Saw it Bee - I've read it 3 times. Great expression of your thoughts, and just the right amount of humor! It's a particularly sticky wicket for women. I've sounded my wife out about it, and she has mixed feelings as well (personally, she refuses to even handle a firearm). The strike zone you refer to is all too real, as is the statistical probability of a woman being attacked by an intimate as oppossed to a stranger on the trail.
My focus on this issue and how it affects women burns pretty deep. Aside from my wife and daughter, who won't hike without me, Meredith Emerson's murder struck a chord in me that has resonated for two years now. She was young enough to be my daughter (or I'm old enough to technically be her dad, as my wife would say), and she should still be out there with her dog enjoying the beauty of the Blue Ridge mountains. There are a lot of what-ifs that regularly crop up in my mind about this tragedy (as well as Hilton's other 3 victims, may he roast in Dante's Inferno for eternity). Logically, I know that an open sidearm might not have deterred him once he was in that strike zone - the trail she was abducted on is one I've hiked many, many times, and there is no way two oncoming hikers can avoid being in close range to each other. Emotionally, though, I desperately want her to have pulled a Beretta or Glock on his cowardly ass and dispatched his black-hearted soul off to the toasty halls of hell.
Thanks for your thoughts. They are always educational.
