December 10, 2001
VPC Beats a Dead Horse But Fails to Ride Very Far

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Question: What do The Mafia—exemplified by Marlon Brando as “The Godfather”—and the Violence Policy Center (VPC)—headed by Josh Sugarmann—have in common?

Answer: A predilection for dead horses.

The movie godfather used one to frighten one person. The VPC’s Sugarmann keeps beating a dead one to instill a general fear of firearms.

One of the VPC’s deadest horses surfaced again on Nov. 8 when The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (pro-dead horse itself when it comes to guns) published a rehash of the VPC’s “guns are dangerous to women” hay-burner. This latest horse-flaying was written by Karen Brock, listed as a health policy analyst for the VPC.

Her column began with the following breathless revelation:

“In its efforts to sell handguns to women, the gun industry—from pro-gun magazines to the gun store counter—is quick to cite the violent scenarios that women are led to fear most: the stranger who attacks and mugs in a dark alley or who breaks into a woman’s home to rape and kill. Yet these are among the least common dangers women, in reality, will ever face. Far more likely is an attack at the hands of someone she knows: a husband or intimate acquaintance (i.e., her ex-husband, common-law husband or boyfriend).”

Another VPC ‘Study’
“The recent Violence Policy Center study ‘When Men Murder Women’ reveals that, as a group, women face the greatest danger from those men with whom she is or has been intimately involved, especially when there is easy access to a handgun,” Brock continued. “More than 11 times as many females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers in single victim/single offender incidents in 1999. Only 13% of women homicide victims were killed during the commission of another felony, such as rape or robbery.

“Adding a handgun to a volatile domestic situation only increases the risk of fatal violence to a woman. The study found that 60% of the homicides in which a female was killed by an intimate acquaintance involved a gun, with nearly three-quarters of those involving a handgun. Guns were used to murder women more often than all other weapons combined.

“The deadly combination of guns and domestic violence has been identified by researchers, advocates and Congress. In 1994, Congress passed the Protective Order Gun Ban, which prohibits gun possession by a person against whom there is a restraining or protective order for domestic violence. In 1996, Congress passed the Domestic Violence Misdemeanor Gun Ban, which prohibits anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence or child abuse from purchasing or possessing a gun.

“So why do women generally believe they are more likely to be targeted by strangers than those they know best?” Brock asked, before dragging more of the dead horse into view. “The answer rests with the firearms industry and the National Rifle Association, both of whom have actively perpetuated the stereotype of the ‘dangerous stranger’ as the primary threat to a woman,” she claimed.

Post Mortem
A major shortcoming of the Brock-VPC article is that it is far from news, and it was far from accurate when it first was news. In case anyone didn’t notice, this horse died over 10 years ago.

Some of the same so-called research made news in 1991 with publication of a law review article that proposed the banning of handgun advertising, because, according to its authors, the safety and security claims made by such ads were misleading to women. That article made some news, but finished far back in the public relations steeplechase.

A couple of years later, apparently unsatisfied with the track record of this mare, the Violence Policy Center issued a so-called report called “Female Persuasion,” which rehashed the whole argument. The VPC got a lot of press attention then, but so, too, did pro-gun voices, including Gun Week’s sister publication, Women & Guns magazine. In its fourth anniversary issue, Women & Guns published an article by four women that asked women readers, “Are You Too Stupid to Read This Magazine?”

The gist of that article was that the VPC “report” and the law review article were extremely sexist. They were based on the idea that women were incapable of making informed judgments about handgun advertising. The Women & Guns rebuttal gained almost equal press attention.

Undeterred, the anti-gunners uncovered the horse’s corpse again in 1995 when the then Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (now the Brady Center to Prevent Handgun Violence), together with some anti-gun medical groups, petitioned the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This time, slightly wiser, they asked for a total ban on handgun advertising (not just for women), but as exhibits they trotted out the handgun manufacturer ads that had appeared in women’s magazines.

Six years have passed since the petition to the FTC was filed. During those years, there has been no indication that the FTC—even during the Clinton Administration—found much merit in it.

Brock concluded her Journal-Constitution rehash with this minor admission:

“It would be irresponsible to suggest that strangers cannot pose a lethal threat to women, or to deny that such crimes are particularly disturbing. Nonetheless, the fact remains that if a woman is murdered in the United States she will most likely be killed by an intimate acquaintance using a handgun. By recognizing that the greatest threat she faces is from a man she knows, women should act in their own self-interest—and not in the gun lobby’s financial interest.”

Of course, many women and men would respond that if a woman decided to own and train with a handgun for protection against both strangers and violent friends, spouses or familiar others, that would be the wisest decision.

So-called Boyfriend
For instance, a few days after Brock’s “report” appeared in the Journal-Constitution, the Denver Post carried the following report about a woman in a wheelchair who wounded a gunman.

The Post explained how the woman, Jaquie Creazzo, 38, who was paralyzed seven years ago while trying to help a rape victim, shot and wounded a gunman in her yard early on Nov. 11.

Creazzo was armed when she went outside in her wheelchair with her three daughters, ages 16, 18, and 19, after smoke from a car fire seeped into her home at 3:15 a.m.

Justin Michael Getz, 21, who is suspected of setting the car ablaze to lure the Creazzos out of their house, came toward them screaming and firing two pistols.

Getz, the former boyfriend of Creazzo’s eldest daughter, had pledged two days earlier to kill Creazzo and her three daughters after the girl refused to reunite with him, Creazzo said.

Two firefighters and Creazzo’s three daughters dove out of the way of the erratic gunfire. But instinctively, Creazzo fired a volley. One shot hit the attacker’s leg and he fell. “I’m certain that if I hadn’t responded, none of us would be here today,” Creazzo said.

Getz was arrested on two counts of attempted murder, arson and attempted arson, Jefferson County sheriff’s spokeswoman Jacki Tallman said.

On Feb. 12, 1994, casino worker Rhonda Maloney, 33, was on her way home from work in the early morning hours, when Robert Harlan kidnapped her at the intersection of Interstates 76 and 25, then raped her for two hours. Maloney finally escaped in a car driven by Creazzo, who was driving by. Harlan gave chase and fired at least six shots into the vehicle, paralyzing Creazzo.

He killed Maloney and was sentenced to death for her murder and rape, but remains on death row.

Shortly after Harlan’s trial, Creazzo debated buying a gun. She said she was conflicted because friends told her criminals could take a gun away and use it on her.

But too many people today have no respect for God or the law, she said, and concluded that she needed the gun for protection.
Thus, the self-defense horse keeps running, but the anti-gun horse just stinks.