After multiple reports of physical abuse came out against former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the National Rifle Association’s media arm, NRATV, used the reports to falsely claim the solution to violence against women is more gun ownership. In reality, the presence of firearms in households where there is domestic violence drastically increases the likelihood that women who live there will be killed or injured.
A May 7 New Yorker article reported that four women say Schneiderman committed “nonconsensual physical violence” against them. According to the article, he “repeatedly hit them, often after drinking, frequently in bed and never with their consent,” as well as choked them. Just hours after the story broke, Schneiderman announced his resignation.
NRATV wasted no time using Schneiderman’s reported abuse of women as a pretext to slam gun regulation and push for female gun ownership as a means of defense against sexual assault and domestic violence. During the May 8 edition of her NRATV show Relentless, NRA national spokesperson Dana Loesch claimed that Schneiderman’s views on gun regulation were motivated by his abusive behavior, saying, “Let’s not forget that Schneiderman just hates lawful gun ownership. Hearing these stories about him it’s no wonder why. The last thing human filth like this would want is for a woman to be in a position to defend herself.”
The next day on NRATV’s news show Stinchfield, Loesch said that it was “fitting that Eric Schneiderman is also anti-gun because predators such as men like him, they don’t like for their victims to be armed” and claimed that abusers are usually “far-left individuals who want women to remain victims and are absolutely aghast when women speak about their right to defend themselves”:
Hey feminists, thanks for empowering women so much that they become the disposable play-things of AGs in NY. How much more can one feed "the patriarchy" they decry?
And here we are, the pro RKBA folks, saying that women should be allowed to shoot men who are rough in bed. We go out of our way in all political conversations to decry armed revolution, but we encourage our ladies to re-evaluate the relationship when Billy can't perform without slapping Sally around? The NRA is asking women to lead from the bedroom. This is what they're leading with? Where have all the cowboys gone?
Hello fathers? Are these your daughters? Do your daughters know that they're precious and don't have to take physical abuse from men, or do they fantasize about being the submissive for Christian Grey? Must they be submissives in order to earn your approval, which they crave so deeply? Is this the best we have to offer? Maybe, before we get to the bedroom, we could have a better screening process, ya think? An ounce of discernment is better than a few rounds to the chest of an abuser?
