Podcast host killed by stalker had ‘deep-seated fear’ for her safety, records reveal

i’ve filed a restraining order, and yes, it’s annoying AF and takes a lot of time to file. fortunately mine worked and i never saw the guy again. honestly, i don’t know how i’m still alive.

This. A restraining order does nothing to actually protect you. That's not the point. It's about consequences AFTER someone has violated it. It creates a paper trail (which can be useful in court at some point, AFTER something has happened) but a real stalker or crazy person knows that what they are doing is illegal. They don't care. An additional restraining order will not change their mind. Legal consequences for their actions may be enough to scare off a reasonable, decent person but stalkers are not reasonable, decent people. That's the whole point.

Getting a gun (if you can where you live), moving and getting a good home security system after or getting a big scary, well trained dog will do a lot more to actually protect you before something happens.

Oh, I know. In some states (such as New York), it's illegal for civilians to carry tasers. Basically, it's unlawful for a woman to use a taser to protect herself against attackers! It's been a hard pill for me to swallow.

Let me trump that with the completely crazy law here:

If you actually get attacked, you are allowed to use any means available to you in that moment to defend yourself in an appropriate way (e.g. if someone wants to kill you, you can use something to kill them. If someone "just" verbally offends you but doesn't attack you, you are obviously not allowed to kill them "just in case").

So if you get attacked and there is a stone, knife, gun or whatever in your reach incidentally (e.g. because you are in the kitchen cutting onions or in the garden with a lot of big stones around), you are allowed to use it to defend yourself to the point of killing your attacker with it if he tries to harm you. BUT you are not allowed to carry a knife, gun, stone or whatever for the purpose of defending yourself if someone attacks you. That's illegal. If it's there by accident, you are allowed to use it, if you were carrying it on purpose, you are not.

Beat that, legal systems of other countries.

Here, you need to have something in your bag that can reasonably be there "by accident" (like hairspray to spray in someone's eyes or a pointy hairpin to stab someone) to be allowed to use it against an attacker in an emergency.

I‘ve long thought it should be legal for civilian women to carry guns but illegal for civilian men to carry them.

Guns are the ultimate equalizer and often the only realistic way for a woman to defend herself against a violent man. Mace, pocket knives, keys, hairpins, etc., are a joke.

The laws in most countries are misogynistic when it comes to male-on-female violence.