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SecularMotion

(7,981 posts)
Thu May 5, 2016, 06:10 PM May 2016

Watts: 'One tough mothers' relentless in quest for gun sense

The day after the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., I started a Facebook page aimed at uniting American mothers in a fight against gun violence. Married and living in suburban Indianapolis, I was a stay-at-home mom of five and not in any way political, aside from voting. But I'd seen the difference the women of MADD made around drunken driving. Why, I wondered, couldn't we do the same?

I was wholly unprepared for the blowback headed my way.

Within hours of speaking out about our nation's lax gun laws, I received my first threats of sexual violence and death. Over the next several months, my phone throbbed with angry texts and phone calls, often in the middle of the night. My fledgling Twitter feed - which I didn't really know how to use yet - was on fire. I started getting letters mailed to my home, complete with cut-outs from magazines to spell out threats to my life.

My email was hacked; my Facebook photos were downloaded and distributed publicly; my phone number and home address were shared online; my children's social media accounts were hacked and the names of their schools shared online.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Watts-One-tough-mothers-relentless-in-quest-7396262.php
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Watts: 'One tough mothers' relentless in quest for gun sense (Original Post) SecularMotion May 2016 OP
I bet people that try to go after free speech get a lot of that too. beevul May 2016 #1
Sorry, not going to subscribe sarisataka May 2016 #2
So she hired a man with a gun to protect her while she worked to make it Press Virginia May 2016 #3
Yeah, with good reason because so many 'law abiding' gun owners sent death threats. nt flamin lib May 2016 #4
So why should a woman sarisataka May 2016 #5
Your assumption of who sent what doesn't Press Virginia May 2016 #6
It does sound like a good reason, and she has the right and money to act on her fears. Eleanors38 May 2016 #7
 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
1. I bet people that try to go after free speech get a lot of that too.
Thu May 5, 2016, 06:31 PM
May 2016

I was wholly unprepared for the blowback headed my way.

Within hours of speaking out about our nation's lax gun laws, I received my first threats of sexual violence and death. Over the next several months, my phone throbbed with angry texts and phone calls, often in the middle of the night. My fledgling Twitter feed - which I didn't really know how to use yet - was on fire. I started getting letters mailed to my home, complete with cut-outs from magazines to spell out threats to my life.

My email was hacked; my Facebook photos were downloaded and distributed publicly; my phone number and home address were shared online; my children's social media accounts were hacked and the names of their schools shared online.


I bet people that try to go after free speech get a lot of that too.

 

Press Virginia

(2,329 posts)
3. So she hired a man with a gun to protect her while she worked to make it
Thu May 5, 2016, 07:01 PM
May 2016

harder for law abiding people, who couldn't hire security, to get a gun

sarisataka

(20,889 posts)
5. So why should a woman
Fri May 6, 2016, 12:11 PM
May 2016

Who is receiving death threats from an abusive ex, a person much more likely to carry out such threats than Anonymous internet posters, be denied the same option of protection?

Is it because, as one GCRA host put it, her fault for "making poor choices in partners"? Or is it simply that billionaires and former Monsanto executives are more important than working women in New Jersey?

 

Press Virginia

(2,329 posts)
6. Your assumption of who sent what doesn't
Fri May 6, 2016, 12:19 PM
May 2016

change the fact that she decided a man with a gun was the way to protect herself.

Why does she have an irrational fear of words?

 

Eleanors38

(18,318 posts)
7. It does sound like a good reason, and she has the right and money to act on her fears.
Fri May 6, 2016, 01:39 PM
May 2016

Everyone else should have that right, though many have to find their own arms as a pro bodyguard is for the wealthy.

In reality, gun control is for the common people -- it's Never for elites.

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