“I would like to see every woman know how to handle firearms as naturally as they know how to handle babies.” - Annie Oakley
>>Based on statistics compiled from 2008 to 2012, 37 percent of new shooters — new gun owners — have been young women. The cause of this rise is largely the subject of speculation, although Second Amendment advocates claim it has something to due with the desire for self-protection.
Yeah, this news writer might want to look at the DoJ rape statistics.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation report, released this month, indicates women between the ages of 18 and 34 are purchasing guns at a drastically higher rate, causing analysts to take note of a shift in America’s gun culture.
I'm not an analyst; I can, however, tell you every time a woman buys a gun and becomes proficient with it, she, her family, and all of us law-abiding American citizens become safer. Thank you, ladies!
My brother, the cop, once tried to teach my sister how to shoot. We were all in our early 30s at the time. He explained sight picture, breath control, stances, etc. She closed her eyes and jerked every time she fired the gun. She couldn’t hit a thing at 25 yards (where he insisted she learn to aim).
I elbowed him out of the way, put a silhouette target on the holder, and ran it out to 7 yards. I handed her the gun and told her to imagine that it’s a rapist and he’s coming at YOU. Now, put him down. She put three rounds in center mass in about 2 seconds.
After that, she settled down and started shooting with a lot more confidence.
I was thinking about getting a gun a couple of years ago when I used to go out to visit my horse in a rather remote location where I knew there were a lot of meth heads and meth labs. I moved the horse and haven’t considered it since then. My town is very safe and the other place I go a lot, NYC, won’t let me bring a gun, so I don’t need one.
But I certainly think for women who live in places where they actually can have a gun, it’s not a bad idea.
Also, women have to have a more aggressive attitude. Attackers are going to kill you or torture you and kill you anyway, so hurt them as much as you can before you go down. And maybe you’ll even get away. But not by cowering.
The critical thing is for women to create a “social sanction” for women, that they are expected to be armed and protect and defend themselves when they need to.
Social sanctions are unwritten laws, that are publicly enforced. Every society has them, and they generally differ somewhat from the written law. However, they have “insistent enforcement”, where people are expected to obey those rules. Parents raise their children with them, and those who violate them are punished one way or another.
A typical scene would be in a ladies restroom, where a girl admits that she forgot her gun that day, and another woman offers her a spare. And though a real rationale and purpose exists for carrying a gun, the short answer is that “This is just something that girls and women do.”
It also applies to how they use their gun, that it is not just a decorative accessory, that if they need to use it, they are mentally prepared to use it, and will use it.
While a law might be written, as in Kennesaw, Georgia, that women are required to be armed, a social sanction is more to the point, because it is universally enforced. No waiting for a police officer or government official. Other women just let it be known that not having a gun is like not wearing clothes. Sure, at home it might be okay, but not in public.
The smart ones, obviously. These times are so uncertain.