Yep ... make an activity safe by introducing firearms ... makes sense. doh.

This guy is a freak. He says anti-gun rhetoric is emotional, while using an emotive argument about fear and lone strangers in the dark.

Anti-gun rhetoric is usually about keeping guns out of the hands of immature morons who threaten people with their lack of expertise and ability to use discretion. That is certainly going to be the case in spades for women who feel afraid of strangers in the dark.....

The Americans are generally extremely mature about their guns as they have a history of being close to them. Not many Australians have that level of respect and maturity handling or using them. Handing them out like toys for scared people to use to 'protect' themselves (while really threatening passers by with instant death) in this way is reckless. Only a specific subset of the population would have that maturity and this writer certainly is NOT one of them.

Simply put, absolute tripe.

The author gives a hundred reasons why guns aren't a good idea then shoots himself in the foot by suggesting they might be. Work that one out.

Romany, I'm very glad you didn't go through with your suicide attempts.

I'm a fairly well-built sort of guy and I don't feel especially safe in certain parts of our bigger cities. I don't feel safe around large numbers of alcohol and football-fuelled young men, either. God knows how women feel. That said, I don't think women carrying sidearms is the way to go. Cracking down on the criminals might be, but that's for another topic.

Brian's article is a provocation, not really offering any solutions or identifying real problems. He certainly brought out the usual knee-jerks in the forum comments though!

His observation that women don't do stuff alone on rural or remote roads is true - but its due to different proportions of the sexes in those kinds of life role. More than half the joggers in parks are female, at least where I live, so I don't think he could be talking about that.

But pompousness about guns is what passes for debate for some commenters, it would seem