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News

17-year-old girl uses firearm to defend herself from burglar

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Guns are for self-defense against criminals
Guns are for self-defense against criminals

My friend Terrell posted this story from Fox 59 local news.

Excerpt:

A 17-year-old girl in Franklin Township is safe after a scary brush with a burglar at her family’s home on Knapp Road Wednesday.

Faith Shilkett was home alone around 2 p.m., when her dog Duke started barking. She walked out of her room and saw a man knocking on the front door.

“He was big. He was muscular. He looked like he could do damage if he got a hold of you,” said the teen. “I was scared if he got in, he could’ve hurt me.”

Faith then took off through the house to lock the other doors. When she did that, she got a glimpse of the man at a deck door. She says the man then went to the garage door and jiggled the handle, trying to get in, and even peered in the window. Faith then ran to her mom’s room and pulled out a gun.

“I stayed back here and I started yelling ‘I’m here. I have a gun. I’m going to shoot,’” she said.

Faith called for help and waited. She said she heard rustling in the garage and the man took off in a white van.

[…]Faith says the man was roughly six feet tall, white, and had brown hair.

Guns are a great equalizer for a contest between a 17-year-old girl and a 6-foot-tall man.

It’s very important that everyone remember what the second amendment is used for in the United States. The second amendment allows law-abiding people to purchase firearms in order to defend themselves from criminals.

Although there is opposition to gun ownership in certain circles, the academic literature is quite clear and decisive. Legal ownership of firearms reduces rates of violent crime. Whenever laws that allow law-abiding citizens to carry firearms for self-defense, violent crime rates decrease. Whenever laws are passed that restrict law-abiding citizens from owning and carrying firearms for self-defense, violent crime rates increase.

The peer-reviewed research

Whenever I get into discussions about gun control, I always mention two academic books by John R. Lott and Joyce Lee Malcolm.

Here is a paper by Dr. Malcolm that summarizes one of the key points of her book.

Excerpt:

Tracing the history of gun control in the United Kingdom since the late 19th century, this article details how the government has arrogated to itself a monopoly on the right to use force. The consequence has been a tremendous increase in violent crime, and harsh punishment for crime victims who dare to fight back. The article is based on the author’s most recent book, Guns and Violence: The English Experience (Harvard University Press, 2002). Joyce Malcom is professor of history at Bentley College, in Waltham, Massachusetts. She is also author of To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an AngloAmerican Right (Harvard University Press, 1994).

Upon the passage of The Firearms Act (No. 2) in 1997, British Deputy Home Secretary Alun Michael boasted: “Britain now has some of the toughest gun laws in the world.” The Act was second handgun control measure passed that year, imposed a near-complete ban on private ownership of handguns, capping nearly eighty years of increasing firearms restrictions. Driven by an intense public campaign in the wake of the shooting of schoolchildren in Dunblane, Scotland, Parliament had been so zealous to outlaw all privately owned handguns that it rejected proposals to exempt Britain’s Olympic target-shooting team and handicapped target-shooters from the ban.

And the result of the 1997 gun ban:

The result of the ban has been costly. Thousands of weapons were confiscated at great financial cost to the public. Hundreds of thousands of police hours were devoted to the task. But in the six years since the 1997 handgun ban, crimes with the very weapons banned have more than doubled, and firearm crime has increased markedly. In 2002, for the fourth consecutive year, gun crime in England and Wales rose—by 35 percent for all firearms, and by a whopping 46 percent for the banned handguns. Nearly 10,000 firearms offences were committed.

[…]According to Scotland Yard, in the four years from 1991 to 1995 crimes against the person in England‟s inner cities increased by 91 percent. In the four years from 1997 to 2001 the rate of violent crime more than doubled. The UK murder rate for 2002 was the highest for a century.

I think that peer-reviewed studies – from Harvard University, no less – should be useful to those of us who believe in the right of self-defense for law-abiding people. The book by economist John Lott, linked above,compares the crime rates of all U.S. states that have enacted concealed carry laws, and concludes that violent crime rates dropped after law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry legally-owned firearms. That’s the mirror image of Dr. Malcolm’s Harvard study, but both studies affirm the same conclusion – more legal firearm ownership means less crime.

News

Why does the law say that killing an unborn child is OK, but not a born child?

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I'm Scheming Unborn Baby, and I approve this study
I’m Scheming Unborn Baby, and I approve this message

This article from Nancy Flory in The Stream really caused me to stop and think about the plight of unborn children in our age of selfishness.

Nancy starts her piece like this:

As someone who’s faced an unexpected pregnancy — and now has a rambunctious two-year-old — I came across two stories in the last week that stopped me cold. As I explained in an earlier article, I faced uncertainty, financial hardships and downright fear when I discovered I was pregnant. I know what it’s like not to know what the future holds, not to know how I’m going to buy food for my children, to know I’m going to lose my car and go for months without gainful employment, all while unexpectedly pregnant. So I can speak with candor about the two mothers who made headlines this week regarding what they chose to do when faced with an unexpected pregnancy.

I’m just going to quote the second one, you can click through for the first.

She writes:

Emile Weaver — Having Too Much Fun to Stop for Parenthood

An Ohio judge this week sentenced sorority girl Emile Weaver to life in prison without parole for throwing away her newborn baby girl after giving birth in her sorority house’s restroom. The 20-year-old texted her boyfriend following the child’s death, saying, “No more baby,” and “taken care of.”

Prosecutors made the case that Weaver knew all along she wasn’t going to keep the baby and engaged in risky behaviors such as drinking, smoking marijuana and playing in a volleyball tournament while pregnant, reported The Blaze.

Although she apologized during her trial for killing her child and testified that she thought the baby was dead before she put her in the trash, she made legal moves to plead not guilty by reason of insanity and, after the trial, vowed that she would appeal.

The judge did not believe that she was remorseful and handed down the stiff sentence.

Nancy goes on to make the point about abortion. Why is it OK for a woman to kill her unborn child in its 6th, 7th, 8th month of gestation but it suddenly becomes wrong after the child is born? Why is abortion morally right 5 minutes before birth, but morally wrong 5 minutes after birth? What is it that the baby acquires after passing through the birth canal a few inches that gives them the right to life?

Or, isn’t it the case the the location of the child is meaningless, and the child had all the value in the world the moment it was conceived, and a new DNA signature of a human being was created that is distinct from the mother and the father. A new person was made. That new person is not the father, and is not the mother. It’s a new person. And it’s not right to kill innocent people just because the mother wants to have fun and thrills, and escape the responsibility for her actions. That’s really what abortion is – two unmarried people get drunk, have sex for fun and thrills, and then they kill the child because they don’t want their pursuit of fun and thrills to be impacted with expectations, responsibilities or obligations.

This is why I am so suspicious of the women I knew when I was younger who pushed me to have fun, and who hated expectations, responsibilities and obligations. There is a lot of drinking and pleasure-seeking that goes on with young women, and I didn’t want anything to do with it. Fun makes me suspicious. For young people, it seems to go along with playing the victim, avoiding responsibility, and running away from moral obligations. So many young, unmarried women seem to have this desperate desire for fun, thrills and travel. And they are revolted by expectations, responsibilities and moral obligations. Not me – I am deeply suspicious of fun and thrills. It strikes me as childish, and when I read stories about women who have had abortions, I understand what is behind my suspicion.

I’m not killing any unborn children, not for any fun in the world. Not for the best fun the world has to offer. Fun isn’t that important to me, not if I have to break moral laws and even be complicit in murder. No way.

News

New study: children raised by same-sex parents have twice the risk of depression

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Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties
Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like to care for the needs of children

A new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Depression Research and Treatment confirms that children do better when raised by their mother and father.

Here’s the abstract:

The relationship of elevated depression risk recently discovered among adult persons raised by same-sex parents with possible precipitating conditions in childhood has not previously been acknowledged. This study tests whether such inattention is supportable. Logistic regression based risk ratios were estimated from longitudinal measures of mental health outcomes observed in three waves (at ages 15, 22, and 28) of the US National Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health (,701). At age 28, the adults raised by same-sex parents were at over twice the risk of depression (CES-D: risk ratio 2.6, 95% CI 1.4–4.6) as persons raised by man-woman parents. These findings should be interpreted with caution. Elevated risk was associated with imbalanced parental closeness and parental child abuse in family of origin; depression, suicidality, and anxiety at age 15; and stigma and obesity. More research and policy attention to potentially problematic conditions for children with same-sex parents appears warranted.

The Federalist commented on the new study:

Children of same-sex parents also reported more violence, having a parent slap, hit, or kick them, or saying “things that hurt your feelings or made you feel you were not wanted or loved,” or “touched you in a sexual way, forced you to touch him or her in a sexual way, or forced you to have sex relations.”

In conclusion:

 The emergence of higher depression risk in early adulthood, coupled with a more frequent history of abuse victimization, parental distance, and obesity, suggests that the inattention of research and policy to the problems of children with same-sex parents is unwarranted.

As initial results, the present findings should be interpreted with caution and balance, based on the limited evidence presented, and (it is hoped) neither exaggerated nor dismissed out of hand on preconceived ideological grounds. However, well-intentioned concern for revealing negative information about a stigmatized minority does not justify leaving children without support in an environment that may be problematic or dangerous for their dignity and security.

Sullins’ study is not alone in suggesting more research needs to be done in this area. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published an extensive study proving the importance of biological fathers in the “healthy development of children.” In addition, “the most careful, rigorous, and methodologically sound study ever conducted” on the issue of homosexual parenting found “numerous and significant differences” between children raised by biological parents and children of homosexuals, “with the outcomes for children of homosexuals rated ‘suboptimal’ in almost every category.”

Very important to understand that same-sex couples who bring children into their relationship are intentionally depriving the child of a relationship with one or more of her biological parents. Just imagine growing up in the world and not having access to the people who made you. It’s not fair, and adult selfishness should have to give way to the needs of vulnerable children. Motherlessness is bad for children, and fatherlessness is bad for children.

Let’s go back and look at a previous study from Canada.

The Public Discourse reported on it.

Excerpt:

A new academic study based on the Canadian census suggests that a married mom and dad matter for children. Children of same-sex coupled households do not fare as well.

There is a new and significant piece of evidence in the social science debate about gay parenting and the unique contributions that mothers and fathers make to their children’s flourishing. A study published last week in the journal Review of the Economics of the Household—analyzing data from a very large, population-based sample—reveals that the children of gay and lesbian couples are only about 65 percent as likely to have graduated from high school as the children of married, opposite-sex couples. And gender matters, too: girls are more apt to struggle than boys, with daughters of gay parents displaying dramatically low graduation rates.

Unlike US-based studies, this one evaluates a 20 percent sample of the Canadian census, where same-sex couples have had access to all taxation and government benefits since 1997 and to marriage since 2005.

[…]Three key findings stood out to Allen:

children of married opposite-sex families have a high graduation rate compared to the others; children of lesbian families have a very low graduation rate compared to the others; and the other four types [common law, gay, single mother, single father] are similar to each other and lie in between the married/lesbian extremes.

Employing regression models and series of control variables, Allen concludes that the substandard performance cannot be attributed to lower school attendance or the more modest education of gay or lesbian parents. Indeed, same-sex parents were characterized by higher levels of education, and their children were more likely to be enrolled in school than even those of married, opposite-sex couples. And yet their children are notably more likely to lag in finishing their own schooling.

[…]The truly unique aspect of Allen’s study, however, may be its ability to distinguish gender-specific effects of same-sex households on children. He writes:

the particular gender mix of a same-sex household has a dramatic difference in the association with child graduation. Consider the case of girls. . . . Regardless of the controls and whether or not girls are currently living in a gay or lesbian household, the odds of graduating from high school are considerably lower than any other household type. Indeed, girls living in gay households are only 15 percent as likely to graduate compared to girls from opposite sex married homes.

Thus although the children of same-sex couples fare worse overall, the disparity is unequally shared, but is instead based on the combination of the gender of child and gender of parents.

[…]Thus the study undermines not only claims about “no differences” but also assertions that moms and dads are interchangeable. They’re not.

Here’s the study.

The author of the study is a professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. His PhD in economics is from the University of Washington. A previous study had shown that gay relationships typically have far more instability (they last for more shorter times). Another study featured in the Atlantic talked about how gay relationships have much higher rates of domestic violence. Neither of these factors is good for children. So we have three reasons to think that normalizing gay relationships as “marriage” would not be good for children.

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