Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands

I wanted to share THIS picture with you because I think we have the WRONG picture in our heads when we look at limiting the right to bear arms. First, we visualize the handful of gun-toting crazies who over the years have opened fire at a political gathering, school, restaurant, and post office. They are mentally ill. And if they don’t have a gun, they strap a homemade bomb to their chest and sit on a bench at a college campus. They get lots of press and attention.

I personally imagined that the bulk of gun-owners were sportsmen. I’ve always supported their right to engage in this traditional, family-oriented activity. Important lessons about responsibility and confidence are transmitted during long periods of time ACTUALLY spent with sons and daughters on hunting trips.

A sorority sister, who hunts with her husband, sons and daughter, commented on a Facebook friend’s query yesterday. The man, a gun dealer and trainer, asked his gun-savvy female friends for suggestions for the best way to illustrate a new holster product for women that involved the chest area. My sis provided her usual wit (“well, that brings a whole new meaning to packin’ pistols”), but I can understand his dilemma as a “married Christian man.” The idea here is to get women to stop putting the gun in a purse, the first thing grabbed by a mugger.

But, this is the fascinating part (as if a bra-holster isn’t): 70% of his students are women. Concealed-carry products are the bulk of his business. Over 50% of those products are purchased by women. Everything else is a distant second.

Then, today, a cousin posted this pic proudly posing with her classmates upon completion of that man’s Concealed-Carry class! (I know, Facebook is a trip! That whole degrees of separation thing…paths zig-zagging every which way.)

This picture is an important piece of the right-to-bear-arms puzzle. We need to start imagining WOMEN when we consider chipping away at their rights.

How many of those women depicted have been beaten by boyfriends or husbands? How many raped? How many finally feel safe, empowered, calm and capable?

I’d like to add two additional puzzle pieces.

Women who recently rallied for democracy in Egypt were arrested, beaten, photographed, and subjected to “virginity tests.” Don’t ask me what a virginity test is (If the presence of a hymen is explored, is she a virgin afterward? Why do ignorant people STILL equate the unreliable hymen as proof of virginity?), BUT, if she failed, she got raped. Now, that’s a test you definitely want to study for. I realize this isn’t Egypt, but I want to make sure any American woman has the right and means to defend herself from sadistic sexists. Call it an “equalizer” or better yet “equal protection under the law.”

Second point. The wife of my husband’s young co-worker was at home with their small children in a back bedroom one recent morning. She was chatting on the phone with her husband when she heard the back door kicked in by two intruders. She met them in the hallway to the bedrooms with her gun. She killed one and hospitalized the other. Later that day this young Army engineer’s wife was busy packing everything she owned to move to another state, after receiving death threats from the intruders’ families. She did not want to have to use her gun again to defend her family. His transfer to Utah was approved immediately.

If a woman wants a gun, she should have it. End of story.

END NOTE: There are two Gravitt women in that photo, and my great-grandmother Sarah would be beaming with pride. I believe Sarah knew how to handle a piece herself since she was married to a U.S. Marshall here in the Territory, our great-grandfather Philow Washington. She would want her female kin to fight back!