How to Stop Mass Shootings in USA: Arm Women, Not Men

The people who commit mass murders in America seem to fall into one of three categories. There are people with serious mental illnesses, people who have uncontrollable anger problems, and there are radical Islamist extremists. It’s difficult to try to find and round up people with one of these disorders before a crime is committed. (The most recent shooter seems to have had all three.)

But the fact is that all these people have one other attribute in common that has so far been completely overlooked. By preventing the people with this attribute from arming themselves, we will solve shootings in America. I will also note that by doing this, there will be a need for all women to carry firearms.

The attribute of the shooters—with the very rare exception immediately recognizable as the Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome—is that they are all men.

I ask myself, what would Trump do?

Disarm the men.

Arm the women.

The reason we will need to arm women, as some guns-rights enthusiasts have pointed out, is that you need to have citizens on the scene who can fire back at a shooter who starts up. Duck and cover, take off the safety and fire. Fact is, however, that although there have been numerous cases where armed men have been present when a shooter arrives, to the best of my knowledge there has never been a case where such a tactic has been put into play. My guess is that it has to do with fear and surprise. Nevertheless, it is obvious that if someone other than the shooter on the scene were armed, it would be a situation that could save many lives.

Since women have almost no history of becoming lone shooters, each should be required to carry a little Derringer .22 pistol. These pistols are lightweight, usually have a mother-of-pearl handle, and when loaded can fire two shots. They have safety catches. And they are small enough to be put in a purse.

When a shooter appears at a mass gathering, women could, en masse, crouch, aim, fire and bring him down. A first shot might miss, but a second would not. And there would be the others firing as well. Women, the salt of the earth, would be the protectors from shooters.

There are other reasons a woman might carry a small weapon like this. I don’t have to tell you what they are.

This has to be mandatory to work. Some people have long thought that women might shrink from carrying a weapon, even a tiny one such as a Derringer. They are the softer creatures among us, these people say, the gentle, peaceable creatures, But if it were mandatory—specifically I was thinking about how the healthcare law works, where if you don’t do it you are assessed a fine—I suspect women would realize the importance of this. They could form action groups, committees, hold fundraisers, make speeches and conduct forums, and most important, they could undergo training.

A woman would need to be trained on how to use the Derringer and then pass a government test about its use before buying one. Then they’d have to buy one.

This works for everyone, except the shooter. It works for men, women and children, the defenders of America’s rights to bear arms, the gun industry—which, although suddenly unable to sell rifles, pistols or submachine guns to men, would have to manufacture new Derringers for the more than 160,000,000 million women in America. Women would be empowered (I am thinking of the glass ceiling), the threat from dangerous men would be curtailed, and many, many, many lives would be saved.

If you want to see women firing guns with know-how, watch this video.