Twitter is a social medium in which you can find all sorts of unexpected things, and the screen capture of a tweet from Mark Bailey pretty much fits the definition of ‘unexpected.’ I do screen captures just in case the author decides that oops, perhaps he shouldn’t have tweeted that. and deletes it. But with [insert plural slang term for the anus here] like me around, the internet is forever!

There were all sorts of responses, the vast majority of which were expressing incredulity that anyone, anyone! would tweet something which could be read as saying that a woman about to be assaulted or raped would be better off just surrendering and taking whatever happened to her, and I will confess to having added a couple of them myself.

But then I asked myself, what was Mr Bailey really trying to say, so I asked him

You know what? I’ll bite and ask intellectually: what do you believe a woman should do if she is about to be assaulted, sexually or otherwise? Do you believe that it is somehow better that she just accept being beaten or raped (rather) than shoot, and possibly kill, the assailant?

Mr Baily hadn’t responded immediately, which is perfectl;y fine: he might not even be on Twitter at after 10:00 PM on a Thursday night. But I did find this from him as I went to his Twitter bio:

Now this is the first response to my posts that seems to understand my meaning. In New York City, you are persecuted if you take the law into your own hands and defend yourself. Walking around with a gun, opens the door to questions about why are you walking around with a gun?

Well, one thing is clear: New York City, and New York State, do not want people to be able to defend themselves against armed criminal assault, as they tried, fortunately unsuccessfully, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, to defend the laws which mostly deny law-abiding citizens the right to carry concealed weapons. It should be noted that the Manhattan District Attorney, another George Soros funded ‘progressive’ stooge named Alvin Bragg, initially sought to try bodega owned José Alba, 61, for fatally stabbing Austin Simmons, 35, who attacked him after Mr Alba refused to accept short payment from Mr Simmons’ girlfriend for something. Eventually, the District Attorney’s office decided to dismiss the charge:

In the prosecution’s motion to dismiss, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sigall said the district attorney’s office would not present the case to a grand jury. “Following an investigation, the People have determined that we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not justified in his use of deadly physical force,” Sigall said in the court filing.

Translation: Mr Bragg wanted to lock up Mr Alba, but knew that no grand jury would indict him, and no petit jury would convict him; Mr Bragg knew that he was looking like a fool, and was trying to cut his losses.

Mr Alba didn’t defend himself by using a firearm, but it certainly brings up Mr Bailey’s second statement: if a New Yorker was carrying a firearm without a permit, and used that firearm to defend himself against an assault, sexual or otherwise, Mr Bragg and his minions might well try to charge him for using potentially deadly force to defend himself.

It was Thursday morning that The New York Times finally noticed the City of Brotherly Love, and published ‘Everybody Is Armed’: As Shootings Soar, Philadelphia Is Awash in Guns: More than 1,400 people have been shot this year in Philadelphia, hundreds of them fatally — a higher toll than in much larger New York or Los Angeles, the day after Mr Bailey’s unfortunate tweet. We have previously noted that Philadelphians are seeking concealed carry permits in record-setting numbers precisely because the bad guys have been on a rampage, killing people in the city at a record breaking pace.

Mr Bailey tweeted:

This all started out as a debate on having guns in public places, and you paranoid people have turned it into a referendum on rape. The premise of the argument originally was whether pulling a gun and trying to kill your rapist, is it worth losing your life if something goes wrong

and:

When all of a sudden, a gun is pulled, anything can happen to either party. The person who shoots could kill the so called rapist, or the rapist could somehow overpower her & use that same gun to kill her.Or she could be arrested & held for trial where she admits killing someone.

In one way, Mr Bailey is correct: if you have to pull out a firearm to defend yourself, it could still go very wrong for you. But Mr Bailey, in trying to make his point, has moved into silliness: while defending yourself against what he called “the so called rapist”, a phrase which certainly sets himself up for more criticism, could go badly for a potential victim, not being able to defend against an assault means getting assaulted. Perhaps he didn’t mean to make it sound that way, but many people, myself included, are reading this as him suggesting that getting assaulted or raped is just not so bad as to be worth risking whatever it is you are risking by defending yourself.

I will notify Mr Bailey, via Twitter, of this article, giving him a reasonable chance to respond.