It's Easy for Them to Say...

... They've never "been there."

I previously posted about the video ad "Everytown For Gun Safety" released -- entitled "Will You Stop This?" -- and the reaction from the normally-left-leaning co-hosts of ABC's "The View."

Well, it appears it's epic failure at its intended message is growing.



Rachel Lucas, SaferOregon founder
(image source: S-J article)

Rachel Lucas, founder of the non-profit group SaferOregon and the survivor of a violent rape, has written a strongly-worded piece for the Statesman-Journal.  She describes the Everytown video and cites the anti-gun stance of someone who has not been a victim at some point, is merely "academic":

Like me, three of the four women on the panel had faced real life-threatening situations where their lives, and in some cases, their children's lives, were in real danger. Two of the women had faced home intruders and one had dealt with a stalker. Only the woman who had not faced these dangers was against having a gun for self-protection.
For her, it was academic. But it isn't for us.

This is an amazingly clear picture of the one holdout's position: She's never "been there," so she doesn't know.  She's never experienced the fear, the helplessness.  She's only read/heard about it -- her knowledge is purely academic.

If she had been there and experienced it (and I hope and pray to God she never has to), she might think differently about owning and carrying guns, and about those who choose to do so.

That's not all.  Ms. Lucas also criticizes the "usual advice" for women -- especially in Illinois (part 2, and part 3)* -- in the event of an impending sexual assault:

But nothing that I was trained to do during the attack itself was helpful at all. Not a thing.

I'll admit I've never been a victim of a violent crime.  But I don't think you have to have been a victim to speak out about this, or to prepare for the possibility, nor do I think victimhood, in and of itself, lends any moral authority to one's arguments.

I do, however, think it takes a special kind of arrogance to say, "Nobody should have guns" -- especially to those who have been victims -- in order to make one's self feel safer**.  And I think that previous victims who use their experience for personal growth and refuse to be victimized again have more credibility -- if not authority -- than those who don't.

(Hat tip: Dave Workman)

* - And really, how sick are the advice-givers when part of the screed is, "Don't fight back, ever"?  "Lie back and think of England," anyone?  WTF?

** - It's particularly ironic that people with an academic understanding (i.e. objective) demand "solutions" to make themselves feel (subjectively) safer, when most research indicates that they're objectively less safe, regardless of how they feel.