Last night, a  woman was allegedly horribly beaten and stabbed to death by her boyfriend.   The child the couple brought into this world was in their home at the time, and there were witnesses to the crime.  It appears that the alleged murderer and abuser has previous convictions for domestic abuse, as well as violating protective orders.  He was arrested a few days ago for abusing the victim in this case, but was released on his own recognizance on Wednesday, the day that the victim also allowed a temporary protective order to lapse.

Witnesses say that they saw the defendant beat and stab the victim in several locations in the house, and that they even tried to intervene to save her.  They claim that they backed off when he tried to cut them with the knife that he was using to carve up the mother of his child.

So what we have here is someone who has been convicted of domestic abuse on multiple occasions being arrested yet again for using his significant other as a speed bag, but being let out of his cage with nothing but a stern warning to be a good boy while he awaits trial.  We have a young mother who has nothing to defend herself except for the honor of the man who she accused of bouncing her off of furniture for fun and profit.  We have adult witnesses who were not able to get him off of her because all they had was their bare hands.

What we have here is the inevitable outcome of what happens to the weak when they are denied effective defensive tools and are confronted by the strong.

That is the insanity of the gun control laws in places like Massachusetts.  Would Ms. Martel still be alive if she had owned a gun?  I don’t know, but I do know she would have had a better chance at survival armed than she did when her boyfriend got out of jail and came over for one last sparring match.  But she was prohibited from walking out of that courthouse on Tuesday and walking into a gun store and purchasing the single most effective defensive tool known to man.  Heck, as I understand the laws in Massachusetts, she didn’t even have the option of calling someone she knows who already owns a gun and getting a loaner.  Her neighbors, who tried to help her, were also hamstrung because all they had at their disposal when they tried to pull a large, muscular, allegedly murderously enraged man off of her were their bare hands.

Instead, they were all left to the mercy of someone with a history of using women as kinetic stress reducers.

Ladies, I’m not going to promise that a gun will magically save you from an attacker, be he some psycho who randomly picked you out of the herd or be he the father of your children.  It’s a tool, not a talisman, and the mere presence of a gun does not guarantee good outcomes, just as its presence does not cause bad outcomes.  But like any tool, if used properly and judiciously, it can mean the difference between success and failure in a situation where failure means death of the innocent or worse.

Ladies, and especially mothers, please take a moment to think about how much you love your life and the lives of your children.  No-one wants to hurt or kill someone else when they cherish life, but in instances like this, you have to weigh the life of your attacker against the value of your life and what you add to the lives of your children.  Please, do not let all of that be protected only by a piece of paper and the honor of those who have no sense of honor.  Protect yourselves, with whatever means you can get.

You are too precious to have that happen to you, even if I never met you.

UPDATE – Credit where credit is due.  I realized after I wrote  this that I borrowed heavily from Kathy Jackson in “The Cornered Cat:  A Woman’s Guide to Concealed Carry” when I was writing the last paragraph or two.  It was unintentional, but I definitely want Kathy to get credit for the sentiment I was trying to get across.