Why Does Self Magazine Think Women are too Dumb or Crazy to Own a Gun?

I was getting my hair done yesterday at a local salon and was treated to a slew of women’s magazines. “Crap,” I thought, “I don’t have my own book and I’m bored.”  Self magazine often focuses on fitness so I picked it up. Big mistake.  It was the November issue of 2012 that probably came out in October prior to the election.  The first thing I learned as I flipped through the pages was that if I voted for Romney, my health and very life was in jeopardy. No partisan hackery (is that a word?) there.

The next article, written by Jenny Deam  was entitled, “Would you buy a gun?” The article is soft propaganda aimed at discouraging women from buying guns by having “experts” such as doctors talk about how women are not safe with a gun around:

Doctors, however, insist guns are life-threatening, not life-protecting. Last year, an analysis of decades of studies published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine reiterated the message: Having a gun generally makes women and their families less safe. Living in a home with a gun doubles your risk both of being murdered and of committing suicide. Living in one of the states with the highest rates of household gun ownership makes you and your kids seven times more likely to die in a gun accident.

Gun violence is one of the biggest health risks that young women and their families face today, says David Hemenway, Ph.D., director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the Harvard School of Public Health and author of the 2011 research analysis. “This is not a constitutional issue. This is not about politics. The danger that guns pose to women is a public health issue,” he says. ”

Wintemute urges potential gun buyers spooked by recent events to take the long view: “That gun you buy is going to be part of your life. The question is not, Can you stop the next Aurora? It is, What will the impact of this gun be on the rest of my life? In most cases, my risk for homicide will increase. My risk for suicide will increase. Is that what I want?”

The article gives examples of women who accidentally (?) shoot husbands or have a mishap with a gun. The article points out that few women protect themselves with a gun.  Really?

Why the soft propaganda?