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SAS Writers' Project

SAFER Report

SISTERS TO CODEY – PAY A VISIT TO PLANET EARTH

The entire premise of your diatribe dated 7/16/2004 seems to be predicated on your naiveté and refusal to see the world as it is.  “Call me naïve”, you said?  I’ll go you one better….I’ll call you enormously uninformed, chauvinistic and bordering on evil.

“I’d like to believe that there’s enough common sense left in the world that disputes don’t have to degenerate into a Showdown at the OK Corral”.  Mr. Codey, use your time machine and visit planet earth.  A woman being attacked on a college campus late at night is not facing the settlement of a “dispute”.  It must be nice living in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, but here in the real world, when a person leaves a job late at night through deserted parking lots, they are on their own.  Unlike you, they don’t have 'round-the-clock police protection at their jobs.  Unlike you, most of us don’t have the luxury of traveling everywhere we go with an entourage.

How DARE you suggest that women, in order to be safe, be confined to traveling in large groups and staying in well-lit populated areas.  Why not just put us in burkas and force us to remain indoors unless accompanied by a male? Are you really so uninformed as to believe that rapes only occur at night in remote areas?  Do you honestly equate self-defense with violence?  Exactly which women’s safety issues were you referring to in your writing, that you felt were “very important”, if self-defense isn’t one of them?

There are statistics to prove wrong your claims that “a firearm rarely defuses a potentially violent situation, but rather escalates violence to the breaking point”.  Firearms are used daily, in those states who still allow people to defend themselves, to de-escalate an attack.  Obviously, you have your opinions and you’re not going to let facts change your mind, and yes, you are “out of line”.

I have taken and passed 1^st and 2^nd level combat pistol classes which require over 20 hours of range-time EACH.  I have also completed 20 hours of combat shotgun on the range.  I’m a Firearms Instructor who is at the range at least once a month.  The highly trained experts you refer to in your letter pass a total 8 hours of range training before hitting the streets with their firearms. Many of them never touch that gun again until they have to qualify once a year.  Would you still argue that I am not trained enough to respond with a firearm to an attack?

Your elitist and sanctimonious opinion that I rely on the police to protect me is as condescending as it is stupid. The police do not have crystal balls.  They cannot know when and where someone will be attacked.  Their job most often consists of cleaning up the mess after it happens.  I am a widow, with 2 teenage sons.  I am a capable woman business owner and a highly trained shooter.  I demand that the state recognize my Basic Human Right of Self Defense and allow me the tools which will empower me to defend myself and my family against attack.  Empowerment, Mr. Codey.  Remember that word.  I can guarantee you that the “twisted sisters” of New Jersey will remember that you don’t believe women should be “empowered”, but rather reliant on others for their safety.

Marilyn Lapidus,
SAS-NJ Coordinator

Dear Dick,

As a member of the “Twisted Sisters” that you so brazenly dress down in the media, I have to say that not only am I deeply offended as a woman by the things you said in your release, I am also disgusted as a Second Amendment Sister and a human being.  I thought that public officials had to have at least an elementary school education to hold office.  I guess this really IS the land of opportunity!  Even someone as ignorant as you can get a job in public service.

I am going to take your release line by line, because there’s just too much tomfoolery in there to send a blanket reply.  First of all, Twisted Sister was a rock band back in the ‘80s, and I’m guessing that the band’s name has a copyright.  I think that the band’s front man, Dee Snider, is anti-self defense, and would probably resent you using their name to refer to a pro 2A group such as us.  I’m only guessing because he’s a famous rock star, and with the exception of Ted Nugent, they all seem to think they know more than the rest of us.

In some parts of this country, yes, violence is so bad that women should be able to protect themselves by whatever means necessary.  Maybe a co-ed at UCLA doesn’t get raped every day walking back to her dorm after class, but once or twice every few years is enough to make a woman want to be able to protect herself.  I think that an Uzi is a bit extreme, though, don’t you?  A simple snub-nosed .38 would do the trick quite nicely.  How about the single mom that lives in high crime areas because she can’t afford to live in the upscale apartments on the other side of town?  You don’t think women in that kind of a situation should be able to protect themselves and their children from crime in their neighborhoods? 

Sir, had you completed the fifth grade, you would have been able to see your contradiction right away.  In the opening line of your essay, you say that you were preoccupied with the 2005 budget.  Later in the piece, you say that we should have more police in high crime areas.  HELLO!!  You just did the budget.  Where’s the money for more cops?  Did you get enough cops?  We both know that it’s a short-term fix anyhow.  You’ll get more cops, crime rates will drop a half a percent, everybody will get all excited because crime is down, and the cops will get laid off because there’s no crime!!  Then, it’s back to more crime and more victims. But what do you care?  You got votes because you got more cops.  Screw the single mom who has to get off the bus from work at midnight and walk 3 blocks through gang turf to get home. 

Sir, the second paragraph.  Quite contrary to what you said, it’s through misinformation and fear that YOUR side of the argument gains any footing at all.  Had you done your own research instead of having Donna Dees-Thomases do it for you, you would come to very different conclusions.

Yes, sir, I will call you naïve, as you ask me to in your third paragraph.  (Lucky for spell check you got naïve right)

Sir, disputes don’t degenerate into showdowns at the O.K. corral.  You are very naïve, to think so, and very ignorant.  I am guessing that you know more than one gun owner in your circle, whether or not you are even aware that your friend owns a gun.  You’ve probably been in political debates in the living rooms of your friends’ homes, not seeing eye to eye, and with a firearm right in the next room!  Hey! You’re here to tell about it!  We’re not a bunch of emotional psychos.  I would not draw a gun on someone because we are having a dispute.  I would draw a gun on someone that was trying to rape me, or sodomize one of my children, or any other myriad of violent crimes that could beset (word too big for you?) my family or myself.  Do I think that something like that is going to happen?  No, actually, I don’t.  I think that we are going to live our whole lives in relative peace and harmony, and my gun will never come out of its holster.  The other side of the coin is that violence DOES happen, and it happens to regular people like you and me every day.  I choose not to be a victim.  I choose my line of defense.  Quite frankly, sir, how I defend my life and the lives of my loved ones is none of your business, nor is it anyone else’s.  It would serve this country well if you were to stay out of our Constitution.

If your wife was walking back to the car in the mall, she stayed a bit longer than she should have and it’s dark, somebody drove up alongside her and pulled her into his car, what would you have her do?  Would you have her shoot the S.O.B., or would you rather that someone find her half naked body in a ditch somewhere, have not only her death broadcast all over the news, but how she died and what condition her body was in?  And by the way, rapists usually strangle their victims, or stab them, not shoot them. 

Your idea for traveling in large groups in well lit heavily populated areas is a good one, and one that I personally try to stick to, but it’s not feasible for every woman, all the time.  Actually, it kind of makes me think of herding cows.  Is that what you had in mind?  It’s not feasible for any woman ALL the time.  My mother worked in Hartford, CT for 28 years, and in the winter it was dark at 4:00 in the afternoon.  She would frequently have to walk back to her car alone.  Thankfully, she was never accosted in the garage.  She usually had a co-worker or two to walk at least part way with, but not always.  You have an idea of some utopia that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world right now, except maybe Switzerland, but they don’t have much for restrictions on guns.  Go figure.

To quote you, “the presence of a firearm rarely defuses a potentially violent situation…”  Dick, somewhere between 1.7 and 2.5 MILLION times every year a potentially violent situation is diffused by a firearm.  Where do you get your information.  Mine is based on actual data reported by police departments and compiled into a research report.  There is such a wide margin because law enforcement takes the number of calls logged and mathematically estimates how many situations were diffused without anyone reporting the incident to police.  In 90% of those cases, the gun wasn’t fired, rather it was merely brandished and scared off the criminal. 

When you are willing to have a rational discussion of how to improve women’s safety in a civilized world, why don’t you let US know.  Try to get some of your education from a history book, rather than from Hollywood, and you might see some sense to things.  I understand that you declined a debate with our New Jersey State Coordinator, Marilyn Lapidus.  Interesting.  You call us twisted, yet you’d like to see more helpless victims in this country.  That, my friend, is twisted.

Jennifer Zordan
SAS-CT Coordinator

So women are only supposed to leave their homes in large groups, and only go to well-lit, heavily populated areas? It sounds like Senator Codey believes that “society had gotten so bad that a woman's only hope to avoid violence is to carry around an Uzi and not be afraid to use it”.

Senator Codey also seems to believe that the mere presence of a firearm will provoke violence, despite the experience of decades of legal concealed carry in other states.

It should be obvious to anyone that, if we actually lived in a civilized world, there would be no need to discuss ways to improve women’s safety. It would seem that Senator Codey is the one with “unrealistic world views”. Or is he just using misinformation and fear to promote his cause?

Anonymous

Read the SAS article on Senate President Richard J. Codey and it's obvious he lives in a fantasy world. I wonder if he "travels in large groups" and "and only in well-lit, heavily populated areas?"

I've been an Associate Member for several years now and don't recall SAS ever recommending the carrying of full automatic weapons but it makes a "cute," but incorrect comment as he admits. Of course he has never had to face a rapist or someone bent on abusing someone half their size just because he thinks he can get away with it. JFPO titled one of their books "Dial 911 and Die!," and they couldn't have said it better. This nutcase Codey obviously has never had to face the reality of someone breaking down the door of his home in a complete rage.

He just isn't able to see that self defense, even to the point of using a gun, is frequently the only choice a woman has. Dialing 911 won't stop someone bent on injuring her in a parking lot. I'm a state certified handgun instructor and while the drawing of a sidearm is a last resort, that's the reason for having it -- you can reach that "last resort" very quickly. Mr. Codey obviously has led a rather sheltered life like many "gun control" advocates and doesn't understand there are people out there who would kill him for the change in his pockets.

I've never understood the mentality of those who would disarm the victim and deprive them of the right to save their life. No one has to carry a sidearm but if one does choose to do so and carry's it in a safe and responsible manner, it's none of Mr. Codey's business. He should not be allowed to use his position as president of the Senate as an outlet for his own severe case of hoplophobia. In the states that have allowed sidearms to be carried, crime is down, assault on women is down as well rape and robbery. It isn't a coincidence either. The record clearly shows that permit holders are quite responsible, exercise safe gun handling and are not a threat to law enforcement or the general public at large. There is no valid reason for Mr. Codey's paranoia about ladies carrying sidearms but then he probably will never understand why.

William Noll
Corryton, TN