(For more of Kate's story, get Armed and Female by Paxton Quigley. On second thought, just get it. It is very educational.)
"All the time I was locked in the trunk, I could hear him yelling from his driver's seat about what he was going to do to me."
Little Sisters, a small independently owned bookstore in Vancouver, is in front of the Supreme Court of Canada--again!
This case began when the owner of the little bookstore was subjected to decisions made by the Customs officers--decisions that resulted in books that the store owner had ordered being turned back at the border because the Customs bureaucrat decided that the book being imported was "obscene," apparently in his personal opinion, and therefore could not be imported. The bookstore owner fought his way to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in 2000 and "won" in the sense that the SCC blasted the Customs officers for being "oppressive and dismissive."
However, the SCC left the law and the powers of the Customs bureaucrats unchanged, so the bureaucrats apparently continued being "oppressive and dismissive." Needless to say, the continuing abusive decisions have damaged the bookstore's business.
Canada is a dangerous place for women, and is becoming steadily more dangerous. At first, there were stories in the newspapers and on television about violent crime involving people we didn't know. Then we began to hear about friends and acquaintances who were robbed, raped, mugged, and murdered. In some cases, we ourselves were the victims. We bolted our doors, installed alarm systems, and expanded our police departments. Yet still we grew more frightened. Now some of us will not even go out alone at night! Have we become a nation of helpless sheep, victims all?
U.S. statistics (Canadian statistics unavailable, but probably similar): one in 600 rapists will be caught and convicted. The average for rapists is that an accused rapist has assaulted 17 women before being convicted.
Women want to feel safe, respected, and if necessary, feared! No woman wants to be the next victim!
Some women who have been victimized will talk openly with other women, whether they know one another personally or not. They will often not talk openly to police officers. Some are afraid to be witnesses in court, some are embarrassed to bare personal dramas, there are many reasons for that refusal to cooperate. It is quite common among women who are victims.
Three recent issues of the Canadian Firearms Journal have stirred things up. A small number of people (five, at the latest count) have reacted with hostility to our presentation of the idea that a woman should be able to protect human life from criminal violence if she so chooses. Interestingly, over half of such email messages to the NFA have been "anonymized"-- that is, they have been sent to a web site that remails them in a form that makes it difficult to find out who sent them. We do not take anonymous letters seriously, and we are suspicious regarding the identity of the senders. We operate openly, and have no respect for those who hide their identities. We wonder if those emails came from government bureaucrats.
Of course, a number of people have also written to us approving of what we are doing--including a 70-year-old woman in the Maritimes.
If you don’t like the idea of allowing qualified women (as well qualified as RCMP constables) to have and use handguns, I challenge you to offer a better solution to the problem of women being attacked by violent criminals. That problem is growing rapidly, as your daily paper is telling you, and there is little time available to come up with a real-world workable solution for our increasingly-dangerous nation.
Now go to the main text below and see how easy it is to do whatever you want to do with the Lioness--at no cost to you, and, if you choose, at some profit to you.
Most short courses in protection of human life from criminal violence are not very effective. Jabbing car keys at a attacker's eyes doesn't work, because those eyes see them coming. The "knee in the groin" does not work, because men spend their entire lives being protective of their testicles. Their protective and defensive moves are quick and effective. The Lioness concentrates on simple techniques that work.
The Lioness is written in "Voice of the Instructor." Reading it is like listening to an Instructor teaching the course… so one can read it to learn what it is teaching, or one can read it to learn how to teach it, so long as the Lioness is not abridged or altered. Anyone who learns to teach it may set up courses and teach it, may charge a cost-recovery fee for the service, include a modest profit, and send no money to the NFA. There is no charge made by us.
The Lioness is the NFA's contribution to the safety of women. An adequate-definition .pdf file version can be downloaded from www.NFA.ca and printed by anyone. Copies can be made and distributed. A high-definition .pdf file version, with a separate file for each page, will soon be available from the same source.
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Some day, the realization may hit you: "My God! I'm about to be raped, mutilated, or killed!"I hope that never happens; but it is simple fact that 27% of all Canadian women can expect to be sexually assaulted (statistics from Metro Action Committee on Public Violence Against Women and Children, 1991) if our violent crime rates get no worse. The figure went up by 69% from 1979 to 1989 (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 1991), and is still increasing, by 7 to 8% per year.
If you believe that you cannot injure another human being, this training is
not for you. If you believe that it is proper to stop a violent criminal to
save yourself and others, it is.
If you want to print the Lioness on your own printer, in colour or in black and white, download the Lioness low resolution .pdf format using the link below.
Lioness Method (1.67 MB) Right click on it, and select "save as" to save this file.
If you are having the Lioness printed in quantity by a good professional printer, download the individual pages of the Lioness in high resolution .pdf format using the links below.
lionesspage1.pdf (750.65 KB) lionesspage2.pdf (4.16 MB) lionesspage3.pdf (1.74 MB) lionesspage4.pdf (2.09 MB) lionesspage5.pdf (1.65 MB) lionesspage6.pdf (2.95 MB) lionesspage7.pdf (5.90 MB) lionesspage8.pdf (910.26 KB)
Law affects ordinary people, touching every aspect of everyone's day-to-day existence--so it is essential for Canadians to challenge the government when it passes bad laws, especially when bad laws are threatening women's lives. I've seen too many cases of women in danger being murdered in the last few years, and it is getting worse. I want real protection, not babbling from Liberal politicians!
Today, it's better for a woman to have a gun and not need it than to need one and not have it. Violent crime rates have been going through the ceiling ever since Bill C-68 was enacted. C-68 created a new firearms control system, and that program's cost has escalated to over 500 times the originally estimated cost. The system is seemingly out of control financially, and is failing as a crime deterrent. Police are failing to control the rising violent crime levels, even with its help. Violence towards women is bad and getting worse!
My "Women In Danger" article was written primarily for the last Canadian Firearms Journal [CFJ XV-4]--but because violent crime is also increasing in and around the small community where I live, I decided to send the article in to one of the local newspapers as well.
Was I nervous anticipating the outcome of my offering? Hell, yes! A Canadian does not speak out explicitly on issues like this, and certainly not a woman!
Am I a militant feminist who believes that every man is a danger to every woman? No. Most men are nice, and some are real sweethearts. Am I a realist who believes that a violent criminal who happens to be a man can be a deadly danger to women and children? Yes, I am.
I received a rather detailed lecture from a very irate hometown editor who strongly disagreed with me--before my little opinion paper surprisingly appeared in his guest column the next morning. Amazingly I received only three negative comments, all from women who were all associates of the Women's Emergency Centre. It made me wonder how many women out there quietly agreed with me.
With all due respect, I couldn't agree more. Feminist groups are vitally important. It is evident to us, as women, that we are all seeking justice and equality. However, it is also essential for us, as women, to recognize and respect the diversities that arise among women in our society, as well as the significance and observance of an unwritten code of honour within our feminist groups. We do not always agree on what constitutes justice and equality as we evolve, but we must make sure that we accept our own diversity.
That's my reasoning for what follows. It is important to remember that no single group has a monopoly on virtue. Almost all individuals, whether they own firearms or not, deplore violent crime and brush-fire warfare. Firearm owners share with every other community group the wish for a safer society and a reduction in the ability of those who cannot be trusted with weapons to acquire illicit firearms.
Our legal system is based on British common law and the sanctity of customary rights. Sir William Blackstone wrote his "Commentaries" in the middle of the 18th century, and that book is still the most important standard reference work on British common law and the British constitution. When Sir William explained the common law, he noted that every individual has certain rights, including the rights to personal security and personal liberty and the right to own and use property. He also pointed out that all of those rights can be attacked by criminals who ignore the distant protection offered by our system of police, courts, and laws. He knew that distant protections can fail, and then the victim can lose everything--life, liberty, and property--unless that victim can protect herself. He recognized that everyone has a right to protect human life from criminal violence.
Canada has had a closely controlled firearm regime for a long, long time. Handguns have had to be registered since 1934. (In spite of that, "closely controlled" handguns have always been the most popular firearms for use in crime.) Government control has been applied to all legal firearm purchases since 1977, and many firearms are classed as "prohibited firearms." In 1991 a large number of military-style semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines became prohibited or restricted. Canadian criminals don't seem to use any of them, although they are all easily available illegally.
When Bill C-68, the Firearms Act, was enacted in 1995, homicides were at a 25-year low. Firearms-related suicides were at a 25-year low. Hospitalization due to firearms was at an 8-year low. The data clearly showed that the levels of firearm-related accidents and deaths had been decreasing for a number of years prior to 1995, and that there was no demonstrable need for a new and expensive policy of universal gun registration. In fact, the majority of the remaining violent crimes were being committed with knives, fists, and hockey sticks.
However, at about the same time, much of society was disturbed--upset with talk of war and terrorism, and further upset when a crazed lone gunman in Montreal shot and killed 14 women before killing himself.
There is little difference between a mass murderer (a crazed lone man using a gun to murder a group of innocent women) and a serial killer, (a crazed lone man using a knife, strangulation, or bludgeoning to kill a group of innocent women individually over a period of time). Both are rare, shocking, and incomprehensible, but the final results are the same. This type of man is capable of killing multiple victims with no remorse. His message is loud and clear: he hates women, and he will kill as many as he can before he is stopped or kills himself.
Placing the firearms control laws, which are regulatory in nature, in the Criminal Code, which is criminal law, created great confusion. Also, the firearms control laws are often internally contradictory, and
have far too many gray areas. Operating the firearms control system is very costly, and it is also frustrating to try to keep up with its forever-changing technicalities and legalities. Not only do the complex firearm laws adversely affect legal gun owners, they also have negative effects on people in the law enforcement business and in the justice system.
In firearms-related court cases, the judge has the final say, and each judge has his own view of firearms. Some judges hunt, and so do some police officers, lawyers, and even politicians, but prejudice against law-abiding firearm owners is becoming a problem.
An individual must pass the Canadian Firearms Safety Course before applying for a firearm licence. A background check is done on anyone applying for a firearm licence. All firearms licences are photo ID. The questions on the application are comprehensive and personally invasive. Spouses, partners, and ex-partners are interviewed by a government official. You cannot get a firearm licence if you have a criminal record or a history of violence.
Individual firearms are secured with a trigger lock or stored in a locked steel cabinet or safe. All ammunition is stored separately. Legal firearms are registered in the government's computers. The law allows officials access to legal firearm owners' homes to check on storage methods.
Enough already! Legal firearm owners are not the problem! They are and have been complying with the latest firearms control laws for the past seven years, and, as previously mentioned, whatever the laws and regulations were at the time for a many years before that.
Criminals smuggle large numbers of illegal guns into Canada to supply the illegal marketplace. Those guns are readily available to drug dealers, gangs, and other violent criminals. Criminals do not apply for a gun licence, nor do they register their guns in the government's computers. They ignore all firearms control law, and don't do any of the paperwork the rest of us have to do. Criminals often habitually carry concealed loaded handguns. So--if they're the problem, why isn't anyone working on it? Why target us?
Statistics Canada results reveal we are living with violent crime--criminals at large, violence towards women and children, and children suffering from and witnessing family violence. Not all Canadians are passive, law-abiding people, and we need to acknowledge that.
Overall, stabbings were the most common method (31per cent) of committing homicide in 2002, followed by shooting (26 per cent), beatings (21 per cent) and strangulation or suffocation (11 per cent). For the 548 murders in 2003, 71 per cent were committed with something other than a firearm. Is our government focussing too narrowly on firearms, and missing the larger problem of the use of other weapons?
A "weapon" is anything that is used to kill, injure or threaten. Many weapons are routinely found in or around our homes, and too many of us refuse to acknowledge that. Guns, knives, hockey sticks, tools,
vehicles--all are, or can be, weapons. It is not the weapon that is the problem. It is the person behind the "weapon"--the person who is committing the murder, injuring, or threatening. Think about it. Does it make sense to try to eliminate everything that can be used to kill, injure, or threaten? Of course not, because we are still left with the real problem: humans--people who are capable of violent behaviour and murder.
Society is diverse, and will never be able to rid itself of all violent criminals--particularly those who are willing to abuse, rape, mutilate, or murder women and children. Men are already equal on all levels to women, and men are also frequently attacked, mutilated, and murdered by violent criminals. Violence and abuse are already "not tolerated by our society."
Violent criminals are routinely charged, convicted, and sent to prison. Many of them commit more crimes while they are in prison and then commit more again when they get out. Some violent criminals have no interest in being rehabilitated--they enjoy being violent criminals, and do not want to change.
Not all men are "powerful," and not all women are "powerless." It is certain that not all men are capable of abuse or murder. However, the fact remains that there are men who do commit murder, and men who abuse and injure women and children. Women and children are abused and die in disproportionately large numbers. Statistically, we know that a very high percentage of them are women being abused and murdered in their own homes by their partners.
The police cannot provide a guard for each threatened woman. There aren't enough police officers to do that. So, unless a woman can protect herself, there is never going to be anyone there to protect her. She is limited by having only her hands to protect herself when she is being brutally attacked by a violent criminal who is often much larger and stronger than she is and who may be using a weapon while attacking her! Too often, she becomes just another headline--because the police do not come before or during a crime. They come after the crime has been committed and the violent criminal has left the scene, or after the criminal
has killed himself--and that is TOO DAMNED LATE!
My previous article proposed armed status only for a law-abiding woman who has met all the qualifications and standards required of a RCMP constable. I think that is reasonable. A woman police officer carries a loaded firearm for the primary purpose of protecting human life from criminal violence--her own, or the lives of those under her protection. Such an officer is not authorized to use that firearm to protect property or to threaten an individual who is no threat to the officer or anyone else or to shoot a criminal who is fleeing the scene of a property crime. A criminal cannot take a gun away from a woman unless he gets close enough to touch the gun--which the woman will not allow.
Most believe that a women police officer is capable and trustworthy when using a firearm. So--why are there still some people who think other women are not capable or trustworthy when using a firearm? Especially women as well-trained as woman police officers? Or is it that some people think that all women should be disarmed, including the woman police officer?
An excellent course of instruction in easily learned effective methods of coping with vicious attacks came roaring through in "For Women Only--The Lioness Method of Rape Prevention." It is included in this issue of this magazine. It's well written and easy to follow, and well illustrated. It offers a woman a fighting chance to protect herself, even if she is unarmed, and I found it quite sane and sensible. The Lioness also educates women on what types of men are capable of such violent attacks. I found that knowledge interesting, and it lessened my fears about resisting the wimps who rape women.
Women are, in cold hard fact, unequal because they are almost always smaller and weaker than the men who attack them. If society insists that women be treated as equals of the men who attack them, is that abusive?
As Cindy Lightheart said in her "Women in Danger" article in Canadian Firearms Journal Volume XV Number 4 (XV-4): "The police do not come to a woman before or during a violent crime. They come after the crime has been completed and the criminal has left the scene. It is extremely rare for a police officer to arrive in time to prevent or even interrupt a violent crime when a woman is the victim. How could he? She could not even call the police before her attacker left."
Her statement hit me hard, so I began to look into ways that a woman can protect human life from criminal violence. She may need to protect her own life, or those of her children, or someone else. But as a practical matter, how can she do it?
As a result of Ms. Lightheart's article, we published "For Women Only--the Lioness Method of Rape Prevention" in Canadian Firearms Journal XV-5. It was designed to teach a woman how to protect herself from a rapist or other attacker, using only her hands and feet and the other weapons built into her body. The Lioness Method techniques are quite sophisticated, very effective, and simple enough so that a woman can learn them just by reading and looking at the pictures.
Clearly, this is a method of protecting human life from criminal violence--but it is an inadequate method for anything other than emergency use in fairly specific circumstances. She may need something better.
She may need to carry a concealed handgun. Yes, I know that is a startling idea. No, it is not an unreasonable idea, and, yes, it is perfectly legal in Canada, if she has an authorization to carry.
Women are usually smaller and weaker than the men who attack them, rob them, rape them, and murder them. Therefore, they need a tool that equalizes the situation, and, it is to be hoped, makes them more powerful than the criminal they are dealing with.
"But--they can't do that!"
Why not? Any woman can legally carry a concealed handgun if she has been issued a Type 3 Authorization to Carry (ATC) by the appropriate firearms control bureaucrat, "to protect the life of that individual or of other individuals" [Firearms Act section 20(a)]. It's right there in the law (see Legal Corner for more legal details).
Many American women have permits to carry concealed handguns, and the structure of the state has not been damaged by American trust in women. In those states (now almost all of them) that issue such permits, violent crime rates where the victims are women went down sharply as soon as the women were allowed to have those permits. It is obvious why: the criminals became afraid of the victims.
Look at it from the criminal's point of view. He is moving in on the woman, with criminal intent. Suddenly, he is looking at the muzzle end of a handgun. What goes through his mind? "If she shoots me--even if I am only slightly wounded--I'll have to go to a hospital, and the bullet they take out of me will carry the signature of her gun. There will be no doubt at all about my guilt." After thinking that, he is almost certainly going to abandon his intentions and run like a rabbit.
Normal women do not shoot at people without clear justification, and protecting human life from criminal violence is the only legal justification in Canada. Besides, we know from the American experience that women who are allowed to carry concealed firearms are more likely to frighten an attacker away or arrest him than to shoot him.
"But--Canadian women can't arrest anyone!"
Sorry, but you're wrong. Every Canadian is authorized to arrest anyone she "finds committing an indictable offence (and threatening is an indictable offence)" or "finds committing a criminal offence on or in relation to" property in her lawful possession or custody.
So--how many women have taken advantage of this offer in the law to apply for and get ATCs? Alas, our government will not tell us how many applications have been filed--but we do know how many Type 3 ATCs have been issued since the federal Liberal Party became our government 12 years ago:
None.
Not a single one.
The bureaucrats drafted that area of law to give themselves godlike power over women who apply for Type 3 ATCs. If another type of licencing document is refused, the applicant can take the refusal to a reference hearing--but not this one. With this one, the power of the bureaucrat is absolute.
After writing this proviso into their proposed law, the bureaucrats presented it to the then Liberal Minister of Justice, Alan Rock. He either backed what they wanted to do, or was too negligent to notice what they had given him. The Liberal majority passed it in the House of Commons and in the Senate. No Liberal MP
opposed what was being done to women by this odious legislation.
We all know that there are women in danger--women who have left abusive relationships and who are being threatened or stalked because of that. Women who work in jobs that require them to leave work very late at night, who must get to their car in the employee's section of the parking garage (dark and far away). Women who must carry the day's take from the store, late at night, to the bank's deposit slot. Women who must meet strange men at acreages or houses for sale...the list is long.
So why does the federal Liberal Party refuse those women the protection they need? Why does it claim that the police will protect those women when it is glaringly obvious that a woman can call the police only after the crime has been committed and the criminal is gone, when the police do not come before or during the crime, but afterwards? Those questions are not an attack on the police. This is just real life. Police cannot and do not offer protection before the crime, and usually cannot arrive during the crime.
I do not know how you feel about this, but I am disgusted that the Liberals would do this to women. It is unjustifiable--something out of the Middle Ages--and they should be ashamed of themselves. Women deserve our respect and protection, and this policy strips women of the protection they need.
The Liberal party's attempt to disarm criminals by the use of woefully defective and hyper-expensive legislation has failed completely. Read your daily paper; are violent criminals unable to get illegal guns? No. Women need protection more than ever before, and what are the Liberals doing about it? Nothing.
Please write to (personal letters are very effective; each one is counted as 500 angry voters) or email:
Paul Martin, PM: martin.p@parl.gc.ca
Anne McLellan, DPM: mclellan.a@parl.gc.ca
Irwin Cotler, MoJ: cotler.i@parl.gc.ca
Garry Breitkreuz, MP: breitkreuz.g@parl.gc.ca
Their mailing address is (no stamp required):
House of Commons
OTTAWA ON
K1A 0A6
Tell them what you think about this situation. The first three are the people who are responsible for what the bureaucrats are doing to prevent the issuance of Type 3 ATCs to women. The law allows women to have those ATCs, but the bureaucrats are a blockage as solid as Hoover Dam.
I'm asking you to send a copy of what you write to Garry Breitkreuz so that he can tell the world about your support for women in danger.