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It Should Have Been a DGU: Papua New Guinea Gang Rape Edition

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Papua New Guinea rape victim (courtesy dailymail.co.uk)

“A U.S. academic has been gang raped in Papua New Guinea by nine armed men who hacked off her blonde hair and left her husband tied naked to a tree,” dailymail.co.uk reports. “The 32-year-old woman, who was conducting research into exotic birds in a remote forest on Karkar Island, was walking along a bush track with her husband and a guide on Friday when they were set upon by the gang armed with knives and rifles. Her husband and the guide were stripped and bound by the men, who then used a bush knife to hack off the woman’s hair before raping her in a terrifying ordeal lasting 20 minutes.” The right to armed self-defense is a human right. Wherever it’s prohibited, whether that’s Chicago Illinois or Papua New Guinea, bad things happen. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves—and endangering us all.

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “It Should Have Been a DGU: Papua New Guinea Gang Rape Edition”

  1. She should have tried urinating or vomiting on her attackers. Or at least told them she was menstruating or had the clap or something.

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  2. Hey cartoonist numbnuts, we did demand action. That’s why your shit anti-gun bills got shut down.

    Now please, how about giving it a rest. The lies. The half-truths. The melodrama. The obfuscation.

    Enough.

    And I’ll tell you, if I had seen Darby Conley in with all these other losers I would’ve lost complete faith in humanity.

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  3. Hello there, on the “co-witness” topic can you give me a few suggestions on a red dot or holographic optic that would work with or should i say allign with my magpul gen 2 sights, I know about the $600 and up set ups but some descent optics in the $100 to $250 range? My rifle is a flattop M4 with a Spector length rail and low pro gas block…… Thanks

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  4. Not to excuse or justify what happened, but you have to think that maybe the decision to walk around in that area without protection might have smacked of poor judgement. From the article in the Daily Mail, here are a couple of other recent events in Papa New Guinea:

    “In February a 20-year-old mother accused of witchcraft was dragged from her village, taken to a rubbish dump, stripped and burned alive near Mount Hagen, in the centre of the country.

    And earlier this month an elderly woman was beheaded with a bush knife after being accused of sorcery.”

    If this is the sort of thing happening over there, then you are kind of dumb to be walking around without an armed escort.

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    • That line of reasoning, Jim Barrett, will get your cojones (assuming) cut off in the court of popular public opinion when applied to, say, a woman wearing a mini skirt after dark in South (or any quadrant of) Chicago after midnight. The “she was asking for it” defense might have grounds in some base reality (such as the one in which we live). But is is no excuse for the crime, and a very dangerous gambit in the afore-mentioned court. Two questions, Jim: 1. Was she asking for it? 2. If you’d have been one of the alleged men and had a gun, would you have used it?

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      • Wow. All I can say is, Wow. How you take a comment about using a little more common sense than God gave gravel and turn it into some sort of “she deserved it” polemic is beyond me. But, since I’m always up to a challenge, let me see if I can explain it to your “New York Time Book Review Closeted Liberal mind.”

        If you really had understood my point, you probably could have come up with a bit better analogy. Let’s see. Suppose you walk down the street of downtown Kabul with a shirt that says “America Rules, Osama Sucks” Now, let’s further assume that you get what is likely coming to you walking around that neighborhood with that shirt. Would you try and make the point that you did not deserve what you got just because of the shirt or would you (or more likely your next of kin) realize that you did a very dumb thing in a dangerous area and what happened was not all that surprising.

        Same thing here – walking around rural PNG without an armed escort is just looking for trouble. It doesn’t make what happened right – it was very wrong – but it could have been avoided simply by using a little common sense (or taking some armed guards).

        To answer your questions, no, she was not “asking for it” but her poor judgement put her into a situation that she couldn’t have avoided. What do you think the odds are that she will be found out in rural PNG bird watching without guns and/or guards the next time?

        I’m not sure what your other question has to do with anything. If I’d been one of the rapists would I have used a gun? Can’t say as I don’t see myself ever being in that sort of situation.

        One other thing – please don’t do the liberal news media thing and use the word, “alleged”. Call these thugs what they are – rapists – there’s no alleged about it.

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  5. Gun control can happen anywhere in this day and age, i just think Texas is a bit more resistant to it. Don’t be too worried, Austin is only liberal for Texas, i read somewhere it ranked 93rd as the most liberal city in America. Hippies and cowboys often find common ground over cold beer and bbq down here. 😉

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  6. time to go raze a village

    for the natives’ sake, hopefully a loved one of mine doesnt encounter such a terrible event in that country.

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  7. I’m just gonna put a sign on my door that says “no killer robots” they’ll see the sign and understand that they can’t do anything.

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  8. Terrible ordeal… maybe the guide should have been armed? It’s true that in an ambush, the odds are often not in your favor… but being completely unarmed and unaware the area certainly did help things either.

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  9. I’m curious about the woman. I’ve met many students/profs
    who’ve gone overseas for research. In my experience about
    2/3 have little to no idea what they’re in for. For some, places
    like Papua or the savannahs of Africa have only been seen on
    National Geographic and appear to be pristine utopias. I’ve
    also met several grad student and even a couple of assistant
    profs that, because they’ve had one or more problem free trips,
    actively avoid and even show disdain for basic safety concerns.
    Did this happen in part do to the woman’s choices in personal
    safety? Did she or her husband ignore advice or warnings?
    Did they ask someone local or from the State Dept. about
    safety concerns? Did they, knowingly or unknowingly, make a
    huge faux pas or commit a crime?

    Am I trying to provide justification for the rape? Absolutely not.
    But just because she has some of my sympathy doesn’t mean I
    don’t want to know the whole story.

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  10. Are airsoft guns and pellet guns not two different things as airsoft uses plastic bbs and pellet guns use lead pellets? From this article I am confused as to what type he actually had.

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  11. thank god the police are terrible shots. 100 rounds, what 3 hits?

    So nice to let them put it on the credit card until june 30. Not me, not in CA. Cash only. Most of those municipalities live too close to bankruptcy for my taste. maybe they’ll issue a bond to pay legal bills. hahaha.

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  12. I’d rather die emptying the contents of my AR into a gang of rapists than submit to them. I’m a woman, I get to say that.

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  13. There was some comedian who did a bit on the comics page that ended “…and there in the corner is Family Circus… just waiting to suck.”

    Seems apropos.

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  14. I purchased 2 Glocks March 9. April 23, still waiting. Lived here all my life, had enough. I will move as soon as I can sell this house that is highly taxed.

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  15. After I read the BBC article, I googled for US news sources. Not an exhaustive search, but none if the US sources mentioned delaying the payout to make it easier on the city. Wonder if the financial toll of a relatively small settlement is being hidden from the US public?

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  16. Now that I’ve had some time to ponder this, if PNG was an armed society, this would not have happened. Not because these three could have stopped a 9 man rape gang, but because the rape gang wouldn’t have existed in the first place. The locals, protecting themselves and their families, would have already killed these men.

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  17. F.Y.I.

    Absolutely nothing stops a similar event from happening in the U.S. — especially in remote locations. Yet another among countless reasons to be armed at all times.

    Friendly suggestion: when you are out in extremely remote locations — especially with female family members — be heavily armed. At a minimum carry a large caliber handgun with two spare magazines (total of at least 36 rounds of ammunition) and have a rifle handle whenever possible. Remember the saying, “The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to your rifle.” If 5 or more attackers choose you, that 36 rounds of handgun ammunition isn’t going to last very long. Oh, it is also extremely helpful if multiple members of your family/party are armed as well.

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    • When you are in the wilderness you also have to account for the four legged predators as well. Be sure you bring something that can take down the largest threat. If you are in any kind of bear country you want to be carrying something larger than a 223, i.e, shotgun with a rifled barrel or at a minimum a rifle chambered in 270 Winchester.

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  18. I agree w/ alot of the words used here but it appears many here have not spent serious time in a 3rd world country. If you used force to defend your life (0r life of another) against a native when you are not one . . . you had better be prepared to battle their legal system as well – or flee.

    The DGU rules that apply here will get you life in what passes for a prison or killed. You have to shoot to kill anyone in the vicinity – armed or not, wounded or not, putting up a fight or not. If one of the BG’s turns and runs unarmed he could still tell a prosecuter. You will not get any kind of fair treatment.

    I got jumped in a 3rd world country in 05. Had I killed or even seriously hurt the guys who did it – I would have been on trial had I stuck around. Forget that at least one was under some kind of influence. Forget the fact that they attacked me. Forget the fact that foreigners had been attack close to that area.

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  19. If he had planned this out, he would likely have been carrying more than one musket and possibly a percussion pistol or two. Perhaps a sword so he could increase the carnage when he was out of ammo.

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  20. Universal background checks are the underpants gnomes business plan of public policy:

    1. Do background checks
    2. ?
    3. SAFETY!

    Everyone they talk to in the post doubts whether it would work, but we have to do it anyway because… Well because. Meanwhile, trust the government not to improperly use the information, because they’ll totally prosecute themselves if they do.

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  21. Bravo! Well done, Jim. I wish I had time to have written up something like this, as I consider bore guides and proper cleaning rods to be some of the most important investments an accuracy-minded rifleman can make to preserve the accuracy of his rifle.

    Two other points on bolt gun cleaning:

    1. Clear breech to muzzle, as Jim has shown here. Do not go hog wild with the brush. There are more good barrels ruined with absurd over-use of a brush than people would think. Do not use steel brushes (except on some shotgun situations). Do not use brushes that have steel cores (ie, the center where the bristles are mounted).

    Modern copper and lead solvents remove much of the need for vigorous brushing. Following the instructions on the product labels (ie, applying and waiting for the solvents to work), followed by judicious application of brushing has replaced the “scrubbing” of years past to remove copper/lead fouling from bores.

    When you’re cleaning from breech to muzzle with a brush, never drag the brush back into the bore from the muzzle after the brush has exited. The brush picks up debris from the bore and you don’t want to drag that crap over your crown. Your job, as a rifle owner, is to protect the crown of your barrel. Barrels can be re-crowned by a gunsmith and doing so isn’t a huge expense, but this is something you can avoid with proper care.

    Likewise, patches are pushed from the breech to the muzzle. Do not pull a filthy patch back into the bore over the crown. You just got that crap out of your bore. Why would you want to pull it back in?

    Never, ever, ever reverse a brush in the bore. As Jim has clearly demonstrated, get a rod that is long enough for the job and check it for full exit length before you put a brush on it.

    2. The other reason for a bore guide that Jim didn’t spill here is that you don’t want your rod riding on the important surfaces at the throat of your chamber. This can happen when you don’t have a bore guide, and you just cram a rod with a tight patch down the barrel. What happens to small diameter, long pieces of metal or composite when you push on them? They bend outwards away from their central axis – ie, they bow. When you’re pushing on a rod that’s bowing, it will have to be limited by something in the bore, and one surface that might catch the rod will be the front end of the chamber, right in front of where the neck of the case ends in the chamber. That’s your “throat” in your chamber, and the erosion of your chamber throat is the reason why barrels “shoot out” after several thousand rounds. Don’t accelerate the erosion of the throat by running a bore rod that’s bowing over it. It will harm your throat and, if your rod is coated like the one above, it might damage the coating on the rod.

    Using a proper fitting bore guide is how you keep the rod properly aligned and not bowing in the action area, where it has room to bend, before you get to the constrictions at the front of the chamber.

    Last point: When you’re done with a cleaning rod (or even in between passes), wipe it down with a good quality shop towel. Get the grit and crap off it. Inspect it for nicks, abrasions and such. Coated rods vs. bare stainless rods is a big point of discussion in some circles. Benchrest shooters need something to obsess about (or else they’re not happy), and some benchrest guys obsess about coated vs. bare rods. For the rest of us: Just clean the rod with a good shop towel, maybe some bore solvent followed by something like WD-40, and get any grit or metal particles off of it.

    I have a bunch of J. Dewey rods, as well as several makes of rods (in shotguns, there’s lots of names TTAG folks have never heard of). I’ve never had cause to complain or be unhappy about any J. Dewey product I’ve owned.

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