Lawrence O'Donnell pretty well eviscerated the "Independent" Women's Forum's Gayle Trotter, and her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, where she testified that assault weapons should not be outlawed because they were the "weapon of choice" for young mothers who need a "scary-looking gun."

I was glad to see O'Donnell call out her organization for being anything but "independent" because they're not. And apparently attorney Trotter, who also opposes the Violence Against Women Act (go read why), isn't too fond of being called a right-winger. O'Donnell's back-and-forth with her starts about nine minutes into the clip above.

Here's more from O'Donnell's blog at MSNBC: ‘Guns make women safer,’ says Gayle Trotter. Study says, not so:

The use of assault weapons among women emerged as standout topic at Wednesday’s Senate hearing on gun control legislation. Gayle Trotter, a lawyer and senior fellow at the conservative Independent Women’s Forum, said women need that type of firearm to level the playing field when confronted by physically stronger male attackers.

The guns rights advocate told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee that “guns make women safer.” To her, AR-15s are the “weapon of choice” because “they have good handling, they’re light, they’re easy for women to hold.” And the appearance of such a “scary-looking gun” deters violent male criminals during home invasions.

But a recent study conducted by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center disputed those assertions. The study found that women living in states with more accessibility to guns are at a greater risk for violent death. This includes “unintentional gun deaths, suicides and homicide, particularly firearm suicides and firearm homicides.”

During an interview on The Last Word Wednesday night, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell challenged Trotter for not being able to provide one real life example of a case when an assault weapon specifically saved one woman’s life in that kind of a situation. “You don’t go to the Senate to imagine things!” O’Donnell said.

While speaking in front of the senators, Trotter described a hypothetical scene of a “young woman defending her babies in her home” when faced with “three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home with her children screaming in the background” as a reason to own an assault rifle.

“The peace of mind that she has, knowing that she has a scary-looking gun, gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened, violent criminals,” said Trotter, who was the only woman on the five-person panel.

“If we ban these types of assault weapons, you are putting these types of women at a great disadvantage–more so than men because they don’t have the same type of physical strength and opportunity to defend themselves in a hand-to-hand struggle.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse pointed out that the woman she referred to in her statement, a young Oklahoma mother who shot an intruder, used a gun that wouldn't be banned by the law.

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It never fails. Every time we have another one of these mass shootings in the United States, someone in the corporate media is going to book this guy to carry water for the NRA and their desire to just turn us into the wild west and eliminate all gun safety laws. Gun advocate John Lott found himself getting some push back on his views from CNN's Soledad O'Brien this Monday morning though, unlike some of his interviews when he's in friendlier territory, like Fox:

CNN Anchor Destroys Gun Advocate’s Call To Abolish Gun Safety Laws: Victims’ Families ‘Would Be Stunned’:

The debate on gun control has been re-inflamed by the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT on Friday. President Obama has signaled that he may consider new legislation to prevent more attacks. Most gun rights advocates, however, have either stayed silent or insisted that the teachers at the school should have been armed. Gun rights advocate John Lott, the leading academic behind the claim that more guns result in less violence, appeared on CNN’s Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien to advance his pet theory.

O’Brien attacked Lott for his claim that Friday’s shooting means we should do away with all restrictions on guns. Lott argued that bans on guns in certain areas attract criminals to those areas: [...]

Lott’s claim that more guns result in less violence is popular with gun control advocates, but it’s simply not true. Lott’s research methods have been frequently called into question, and other experts have dismissed his work as “junk science.” As the Washington Post points out, concealed weapon bans have not increased the crime rate, as pro-gun advocates claimed, and there is no solid evidence that right-to-carry laws reduce violence.

Media Matters has more on Lott here: Who Is Gun Advocate John Lott?:

Gun researcher John Lott has made numerous media appearances in the wake of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. to argue against the enactment of gun violence prevention measures. While Lott uses his media platform to push a multitude of statistics -- often from his own research -- he has been thoroughly discredited as a serious academic researcher. Read on...

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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