Gun Control and Empowering Woman: An Evaluation and Argument
People, especially women, need to empower themselves to not get taken advantage of by strangers. This is what the author Leslie Marmon Silko believes, which is illustrated in her essay, "In the Combat Zone." Silko writes this essay to acknowledge to women that the use of self-defense with guns is critical to protect themselves from tragedies of violence from strangers toward women. Silko's essay fairly justifies the use of guns for self-defense, but her argument does contain a few weaknesses. The essay's strengths include a good integration of history and credible personal experience stories. Her weaknesses include a lack of expert opinions and backing down from fully protecting herself in one of her personal experiences.
Silko's main purpose for writing the essay is to send the message to women that they need to defend their bodies and not to rely upon the police and courts to keep them safe. There are two main arguable issues Silko expresses in her essay. One issue that is especially on the front burner is self-defense using guns, which provokes the current issue of gun control. On one side of the spectrum, people believe that being able to own a gun should be allowed because it makes them feel safer, and it has shown to deter criminal conduct. Contrarily, others believe guns are morally wrong because they promote killing and are unsafe.
Another issue raised by Silko's essay is that of empowering women. She believes women should not be victims of vulnerability. Others believe women still belong in the kitchen cooking and cleaning and are naturally vulnerable citizens.
Silko integrates a good history of the past rape in Tucson in her writing. By doing this, it helps the reader understand that Silko is coming from a place where rape has been epidemic, and therefore we can better understand her horrific experiences in Tucson. Instead, she could have given a history of the rape in the United States or of another location, but she chose to give a history of the rape in Tucson, which helps her credibility. Silko gives a history of the different rape characters in the 1980s, some of which are the afternoon rapist, the apologetic rapist, and the red bandanna rapist ("In the Combat" 755). With Silko's choice in integrating these rapists, especially the afternoon rapist, it sets her up well for her personal experience story of being followed in the afternoon by a potential rapist. Also, when she writes about the red bandana rapist, who raped over twenty women, she describes how the last woman who he tried to rape shot him (Silko, "In the Combat" 755). By stating this, it establishes her argument that guns are beneficial. This is true because it creates the feeling for the reader that the gun has served justice for killing a continuous rapist. This historical information fits in well with her argument for guns and empowerment of women.
Not only does Silko use a good integration of historical information, but she also uses credible personal experience stories. Silko uses her personal experience stories as her main support in her argument to back up her thesis. From her experience with her afternoon rapist to the drunken hunting men, it is fair to say she is an expert on evaluating violence towards women from strangers. Silko's argument is made more credible due to her experience with violence from strangers. The personal experience story with the two drunken hunters supports one of her main points of women protecting themselves because they cannot always depend on the police and courts. The two drunken hunters came after her with fiberglass crossbows when she was out riding her horse. She went home and called for emergency help, but it took the park ranger forty-five minutes to get to her house ("In the Combat" 757). This makes the issue of women needing guns for self-defense more arguable because she has a personal experience to back it up.
On top of Silko's strengths in her essay, she also has a few weaknesses. One of those is her lack of expert opinions. Silko does not mention one expert opinion, which weakens her credibility and makes her argument less convincing. An expert opinion with the explanation of why women should use guns for self-defense or why women should be less vulnerable would have been beneficial to her credibility.
Another weakness in Silko's essay is her personal experience story when she backs down from giving the drunken hunters a full punishment. She refrains from pressing charges on the hunters because she is too afraid that they are going to come after her, especially since she lives alone ("In the Combat" 757). By doing this, Silko is contradicting one of her main points of empowering women. She is arguing for women to be stronger and sticking up for themselves, yet she backs down from making the hunters fully learn their lesson of how to treat women. Both of the weaknesses in Silko's essay affect her ethos, making her argument less credible.
Silko presents a good argument for her beliefs and values for gun control and empowering women. The University of Minnesota online article, "Biography-Criticism," tells how Silko's values originate from her Pueblo heritage, which she has expanded to include her beliefs on women's equality and her strong ties to tradition (Droberg and Huiras). Although Silko presents a good argument, I do not fully agree with it. Women should engage in self-protection, but they should not empower themselves with guns. I feel this way because guns promote killing and are morally wrong. This argument of mine fits in well with my values, which are moderate to liberal and includes a Catholic upbringing.
Women using guns for self-defense is unsafe and is morally wrong. Guns should be used for the sole purpose of protection by a trained police officer. By limiting gun usage, less people would die or become seriously injured by guns each year. According to the Houston Peace & Justice Center, 651, 697 Americans have died between the years of 1979 and 1997 due to gun violence. The estimated number of Americans killed in the 20th century outweighs the number of Americans killed on the battlefield ("More Americans"). These numbers prove there is something wrong with the way Americans control guns. Contrarily, those who are pro-gun commonly argue that guns deter crime. Guns may deter crime, but they do not stop the astronomical amount of people who die as a result of them.
In Silko's essay, her father believed that her grandmother and mother needed a gun for a reason that was not significant enough. One night, Silko's grandmother and mother went to get thousands of dollars from the bank to cash the miners' checks. When they were driving home, three men tried to drive them off the road ("In the Combat" 754). This incident does not justify the need for gun for two reasons. It isn't implied that the three men knew that the women had a large quantity of money in their car and were going after it. Also, the only people that should be allowed guns are police.
The United States does not have a sound gun concealment law. Because of this, the citizens have insignificant reasons to have guns, which is causing out of proportion amounts of gun violence.
Another arguable issue raised by Silko's essay is empowering women. Women should be allowed the right to be equal to the rest of society. It is unfair for men to depict women as vulnerable prey of society because of their gender, just as it is unfair to disallow a black person to drink from a white person's water fountain because of the color of their skin. There are plenty of other ways to empower women than giving them a gun. The best way is to become part of a self-defense class in which the majority of the class involves diplomatic strategies. The diplomatic strategies will help women negotiate or trick their way out of a violent attack rather than using violent action. The class would teach physical self-defense, which would only be used when all other diplomatic strategies fail. In the article, "A Different Perspective on Self-Defense Training," the authors believe that "If a situation goes physical it generally means you have not applied the other skill sets correctly" (MacYoung and Gordon). Also, if a gun is used as the first option of defense in a violent scenario, it could be emotionally anguishing for the killer for the rest of his or her life. The killer might consistently question if killing was the best means of defense.
Overall Silko's argumentative essay is well written and has validity. Her writing includes the strengths of a use of history and the integration of personal experience stories. The weaknesses in this essay include a lack of expert opinions and backing down in one of her personal experiences. She sets up an interesting controversy on the popular topics of gun control and empowering women. Although her argument was well written, I do not fully agree with her because women should not resort to guns for self-defense. Instead, they should engage in a self-defense class in which the majority of the class provides diplomatic strategy. If women could learn to channel their fears of violence from strangers into non-killing forms, it could save many lives and emotional anguish.
Works Cited
Clare, Mary. "Women's Rights." Human Rights Watch. 2003. 10 Nov. 2003 <http://hrw.org/women/>.
Droberg, Daniel, and Robin Huiras. "Biography-Criticism." Voices from the Gap. 1996. University of Minnesota. 6 Nov. 2003 <http://www.voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/SILKOlesliemarmon.html>.
Joly, Claire. "Testosterone and Gun Control." Montreal Daily Le Devoir (1999). Subversive Liberty. 5 Nov. 2003 <http://www.poerrelemieux.org/jolyeng.html>.
MacYoung, Marc, and Dianna Gordon. "A Different Perspective on Self-Defense Training." No Nonsense Self-Defense. 5 Nov. 2003 <http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/self-defensetraining.htm>.
"More Americans Killed By Guns Than By War in the 20th Century." Houston Peace & Justice Center. 1999. 11 Nov. 2003 <http://www.hpjc.org/issues_guncontrol.html>.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. "In the Combat Zone." The Writer's Presence: A Pool of Readings. 4th ed. Ed. Donald McQuade and Robert Atwan. Boston: Bedford, 2003. 752-759.