THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Thanks to the NRA and its campaign to see no gun law or restriction exists, most of the states will allow a threatening husband/boyfriend to keep his weapons in spite of an Order of Protection.

Early last year, after a series of frightening encounters with her former husband, Stephanie Holten went to court in Spokane, Wash., to obtain a temporary order for protection.

Her former husband, Corey Holten, threatened to put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger, she wrote in her petition. He also said he would “put a cap” in her if her new boyfriend “gets near my kids.” In neat block letters she wrote, “He owns guns, I am scared.”

The judge’s order prohibited Mr. Holten from going within two blocks of his former wife’s home and imposed a number of other restrictions. What it did not require him to do was surrender his guns.

About 12 hours after he was served with the order, Mr. Holten was lying in wait when his former wife returned home from a date with their two children in tow. Armed with a small semiautomatic rifle bought several months before, he stepped out of his car and thrust the muzzle into her chest. He directed her inside the house, yelling that he was going to kill her.

“I remember thinking, ‘Cops, I need the cops,’ ” she later wrote in a statement to the police. “He’s going to kill me in my own house. I’m going to die!”

Ms. Holten, however, managed to dial 911 on her cellphone and slip it under a blanket on the couch. The dispatcher heard Ms. Holten begging for her life and quickly directed officers to the scene. As they mounted the stairs with their guns drawn, Mr. Holten surrendered. They found Ms. Holten cowering, hysterical, on the floor.

For all its rage and terror, the episode might well have been prevented. Had Mr. Holten lived in one of a handful of states, the protection order would have forced him to relinquish his firearms. But that is not the case in Washington and most of the country, in large part because of the influence of the National Rifle Association and its allies.

Two conservative hypocrisies here. The NRA wants us to believe that an emotional retard who threatens his wife/girlfriend won't use his guns if a nice judge tells him not to. And second we see the Right to Life people surrendering to the gun lobby the right of individuals to survive. Yes, she is well past her birth, but what if she were pregnant? Would her ex-husband still have the right to kill her and her fetus because he used a gun?

EXTRA: Wonkette sums it up quite well.

But before you get all weepy about a few women who died from entirely preventable acts of violence that were arguably the direct result of a cynical lobbying strategy by the weapons industry, let’s remember that this is what freedom is all about. Yes these women and probably thousands like them might exist in a perpetual state of fear because the government that they fund is powerless to protect them from a known and completely fixable danger, but really shouldn’t the onus of keeping oneself safe from harm be on the individual anyway? More guns could easily defuse any and all domestic arguments. Each heated discussion in the kitchen about infidelities or which brand of dish soap to buy could be solved via quick draw contest, just like god intended! Let’s not let the “safety net” of an organized police force and justice system become a hammock for these lay-about domestic abuse victims. The NRA is helping them pull themselves up by their own holster-straps in order to take care of themselves! Therefore if these women fail to do so and end up being killed/raped by their ex-husbands then they really just brought the harm on themselves.