by Sarah Laughlin
A robber-turned-killer who was targetting women who offered services in the “erotic services” section of Craig’s List has been captured. The evidence, including a gun traced to one of the crimes that he had hidden in a hollowed-out book and panties from his robbery victims, looks pretty convincing.
As a woman who has worked hard for everything she has, I don’t hold women who try to do it the “easy way” by selling their bodies in very high esteem. And as the wife of what some would call a “high status male” who has remained faithful through our ups and downs, I hold the married men who use such services in contempt. But the fact I disapprove of another woman’s rather dubious “profession” doesn’t mean she deserves to die.
According to authorities widely reported in media outlets around Boston (where the killer was a medical student), the difference between the women he bound and robbed as opposed to the woman he killed was that the woman he killed “resisted.”
I have a different view of this.Sure, I’m 100% female — all woman through and through — and sufficiently attractive to still turn heads even though I’m in my late 30’s. Part of the secret of my good looks, I’m convinced, comes from the thousands of hours I spent in the woods with my dad and then with my husband. (I would never have married a man who wasn’t a hunter!) Cross-country in high school and college probably helped as well.
I still remember how nervous my husband was about meeting my father back when he was my boyfriend. All of that disappeared with their first conversation about their shared love of the outdoors and hunting. Even today I’m amazed at how close my husband and Dad are as friends and hunting partners — but that’s a story for another day. It certainly makes family holidays enjoyable. There has always been venison on the table for Thanksgiving.
My father started teaching me about guns when I was ten. We did a lot of target practice and safety training. My older brother had a bit of a head start on me, but by the time I was 12 and he was 16, I could shoot just as well and sometimes even better. I knew that none of the other girls in my class had learned to shoot, but my father approached it so matter-of-factly I figured the other girls were just deprived. I shot my first buck when I was 13. I stayed in a tree stand between a ravine and a swampy area while my dad and brother rousted some deer we had previously figured were bedded down on a ridge.
There are just so many stereotypes that are just so wrong. Yes, I love hunting and I also have a pistol permit and a pistol in my purse. But I also dress in an appropriately feminine (but certainly not slutty) fashion, have an undergrad degree in biology and a Master’s degree as well. I love dressing up for my husband and receiving the whole royal treatment — opening doors and other deference a chivalrous man affords a lady. And my femininity is not diminished in the least by the fact I can reliably ventilate a scumbag with the .357 Sig semiauto pistol I keep handy. (I just wish my husband’s chivalrous instincts extended far enough that he would clean my guns for me too — but I’ll settle for the fact he’s a good cook who doesn’t mess up the laundry.)
Certainly, I would never find myself in the same position that these “erotic services” women found themselves in: alone in a hotel room with a strange man transacting my body for cash. No matter how you look at it, that’s a really risky situation. So risky, that a woman might want to consider taking up a more honest profession instead. But I digress.
No, I will never find myself alone in a hotel room with a strange man about to engage in a risky and illegal act. But I have been alone on subway platforms, alone walking to my car late at night and alone with young kids at home while my husband took (thankfully rare) overseas trips for conferences. No matter how much he’d love to do it, my husband just can’t protect me at all times. And, in spite of his lovely protective instincts, I really don’t need him to do so either. That’s because even though I’m a small woman, I have a pistol and I know how to use it effectively. We train and practice regularly as a family and I’m confident that if push comes to shove, I can and WILL use that pistol to defend myself.
What does all this autobiographical family history mean about the Craig’s List Killer?
It means that when the “authorities” are preaching “non-resistance” they are full of scat.
What if the woman who resisted the Craig’s List Killer — an unarmed woman against an armed man — had instead pulled out her piece and blown him away?
These “authorities” are clueless, in my opinion. When a woman allows a scumbag to tie her up, that takes away all of her ability to resist anything he wants to do next. Very often, when a woman is bound, first comes the rape then comes the murder. In most cases, a woman is wise to resist being bound because once she is bound she is dead anyway so if she can avoid that she has turned a 100% chance of death into a less than 100% chance of death.
Yes, in this particular case with perfect 20-20 hindsight the killer bound women and (evidently) neither raped nor murdered them after except for the woman who resisted. But that is by far the exception rather than the rule. In nearly all cases, like with the “BTK” killer, the binding is a prelude to death. Meek submission is simply not an option.
But the big thing here is “disparity of force.” When a male attacker is unarmed and the female victim is unarmed; the advantage goes to the male because he is usually stronger, larger and faster. Even so, a woman used to strenuous physical activity (someone like me) can give him a run for his money because you don’t have to physically overpower him — you just have to prevent him from doing whatever he intends.
The situation changes when the male attacker is also armed, and the female victim is unarmed. Now, physical struggle on the part of the woman can result in her immediate death and no matter what, the odds are not in her favor.
The best situation is for the woman to be armed with a modern and effective pistol of big enough caliber to get someone’s attention.
In this event a woman has used her mind, training and a technological innovation to level the playing field. If the attacker is unarmed, he will flee in most cases without a shot being fired. And if he is armed, he is probably not expecting an armed victim — so the advantage goes to the woman.
What SHOULD have happened is that the “erotic services” woman should have been armed; and she should have resisted fully by giving the twisted medical student an immediately lethal case of lead poisoning that chelation wouldn’t fix.
Of course, being in Massachusetts, the “eortic services” worker probably couldn’t get a permit to legally carry a pistol even if she tried. I have one, but only because I live in a town with a decent police chief. A lot of people in Massachusetts can’t get permits in various towns — especially the larger cities where they need it the most. This gives criminally-minded individuals confidence that their victims are likely unarmed and leaves women exposed. And it leaves the “authorities” in the position of advocating non-resistance. I feel this really compromises their legitimacy.
Massachusetts’ gun laws killed that woman; combined with a really stupid mindset among my fellow women.
My husband and I meet men at the gun club who have honestly tried to get their wives into shooting but have failed. Their wives simply reject the notion. I’ve talked to these women at barbecues and they either can’t or won’t explain why they won’t learn to shoot.
Women have to get it through their heads that there is nothing “unfeminine” about being able to protect yourself. Just look at the women in James Bond: armed, deadly, hyper-feminine, alluring and seductive. Real men, the kind of men we should be marrying anyway, aren’t threatened by our ability to defend ourselves. We should militate just as strongly to secure our right of self defense as for any other right.
Here in Massachusetts, too many women don’t just think of owning a gun as unfeminine, but uncivilized too. Well, here’s a news flash: criminals are uncivilized and they won’t respond to the pursuasion that works on non-criminals. They WILL respond to the threat of sudden death that your handgun will present.
I’ll tell you this: just like me, all three of my kids, my daughter and my two sons, will be getting guns on their tenth birthdays. My father will be so proud!