The Armed Protests Outside Brock Turner’s Home Are Dangerously Counterproductive
By Christina Cauterucci
Brock Turner was released from the Santa Clara County jail in California on Friday after serving just three months of his six-month sentence for felony sexual assault, as predicted. As he walked out the doors of the jail, 21-year-old Turner was met with angry chants, protest signs, and at least one disgusted law enforcement official. “We don’t know who picked him up or where he's going, but we’re done with him,” Santa Clara County’s sheriff, Laurie Smith, told reporters. “He should be in prison right now, but he’s not in our custody.”
When Turner returned to his house in Sugarcreek Township, Ohio—home of the parents who said he was just a “shy and awkward” teen looking to fit in and who worried that he’d lost his appetite for steak after his arrest—more unfriendly demonstrators awaited him. Their signs read “Castrate all rapists!” and “If I rape Brock Turner, will I only do 3 months?” Someone had chalked “shoot your local rapist” on the sidewalk. As if to bring credence to that threat, some of the protestors outside the Turner home carried assault weapons slung across their chests.
It’s easy to understand the impulse behind these protests, spurred by the injustice of an unrepentant man evading prison time after sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. The survivor’s eloquent account of the dual indignities of being brutally assaulted then questioned in court left no doubt that Turner got off easy for his crimes. Absent any discernible evidence of remorse from Turner or justice from the courts, people are trying to make sure he pays, somehow, for the damage he’s done.
But the ghastly implications of these protests are not justified by their intent. No occasion warrants applause for assault rifles carried openly on the sidewalk in a nod to vigilante violence. Guns are neither an appropriate nor an effective response to the rape culture that produced Turner and his jail sentence. The open-carry protests edge dangerously close to an erroneous argument advanced by gun-rights advocates, who claim that guns make women safer and the only way to stop rape is to practice better self-defense. Not only does this argument ignore the real problem—rapists and those that embolden, enable, and apologize for them—but it runs counter to statistical proof that more guns mean more killing of women.
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/09/06/the_armed_protests_outside_brock_turner_s_home_are_dangerously_counterproductive.html
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