Here's an example of why a gun is a better home self defense weapon than a knife:

After being raped inside her Germantown home by a stranger yesterday afternoon, a woman persuaded her attacker to let her take her toddler upstairs - and when she came back down, she had a knife.

Her attacker, a 51-year-old man whose name was withheld, was in critical condition last night at Albert Einstein Medical Center with a chest wound.

Police said the events leading up to the rape and the woman fighting back began about 2:30 p.m., when the man approached the woman's home in the 200 block of West Haines Street and asked if he could rake her leaves.

The 30-year-old woman, who was home alone with her 2-year-old child, declined, said Capt. John Darby of the Special Victims Unit.

The man then asked for a glass of water, which made the woman suspicious. She tried to shut the door, but the man forced his way inside and raped her at knifepoint, Darby said.

Darby said the woman then begged her attacker to allow her to put her child in an upstairs bedroom.

When she returned, she rammed the knife into the man's chest.

I think guns are more effective than knives. A gun would have spared this woman the agony of having to go to court to face this man again, and be cross examined. A dead man can't come back with a story about how he knew the victim, who let him inside for a cup of eggnog -- or a discussion about the works of Thomas Aquinas. And even if the dead man's family sues, the homeowner's story is all there is.

But ominously for homeowners, insurance companies are refusing to defend or indemnify homeowners who kill in self defense, and in one recent New York case, such a refusal was upheld by the Court of Appeal:

A man who killed an intruder in his home in self-defense is not entitled to insurance defense in a wrongful death action, a divided Albany appellate panel ruled Thursday in a case of first impression.

The split by New York's Appellate Division, 3rd Department, in Automobile Co. of Hartford v. Cook, 97160, illustrates a debate that has divided courts across the country. The question is whether a homeowner's insurance policy provides coverage when an insured is sued for wrongful death stemming from a killing in self-defense. That question was apparently addressed for the first time Thursday by a New York appellate court.

And according to the court's asinine reasoning, if the woman in today's story is sued, her insurance company would be allowed to refuse coverage, because (so goes the court's reasoning) actions taken in self defense are "expected" and "intended":

Justice John A. Lahtinen and three of his four colleagues strictly construed the insurance policy language in holding that an occurrence of justifiable homicide results from an intentional rather than accidental act. Here, the defendant shot the decedent at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun. The action thus triggers the exception for incidents that are "expected or intended" by the insured, the panel found.