The daughter of one of our secretaries was attacked by a guy with a tire iron this morning. Badly beaten. She’s lucky she’s alive.
God fucking dammit. She’s only 20.
The bastard tried to rape her too. As if beating with a tire iron isn’t enough, he ripped her bra off and was more than likely going for rape. She’s got stiches and staples from the base of her skull to her forehead. She’s going to need a few plastic surgeries. She’s got several broken bones.
Right now she’s too drugged up to realize what happened.
The house she lives in (grandparents) is semi-isolated in a wooded area. The fucker had to be waiting for something. Who waits around with a tire iron? At 4 AM? She was just getting out of her car to go inside. She didn’t know the guy.
Thankfully, she did make it inside to call the cops. Her 80 year old grandfather heard her screams but thought it was the tv. It’s almost better that he didn’t go out because he may have been hurt too. But the guilt. God.
If you can’t be safe in/around your own house, where can you?
This poor girl. Her parents are divorcing after 20 years. (Dad cheated.) She had a breast cancer scare a few months ago. Her brand new car was totaled after someone rear-ended her. She’s only 20! And one of the nicest people. She’s very quiet, polite girl. We can’t think of any reason for this.
You’re not safe. Anywhere. At best you can hope for an illusion of safety.
I was attacked by 7 guys who followed me home one fine day before my senior year in high school. They stopped me at my door and beat me to the edge of unconciousness because they thought it would be fun to do.
When she turns 21, tell her to get a gun and shooting lessons. The life lesson I learned from my beatdown was that nobody was going to help me, except for myself, so I got me a gun, taught myself how to shoot, and learned proper safety. I am no longer worried about being attacked because I can properly defend myself. Of course, I’m much bigger than I was in high school, so that’s also an effective deterrent.
In the meantime, that really friggin’ sucks. I hope she recovers from this, because nobody deserves what happened to her. Give me ten minutes with that guy and I’ll whoop his ass.
The police can’t protect you, the government can’t protect you, God won’t protect you, and courtesy of our increasingly totalarian government most people can’t protect themselves, either.
Your best chance for safety is behind the hammer of a medium to large caliber handgun, in hand, loaded. But even that is no guarantee. Neither is martial arts.
Safety is an illusion.
However, you can increase your chances of being safe by being educated, aware, and armed.
Just to counter all the scare-mongering posts above, I offer the realists’ perspective:
No one can be 100% safe at all times. Even if you were sitting quietly at home, behind your barred windows and locked doors, with two killer pit bulls at your beck and call and an automatic weapon within arm’s reach, a passing jet plane could drop an engine and have it land smack-dab on your head, killing you instantly.
But while total safety is impossible, you can reduce your odds. Security systems, guard dogs, firearms, self-defense trainings – these are all nothing more than ways to tilt the odds in your favor. Some of them will even work. But no matter how many precautions you take, some risk will always remain.
You can’t be completely safe. But you can be safe enough.
It’s ironic that you would call me a scaremonger and call yourself a realist, since what you said virtually echoes what I said, only I didn’t throw out a gratuitous insult to go with it.
It’s obviously up to her what she wants to do. But, a gun would be the best bet since that seems to be easiest(I could be wrong though). If that’s not feasible, there’s always mace or a stun gun. Martial arts is nice, but it can take awhile to learn.
I think there’s a difference between “an illusion of safety” and “a degree of safety,” but if you want to pretend they’re the same, that’s your perogrative.
Did they catch the guy? Any leads about him?
That is very scary indeed, since the stat for attacks like this are usually in the 80% range that the victim knew the attacker.
I hope she recovers physically and emotionally from this horrific event and I hope whomever did this is caught and thrown into jail for the rest of his life.
I also agree she needs to be armed with a handgun. (I’m at the point where I believe it’s irresponsible for a person not to be armed at all times.) She needs a good quality, semi-auto pistol in 9 mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP. Good brands include Walthers, HKs, SIG, Beretta, Astras, and Glock. Advise her to install tritium sights, stuff it full of CorBon, and attend a training academy ASAP (Thunder Ranch, etc.). It’s the only responsible thing to do.
My gramps was a gun collector. Knew a lot about it, talked to me a little about it, so I know the issue is more complicated than the anti-gun lobby makes out. I know enough about it to know I don’t really know much.
But I do know that the only instances in my life that I’ve had the misfortune to come across gun related death were not cases of self-protection, but accidental shooting. I respect your desire to protect yourself, and I personally have no intentions of getting in the way of that, but this is NOT an issue of responsibility. You can be responsible with a gun, sure. You can also be responsible in not getting a gun.
If you’re truly asking everyone to be responsible by owning a gun, then you’re being unreasonable. For many of us, choosing a method of self-protection that’s potentially lethal with a single moment of carelessness is too much of a risk.
Again, I got no problems with you choosing to protect yourself and your family with guns. But I’m not gonna sit still if you’re really telling me I’m somehow “irresponsible” by not keeping a gun, cause it just ain’t true.
I have nothing useful to say except that I am sorry to hear about your friend. I do wish her a speedy recovery and hope that she is able to feel safe in the future.
Poor girl.
What a sad world - even sadder that many feel their only defense is to arm themselves. I know NZ is getting more dangerous, but I am so glad I live here sometimes and this is one of those times.
It seems people really arn’t safe in their own homes. Someone broke into my bedroom one night. It’s terrible that people are not safe even in their own homes.
Stricker van Gogh: Yes, it is my opinion that not arming yourself is irresponsible. Just as I believe not wearing a seatbelt is irresponsible. I’m certainly not of the opinion that we should force everyone to be armed; to each his own, I say. I’m just saying that it’s irresponsible.
Carrying a gun might indeed help to give this poor girl a little piece of mind, but then again, it might not do anything for her. If she’s not comfortable with firearms and not interested in becoming so, then getting a gun would be a piss poor idea.
I’m with GuanoLad in believing that, based on the very little I know about this particular situation, it looks like a gun wouldn’t’ve helped at all. If she’d had a gun, but was taken by surprise, as seems to be the case, what could she have done? A big, fat nothin’.
Sometimes shit like this happens, no matter what precautions you take. Just because some people don’t feel responsible without a hard, powerful tool in their hands doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea for everyone. The girl should choose whatever option works best for her.
Whatever she does in the future, she has my sympathies, and I really hope they catch the fucker who did that to her. With all the shit that’s been piling up in her life, she deserves at least one piece of good news.
Not meant as a swipe at anyone, but I find it interesting that so many people, even the first two responders, have said that a gun was the best choice for self-protection in this case.
Not a knife. Not pepper spray. Not pointed sticks (shut up! ). Not even a self-defense class. A gun.
I agree that it seems she was targeted. Where is “Del Ray” anyway, California?
