And I feel really stupid for asking this, but what's Wisteria Lane a reference to?

Couldn't you go for something non-lethal yet still protective like one of those mace/pepper spray keychains or something? I guess I have a generally squeamish attitude toward guns.

On the law-abiding angle of things, would you only get in trouble for it if you ever used it? If the punishment is just a fine, then I guess you probably wouldn't care about having to pay it if you felt that it saved your life. But if you'd get jail time for carrying without a permit, I guess you'd still be alive, but you might not want to be when you became some fellow inmate's bitch.

Well, to get a better sense of my feelings for guns and protection and the LA area this is one of the best essays/editorials/articles/creative non-fiction that I have ever read about the silliness of gun control. It's called Life in Los Angeles by Chip Elliott.

As for something non-lethal like pepper spray, you have to be a dang good shot for it to be effective. It has to be *in the face/eyes* and I wouldn't want to be that close to an man to be assaulted in such a fashion.

As for the trouble I would get it if it was used... Well, let's pretend I was assaulted and I shot the guy in the thigh. What are the odds that the dude *who was about to rob/rape/murder me* is going to go file a police report?

Plus, I was thinking what if I had a Smith & Wesson .38? How many other people in the greater LA area probably have the same gun? Thousands most likely. The reason that's important is because bullets can go in different kinds of guns, but different kinds of guns leave signatures on bullet casings. So let's say on the off chance that my assaulter went to the police and made a report, and for some reason he's not busted because he doesn't have a record of mugging/raping/murdering people just yet. They'd have to 1) Find the bullet casings at the scene. 2) Analyze them. 3) Match those analyzations against all of the registered guns in the county?

So if worse came to worse and I actually shot the mugger/rapist/murderer guy and he went to the police, and I was arrested... I could potentially be put in prison because carrying a concealed weapon is a felony. However, self-defense is not. And that's also covered in this handy dandy Hand Gun Safety Guide that the Dept of Justice in CA publishes every year.

So many states have a "Right to Carry" policy now. The concealed weapon laws vary from county to county in California. So one county over, they have a totally objective way of dealing out CCWs. Back in El Dorado County (where I'm from), they hand them out more readily than $5 glasses of lemonade. The Sheriff of LA County is just making the CCW so freaking hard to obtain because it's political and almost like a status symbol. It's another "good ol' boys club" in the heart of Southern California.

So the end of the worst case scenario would be: I would hire one damn good lawyer to defend me because I honestly think it's stupid to follow a stupid law.

Oooh, and Wisteria Lane is from Desperate Housewives.

Wow. After reading the article you linked to, I'm suddenly horrified of L.A. I mean, I knew on some level that it was a big, dangerous city, but I now never want to set foot in it.

And a question about your "What if I shoot the guy in the thigh?" line of thought - What if you shoot the guy in the thigh and then he shoots you back just out of spite? It seems that a gun is most effective if you're not being confronted with another gun. Otherwise, it's just a contest of who will shoot first or with the deadliest accuracy. But I don't know anything about street crime - are most people mugged/raped/etc. at knifepoint rather than gunpoint?

Well let's keep in mind that the article was about LA of 1978-1980-ish. It seems better right now, at least according to police websites the violent cime is down more than 20% from last year and the property crime is down 16% from last year. Plus, we will be living in one of the safer areas of downtown LA. But just because it's safer doesn't make it safe, know what I mean?

Which brings up another point. I grew up in the boonies, where people didn't have yards or lawns, they had property and shotguns. And I am sure I have recounted you of the many tales of our family's pets being shot--even on our own property with my little brother less than 10 feet away. But all in all, I guess El Dorado County was relatively safe. There were only 2 policeman on duty at any given time throughout the *entire* county, so it must have been quiet enough to not warrant a larger police force, right?

I tend to not believe that. Thinking back on that stuff, the police never came when my dad was in our yard with a gun threatening to shoot my mom if she didn't send out me and my siblings. When our dog was shot less than 10 feet away from my brother, the police told us there was nothing they could about it. I remember back when I was in 8th grade, my best friend was a Romanian boy, but his neighbors thought their family were Mexicans and so they harassed them and threatended their lives. Even the police beat them up.

When my life was being threatened in DC by that crazy neighbor, again the police did nothing.

All in all, I don't think the police are to be trusted. But that's beside the point. Most of the time, people have to take matters into their own hands. Whether that's retaliation by killing the neighbor's dog in return, or moving away on account of your wife, daughter and 3 sons being beat up by the very people who are supposed to protect you... then people do what they need to survive--even in relatively safe areas.

So no place is safe. Not really. Not LA. Not even El Dorado County. "Safe" in the suburban sense is a false sense of security. But individuals can be safe by being smart enough to learn how to protect and defend themselves.

People can be safe when they no longer want to be victims.

Pepper spray and a noise maker are probably your best options. It's rare for a stranger to shoot a stranger. Most stranger-related male-to-female crime is either property theft or rape. If they want your property, give it to them. If it's rape, noise is a BIG deterrent. There are other techniques that are gross but effective.

It's a terrible world where we have to think about these things. Stay safe.

This reminds me of Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy. Have you read it? One of the main characters in the books carries around two versions of his business card. Except that instead of his name they each have a phrase. One says, "There is no friend anywhere," and the other, "There is no enemy anywhere," and he decides which one to hand out based on what the person he's talking to needs to hear more.

I think you've got the safety equation mostly right, but mostly wrong at the same time. Its true that you aren't *really safe* anywhere. But if that's true then its opposite is also true. Safety is an illusion and it always has been. What is true? Crime has been steadily decreasing across the country since the early 90s, but people are still afraid, because they think that there is really such a thing as completely safe. They think death by serial killers or snipers or terrorist attacks is somehow worse than death by congestive heart failure or auto accidents or electrical fires. You are never safe: therefore you always are.

You've been through some challenging experiences in the past few years, to be sure. And I can't claim to understand or appreciate that. Also, just being female changes the equation and gives you new and scarier reasons to be cautious. And I would recommend caution. But if you allow yourself to be consumed by a desire for safety, it will ultimately take over your life. And you turn yourself into a full time victim.

Because carrying a gun doesn't protect you from traffic, it doesn't protect you from lightning strikes, it doesn't protect you from salmonella, and it might not even really protect you from an assault on the street. Your attacker may have a weapon, in which case it becomes a test of reflexes. Or your attacker may not have a weapon but may find a way to get your from you, in which case the gun you've brought only managed to harm you. You may never face an attack, and then get pulled over for a traffic violation and taken to jail for months for possessing a concealed weapon without a permit, which means you've compromised your own safety by trying to protect it. On the other hand you could scare the attacker away. Or as you said you could shoot him and run away and maybe not get caught, and spend the rest of your life wondering if you had killed someone. Or end up in prison.

I don't know the neighborhoods at all, and so I can't really counsel you about what the right thing to do is. The best advice I can give is to be cautious and smart and trust your instincts when you're in difficult areas and you should be fine. If you do feel you absolutely need a weapon, be sure you know how to use it. I can't say this enough times. I don't know how much experience you have with shooting, but it's a hell of a lot harder than it looks, and nothing can take the place of good training. Join a club in your area, take a safety course, and get regular (monthly) practice firing. Look for something with a mechanical safety (i.e. not Glock), but that is easy for you to handle and fire (revolvers have the added safety component of double action, but tend to be harder to fire).

The problem with guns is that they can help to make you more safe in a few specific situations. But they make you less safe in every other situation (especially when carried illegally, whether the law is stupid or not). I'm not against them, but they require a lot of responsibility and caution. I doubt very much I've changed your mind at all, but if I've helped convince you to get regular training then that's a good thing. If you've got any questions you can of course hit me up on email.

Good luck. (And be careful.)

Campus has a service that will escort you around. There are a number of alternatives.

1) Harry said, "There are other techniques that are gross but effective." I am interested to know other techniques, even if they are gross. I always thought maybe if I shouted that I have HIV or AIDS, that might be a deterrent.

2) The campus does have escort that will shuttle you around--campus only. They won't take me home. At least that's what I was told, because I e-mailed the Department of Transportation at USC.

3) I have been posting to Penn & Teller's message boards and I have gotten some alternatives... they're not great, because the only good alternative would be to learn how to dodge bullets. Until that time, I am considering Mace and an E2D flashlight that produces 60 lumens (the sun produces 65). The flashlight is expensive ($117), and the replacement bulbs are $20 a piece, and the bulbs don't last long to boot.

4) You are not allowed to even buy a gun in California without passing a safety test, much similar to the kind of test you have to pass in order to obtain a driver's license. Also, I was already researching areas and classes I could take in order to learn how to better handle a firearm. (I can already shoot handguns and rifles, it's something you learn growing up in El Dorado County.) I would never dream of owning a weapon without knowing how to use it smoothly and efficently--and I wouldn't own one without keeping my knowledge and handling polished. It's just stupid and dangerous to own a gun and not know how to use it.

5) Another alternative I have been considering... someone on the P&T message board suggested looking into Krav Maga. Specificaly the variant known as KAPAP/LOTAR. Krav Maga was developed by the Israeli military and is a combination of various martial arts from around the world. KAPAP/LOTAR is basically the special forces variant. It not only teaches techniques for unarmed combat, but also teaches the use of knives, short and long sticks (good training for colapsable batons), and firearm retention. Krav Maga National Training Center is actually located in Los Angeles and they have a whole training program for women. It sounds really useful: http://www.kravmaga.com/women.asp

Why not just throw a pocket knife on a belt. Besides, if you get trapped in a room by said weirdo, you can always pull a MacGuyver and use it to get out of a jam.

But seriously, you can own a knife up to 3" in blade length, carry it on you without a CCW. And with a little work from a grinding stone, or that Technological brain of a husband of yours, work it into an effective deterrent. An icepick has always been a classy, and easily concealable weapon, of choice. Or my personal favorite, the board with a friggin nail in it.

Nicoli Ivanovich

You'd be surprised perhaps how many people think guns are "point and shoot" like a disposable camera. I really didn't figure you for the type, but I feel obliged to say it whenever possible.

Any self-defense course would help give you valuable methods to protect yourself, and increase your confidence. The most important thing is that its a place you feel comfortable with. If the Israeli system works for you great, but really the teacher is more important than the art. Krav Maga might work well for you if it works regularly with women, though, as you might avoid a lot of the macho assholes that tend to frequent martial arts classes. Just make sure you like and trust your teacher.

More on the gross stuff in a moment. A caution on the martial arts - and this comes from someone who has taught "pure" form and street-fighting, and who has tournament fighting experience - they give you a false sense of security unless you devote a very significant amount of time to real sparring, which most clubs don't practice (both for liability reasons and because the instructors don't actually know how to fight, as opposed to doing pretty moves in a mirror).

The reason real sparring is needed is because in a fight everything is like a whirlwind, unless your mind has had enough experience managing your body in a fight to, in effect, slow everything down so you can react.

The best analogy is to that of a baseball player. Most of us can barely see a ball coming at us at 70mph, let alone hit it. But a baseball player who has years of experience swinging at fastballs can actually see the seams on the pitch, and judge what kind of pitch it is.

Fighting is the same thing. To those without fighting experience, the slowest, most pathetic haymaker in the world looks like a bullet.

So good on the martial arts, I advocate them, but don't rely on them as your defense, at least not until you've had a year or more of full-speed sparring. And if the club doesn't have sparring, don't waste your money.

Okay, now the gross stuff, and I apologize, and I hate to even talk about it because it makes me furious that we have to abase ourselves this way in the face of hateful people.

Let's say you've set off your noisemaker, but he gets hold of it and figures out how to shut it off, and he's persistent. Unless you can cripple or outrun him, violence will only invite violence. So you curl up in a ball, making yourself heavy, and do your best to piss and defecate. At the same time you stick your finger down your throat and vomit, and be sure it gets all over you.

It's a popular and stupid belief propagated by people with a political agenda that rape is purely about violence. There is for many rapists a sexual element, and they can be turned off. No erection, likely no rape (at least not in the classic definition).

This also affects dress. Again, people with a political agenda want to believe that how a woman is dressed and how she carries herself don't matter. To understand that a woman wearing a mini-skirt in a deserted area has a heightened risk of rape compared to a woman looking dumpy in sweats is not to say that women who have been raped were "asking" for it.

In terms of how you carry yourself, if you walk confidently and are aware of your surroundings, that in itself is defense. Most attacks are not preplanned, they are opportunistic, and a woman who looks like maybe she's going to a) see you coming, and b) make this very difficult to accomplish, is not as inviting a target as a woman who isn't paying attention and looks insecure and timid.


But look, the odds are low of anything happening at all. It's good to have a sense of what you would do, but don't obsess over it.