books that I have reviewed when they wandered off factual
truth regarding self-defense or violence.
We started a gun related research program. Our psychology students
have to engage in research. While my core area is cognitive
psychology and visual perception, I found students were really
interested in the firearms research. We studied student and faculty
attitudes towards firearms and started a long series of experiments
on the effects of weapons appearance on jury decisions. Does your
AR-15 influence a jury? Karl Rehn of KRTraining was a guest shooter
in some of our video tapes that we used in the trial simulation.
This line of study led to several papers at the American Society for
Criminology meetings. This is the major meeting for gun related work
and you can see Gary Kleck, John Lott, Don Kates, Gary Mauser and
quite a few other progun researchers. Their work has been crucial in
the battle for gun rights. While some folk really don’t like
utilitarian arguments for the Second Amendment, the research is
useful to convince folks. Just the other day, I got an e-mail from a
Glock Talker asking for such reference for a legislative hearing.
You can also see the antigun research and knowledge is power.
Students are co-authors with me. One nice Jewish female student
became quite the gun enthusiast and submitted a paper to the Psi Chi
Honors Society meeting and won a prize of several hundred dollars. A
copy of the award is on my bulletin board. Her parents took me out
to dinner and gave me a gun book. I’ve found quite a few female
students to be interested. Shocking to some, many of them are from a
liberal background. One of my best works and gun believers was a gay
woman. I think from observing them on the range that they feel the
sense of personal empowerment that skill with a firearm gives them.
I found the school supportive. I managed to get them to send Ayoob’s
LFI-1 course for research purposes. They funded me to go to the NTI.
The campus cops asked me to be a terrorist/active shooter opponent
for them as I mentioned before. A picture of me in tactical vest and
carrying a firestick with the officers is on my door, next to the
firemen raising the flag at Ground Zero / Iwo Jima pairing.
We are now starting or in the midst of two more research projects.
The first concerns the role of race in DGUs (defensive gun use). The
Diallo shooting generated a great deal of research about what
factors may contribute to mistaken police shootings. While certainly
controversial to the gun world, some studies suggest that people are
more likely to make racially based decisions in a shoot/no shoot.
However, this is with a college sample and generalization is
difficult. One study with police found no effect of race. Another
found that police were hesitant to shoot females even though they
were at risk. We are looking at whether the race of a burglar or
homeowner influences a jury decision about the righteousness of a
DGU. Maybe it shouldn’t – but does it? Second, we are tooling up to
study altruism in the gun carrying, trained population. 2/25/05 will
be particularly relevant as in Tyler, TX a CHL lost his life to a
rampage shooter while saving the life of others. The debate about
intervention is clearly central to that incident.
I do not hide my gun rights advocacy. We have a school wide mailing
list and we get into political discussions. Recently, a conservative
friend of mine posted that the development of the Pink Pistols,
Harvard Gun Club (http://kuznets.fas.harvard.edu/~volokh/guns.html)
and Second Amendment Sisters (http://www.2asisters.org/)
indicated that politically correct leftist domination of college
campuses was on the decline. This annoyed a PC professor who denied
it somewhat. Thus I posted:
“While it may not be common knowledge – the support for the 2nd
Amendment is well known in some gay and feminist circles. There is a
fairly well known gay 2nd Amendment group – the Pink Pistols.
Several liberal arts colleges have branches of the Second Amendment
Sisters. The literature on feminist oriented self defense literature
is growing. I have a list of works that I used in a seminar last
semester. I have heard presentations at conferences from the
feminist proponents of the 2nd Amendment. Clearly in the feminist
mode but their interest in the 2nd amendment usually flummoxes those
of the left who see the issue as a totem for being a conservative
loony or those of the right who think that those of the left who
prefer passive victim hood and dance festivals when faced with
oppression. Clearly the historical, sociological and psychological
literature on the origins and implementation of genocide point to a
passive population that is discriminated against and lacks the means
of self-defense.
For example, the recent HBO film, Deacons for the Defense
indicated how African-Americans defended themselves successfully.
Oops, I’m into a lecture mode.
The fundamental idea that the populace needs to be able to defend
itself from the extremes of government and the terrors of various
radical groups (of various political, ethnic and religious
persuasions) is a philosophical and moral principle that makes
ramblings by the right about the left or the left about the right
really irrelevant.”
This led to a PC response that included the following:
“......despite what I may misunderstand as Glenn’s apparent view of
the Second Amendment as something that transcends ideology. “
I replied:
"And why would you think you misunderstood me? Political elites of
the left and right usually become extreme and impose their whacky
tyranny on the common folk. The ideology of the tyranny may vary and
lead to different groups being the tyrants. The result is the same
if you are not the elite. Thus, the US is unique in some sense that
a strong segment of the population does not believe that the
organized forces of the state are the sole depository of the means
needed to defend basic freedoms. That these segments are now
spreading across the 'ideological' barriers that so consume
activists, academics and pundits is quite a good thing.
Certainly as a Jew on this campus, I have no doubt that factions of
the left and right have little use for my small slice of the
'ethnic/minority' pie. "
This interchange is seen by the majority of faculty and staff,
including my bosses. I received this reply from a female Art History
Professor: “Glenn- I found your discussion illuminating. Thanks for
taking the time to write about the issue in detail”
My PC colleague – who is a good guy – opined that maybe the
development of feminist and gay gun rights supporters at Harvard, in
other Boston gun clubs and elsewhere is being fueled by the current
administration’s views. The observation is purely anecdotal and
based on ‘gaydar’. And, IMHO, there is nothing wrong with that. The
potential for the defense against tyranny is the goal. Whether your
tyranny is my tyranny is for discussion protected by the 1st and
2nd! I recently went to a meeting of the Jewish faculty and
students about an anti-Semitic incident and had the chance of
talking about - guess what! Another Jewish faculty member and I have
shot together. Now, not all see the light but slow steps are
important.
The separation of identifying firearms with necessarily being
conservative is useful. On some internet lists that is not seen and
the correlation must be 1.00. Thus, the non-conservative gun rights
advocate is usually denounced and told that such views are not
welcome. I think that such discussions couched in terms of defending
ourselves and freedom can be successful.
Subversion continues. I recently taught a seminar on aggression. We
discussed firearms usage as part. We read articles that discussed
the history of gun rights, theories of violence, the downside of
firearms, media violence, etc. Many of the kids were towards the
left. I posed a question: If some folks think that abortion under
Roe v. Wade is a fundamental right and that right was being taken
away, would you take up arms to defend it? Taking up arms would seem
to be antithetical to our common view of the Brie and Chablis
American Left (certainly, leftists do take up arms in other places
but it is not part of the political correct mantra in the USA). The
Democratic left is for the most part strongly antigun. One of my
favorite, leftish students said that's a stumper. Later, that week
we had on campus, a noted Democratic leftish woman as a speaker. You
would see her on the tube all the time. My kid put that to her as a
question and the speaker was literally stumped. Another student in
the class told me that she was dead set against owning a firearm;
however one of our readings Gun Women by Stange and Oyster turned
her thinking around.
At the end of the semester, our students have to present their
research project. My lab logo as a picture of me taken at Karl
Rehn’s AT class. I took the class just after having had an accident
and broken my wrist, ribs and badly sprained my ankle. I have my arm
in a cast up to just below my elbow. My ankle is one of those strap
up boots. I am holding one handed a Desert Eagle and look like quite
the warrior. All the students and faculty see it, every semester.
The picture does make me look fat (which I am – sigh). I tell the
class if I’m going to a match on the weekend.
Would I have such freedom in other places? I have met progun
scholars from other schools. A Canadian friend finds that he does
have some negative social feedback. Others are respected at their
workplace. I know that in Oregon and Texas, I had no problem.
What do our students think of gun rights? As a student project, we
surveyed about 600 students in Oregon and Texas (at two liberal arts
schools and two big state schools) about gun rights. This is
certainly not a representative sample but given that liberal arts
kids tend towards the liberal side, it is interesting. Note that
this project led to several presentations at the Southwestern
Psychological Association, National Council for Undergraduate
Research and American Society for Criminology – not hiding my focus.
Here are some interesting answers from the survey. These questions
were asked Pre-NICS and there was no attempt to explain the pros and
cons of each possible side of a question. Unlike most surveys, we
asked more than just should guns be banned.
Do you think there should be a ban on private ownership of handguns?
Yes 31.7% No 68.3%
Assuming handgun ownership is allowed, do you think there should be
registration or licensing of handguns?
Yes 96.8% No 3.2%
Assuming handgun ownership is allowed and separate from the issue of
registration, do you think there should be a waiting period before
one can purchase a handgun?
Yes 88.1% No 11.9%
Do you possess a handgun? Yes 10.7% No
89.3%9.
If not, do you feel that one day you might want to possess a
handgun?
Yes 54.7% No 45.3%
Other more complicated questions indicated that the most important
reasons for owning a handgun were personal protection or perhaps a
security/LEO job. A large majority (70%) indicated that possibility
of future government dictatorship was not important. I think that
conceptualization comes when one studies the issue but it’s not on
the radar screen of most folk. We think it is important.
So the majority is against a ban but wants some type of
registration. This is an interesting aspect as most PC survey work
simply asks if someone wants gun control and then interprets that as
wanting total bans and/or confiscations. However, my student project
was a touch more sophisticated and indicates that more than 50% will
consider getting a handgun if they don’t have one now. You don’t
hear that usually. Remember though this is Texas and Oregon. More
realistic surveys do handle this issue. When most Americans ask for
gun control, they usually mean that criminals don’t have guns. Thus,
they think checks and registration will prevent criminal access
(they don’t know the literature, nor is it usually presented to
them). However, clearly they think that law abiding citizens should
have access to firearms. I had a conversation with an older
African-American woman in a night class. She has a gun and sent her
boy to Eddie Eagle class. However, she wants a law that stops the
gangbangers in her neighborhood from having easy access to SKSs – a
weapon of choice. That’s the conundrum that is not really dealt with
in polarized political debates.
We did a similar survey of faculty. 52% were against a handgun ban.
They were wildly in favor of registration. 20% owned handguns but
80% of the non-owners did not contemplate getting one.
Parenthetically, there are lots of folks with the shotgun in the
closet for BGs. One guy has had a pistol grip pump 20 gauge in his
underwear drawer for the past 20 years, loaded but never fired
(sigh). 2.9% have CHLs or CCW permits. That’s not far off from the
state percentages in Oregon and TX – surprising.
Other faculty fun. I have had several colleagues want to go to the
range to learn how to shoot. They want to know how guns work – they
are shy about saying they want to feel the inner warrior – we will
see. Male faculty are funny, sometimes. If you say that you are a
shooter that challenges one’s position in the dominance hierarchy,
esp. if they are not shooters. They have to tell me that they shot a
gun or two. Two guys told me that they once shot a Colt 45 (a 1911)
– and it DAMNED NEAR TORE THEIR ARM OFF. Both these guys are over 6
feet and big. I’m a midsized guy. I seem to have both my arms – and
I’ve shot 1911s. What a surprise!
Thus, I think it is important, as said before, to have role models
for the RKBA in schools. While controversial, I think it is
important to separate the RKBA from necessary loyalty to one
political viewpoint (currently the GOP). That’s what I see myself as
doing.
As a scholar, there must be a reading list. So here we go.
Gender Issues:
Below, I’ve collected a list of things that I’ve found about gender
factors in firearms, self-defense usage. When I could, I added a
small summary. Basically, researchers find that gun usage or even
strong self defense is seen as atypical for women and sometimes can
be held against them in legal proceedings. The sets of books below
are written from a women’s perspective on gun use. They are
interesting to read. I’ve met Abigail Kohn and her book is great.
She’s a shooter. McCaughey is a very strong advocate of women’s
self-defense. She is a very theoretical feminist, so her paradigm is
quite different from the social conservative paradigm that is common
in the gun world. It makes the point that people can be strong from
many political viewpoints. Stange and Oyster’s book is a neat one
also. As I said above, this book turned around an antigun female
student. I’ve met them also. Great people.
One thing about some of the books about guns by women is
interesting. I think most of the books I list below are generally
positive about gun usage. They have strong cases for gun use in
self-defense and positive examples of their use. However, some of
them – for example, Homsher and Kelly do express qualms about gun
danger to society and present opinions from antigunners. This has
led some male critics in the gun press to savage them and focus on
their not so pro gun prose and some techy mistakes in the book. I
wonder if this is because the male gun mind – if such exists –
thinks in only a black/white, dichotomous world view about firearms
usage. They are 2nd amendment purists and can’t see a women’s point
of view about the harm that firearms may cause. This is an
interesting gender split in cognitive styles.
One point in Kelly’s book is that she mentions that women she met in
gun classes can be emotionally scarred by some sort of abuse and the
trainer ended up in pseudo-therapeutic roles sometimes. I wonder if
men trainers get this issue and are ready to deal with it?
Articles of Interest:
1) Barrow, R.L., & Mauser, G. M. (2002). Dangerous Women: feminism,
self defense and civil rights. Retrieved September 30, 2002 from
http://www.sfu.ca/~mauser/papers/women/Law-review-abstract.pdf
GM: Mauser is well known pro-RKBA scholar. I know him quite well.
His article speaks to how laws deprive women of rights for self
defense and the general issues of bias against women using firearms.
2) Branscombe, N., & Owen, S. (1991). Influence of gun ownership on
social inferences about women and men. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 21(19), 1567-1589.
A survey of 39 female and 39 male undergraduates revealed that the
subjects believed that women who owned handguns would possess
masculine physical characteristics, although they were not perceived
as losing feminine body attributes. Women who owned guns tended to
be perceived as less likely to occupy female stereotypic social
roles, while men who owned a weapon were perceived as more likely to
do so. Men who owned a handgun were perceived as less likely to
possess socially desirable male stereotypic traits, although women
with a handgun gained in this respect. In a survey of 73 female and
78 male community members, the main pattern of outcomes was
replicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2003 APA, all rights
reserved
3) Branscombe, N., & Weir, J. A. (1992). Resistance as
stereotype-inconsistency: Consequences for judgments of rape
victims. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 11, 80-102.
Examined the hypothesis that females who use too many resistance
strategies to avoid rape may be judged more harshly than those who
use more moderate or fewer resistance strategies. Two experiments,
involving 135 male and 139 female undergraduates, were conducted.
Exp 1 featured a stranger-rape scenario, and Exp 2, an
acquaintance-rape scenario. Results of both experiments supported
the hypothesis. Victims who displayed low resistance were also
judged more harshly than those who showed moderate resistance.
(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)
GM: The authors conclude (Branscombe and Weir, 1992, p. 99)
concluded that their results might suggest women not take strong
defensive actions. So they said:
“Despite this, we are in no way suggesting that women should not
attempt to prevent or resist victimization attempts. Rather, we have
contributed to the literature indicating how cognitive processes
influence judgments of victims.”
That’s an important point. She’s not anti- but pointing out the
processes involved. Some folks don’t get it. They think if you have
a negative finding about a gun or self defense usage – then you are
some kind of anti gun zealot. I got that a bit with other study that
in some circumstances gun type could be a negative in court.
4) Branscombe, N., Crosby, P., & Weir, J. A. (1993). Social
inferences concerning male and female homeowners who use a gun to
shoot an intruder. Aggressive Behavior, 19(2), 113-124.
Two experiments with 81 male and 81 female undergraduates examined
the hypothesis that gender stereotypes influence social inferences
about homeowners who use a gun to shoot an intruder. Male homeowners
who shot incompetently were perceived more negatively than were men
who shot the intruder with competence. The opposite trend was
observed for female homeowners. The degree of acceptance of the
notion that guns provide their owners with protection moderated the
social judgments formed about homeowners who use weapons to defend
their property. Subjects for whom the event is inconsistent with
their attitude-based expectancies blamed stereotype-inconsistent
homeowners more than gender stereotype-consistent homeowners,
particularly the skillful female shooters. Subjects with relatively
negative attitudes toward guns perceived the skillful female
shooters more positively than the other homeowners. (PsycINFO
Database Record (c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)
GM: This is really interesting and I would think that lawyers and
instructors should alert folks to this issue. We found a similar
thing in our assault rifle study. Women using them in a DGU really
were judged more harshly. The issue is NOT that you don’t defend
yourself but be aware if you have to deal with cops, DAs and
lawyers.
4) Dole, C. M. (2000). Women with a gun. In M. Pomerance & J.
Sakeris (Eds.). Band, bang, shoot, shoot: essays on guns and popular
culture (2nd ed., pp. 11-21). Needham Heights, MA: Pearson
Education.
Dole (2000, p. 11) states: “Despite widespread support for strong
images in of women in the media, main mainstream film viewers and
academic feminists alike have hesitated to celebrate cinematic women
with guns, even those who are upholders of law”. Dole reviews the
societal values and attitudes that speak against positive aspects of
women with atypical firepower. Even when women use guns, they must
use them defensively – perhaps in a maternal and protective role –
to be seen as consistent with gender norms.
Books:
Homsher, D. (2001). Women and guns: politics and culture
of firearms in America. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
Howes, R. H., & Stevenson, M. R. (Eds.). (1993). Women and the
use of military force. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Kelly, C. (2004). Blown Away: American Women and Guns. New
York: Pocket Books.
Kohn, Abigail A (2004) Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's
Gun Culture. New York: Oxford University Press
McCaughey, M. (1997). Real knockouts. New York: New York
University Press.
Stange, M. Z., & Oyster, C. K. (2000). Gun women: firearms and
feminism in contemporary America. New York: New York University
Press.
What Makes a You a Victim?
These are articles discussing victim selection, the findings have
penetrated into our classes but many don’t know the literature.
Winkel, F. W., McCormack, R. J. (1997). Victim precipitation: Some
fresh evidence on nonverbally mediated perceptions of vulnerability.
Crime & Law, 3(3), 219-225.
Curtis, L. (1974). Victim precipitation and violent crime. Social
Problems, 21(4), 594-605.
Gunns, R.E., Johnston, L., Hudson, S. M. ( 2002) Victim selection
and kinematics: A point-light investigation of vulnerability to
attack. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 26, 129-158.
Stevens, D. J. (1994). Predatory rapists and victim selection
techniques. Social Science Journal, 31(4), pp. 421-433
Lejeune, R. (1977). The management of a mugging. Urban Life,
6(2), 123-148.
A Selection of Scholarly Books on Gun Usage, Rights and Gun Control
These are major works on issues. Some are progun in orientation.
Some have pros and cons. Most are reasoned though and that’s
important to know the thought on all sides of an issue. A problem
with folks can be a selection bias to only read what confirms what
they think.
Jacobs, James B. (2004). Can Gun Control Work? (Studies in
Crime and Public Policy) Publisher: Oxford University Press; New
Ed edition (October 1, 2004)
Kleck, Gary. (1991). Point blank: guns and violence in America, 1991
Kleck, Gary. (1997) Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control,
Aldine de Gruyter, 1997
Lott, John R. (1998). More guns, less crime: understanding crime and
gun-control laws Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. – Also
see his Bias against Guns.
Kates, Don B. & Kleck, Gary. (1997). The great American gun
debate: essays on firearms. San Francisco, CA: Pacific Research
Institute for Public Policy, 1997.
McClurg, Andrew J., Kopel David B., & Denning Brannon P. (2002).
Gun Control and Gun Rights: A Reader and Guide. New York
University Press
Vizzard, William J. (2000). Shots in the dark: the policy,
politics, and symbolism of gun control. Lanham, Md.: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers,
I’ve met most of these folks. Kopel let me shoot his Springfield
TRP.
I hope you all find this useful. There will be a test.
