And what happens when the bad guy takes her sidearm from her?
BTW..."Bad neighborhoods" and bad people are not limited to big cities, especially with the spread of drugs to "middle" America. One early morning a few years ago I had to chase a tweeker out of the Bike Camp in tiny Twin Bridges, MT. Later that morning a member of the Sheriff's department who had gotten a cal from a resident came around asking us if we had seen him. The lack of police presence in many rural areas adds to things. While in Edgemont, SD, at the end of the Mickelson Trail, I was talking with a Nebraska resident who was camping there. He told me people in the town can get away with just about anything they want due the lack of law enforcement. And as have mentioned before, the only place anyone tried to steal anything from me was in DuBois, WY. Not exactly on the scale of NYC.
With that said, I agree with Hobbes' first point above.