Uncle Jesse sent me this fantastic story of a Black Reporter and her journey to owning and carrying guns.
Go read the whole thing, as I can’t do it a lick of justice by dropping quotes. I will wet your beak with this one:
Journalists, like activists, must be proactive in the face of bleak statistics and violent events. For me, learning to handle and shoot a gun seemed the most direct way to fend off growing feelings of vulnerability. But what started out as a simple intention to earn a concealed handgun license and buy a weapon ended up as a yearlong quest that involved a few stops at the gun range, being fingerprinted by Texas authorities, and staring for months at the incomplete application on my desk.
People presume that tall black women like me are tough and sufficiently able to protect ourselves. But I wanted an additional layer of insurance for my freedom to explore, unfettered, the realms I pursued as a journalist. As my own process unfolded, I noticed that the number of stories about women shooting for recreation or buying guns for self-defense had started to multiply. Each made me think about the limits of self-protection and question what, if anything, gun ownership would mean for my work and life not just as a journalist, but as a womanist/feminist.
Seriously, go read it!
Yeah, seriously everyone should read that.
What I find telling is that despite quoting John Sugarman and the Violence Policy Center and treating them like neutral and even reputable sources, she ends up going against what they spew saying:
“I am easily annoyed and probably unfairly dismissive of statistical data that claim that instruments traditionally used by men become far more dangerous when used by women. I’m not in the habit of arguing with hard numbers, but there are few stories told about women who /don’t/ end up dead as a result of having guns they know how to use in their homes. So I stopped reading and went to the range.”
Turns out the feminist was a wee bit unsulted when the Antis took the stance of “You little ladies can’t handle guns; scary men’ll just take them away from you; best to just lay down and take it because you’re incapable of protecting yourself.”
“Many other women I spoke to while I was practicing shooting did not own guns and had no desire to pack heat. A few of them said aloud what I believe most of them were thinking whenever I talked about guns: Echoing the Violence Policy Center report, they worried I would become more powerless if I owned a weapon.”
Heckuva job Antis!
Though speaking of feminists she also was irked at the “feminist culture that promotes unarmed resistance and “clean” fighting techniques. These send the message that as long as a woman does not have a lethal means of protecting herself, she is still feminine and worthy of “real” protection—either from a man, or from the police. I grew up with the notion that self-defense achieved via martial arts, pepper spray, and the biggest keys on the key ring are how women combat sexual assault…. To be a gun-owning feminist, to prepare to protect oneself against two of the most frightening enemies of female-identified people—rape and/or domestic violence—still strikes at the heart of what could be described as a feminist identity crisis, wherein women oppress each other with our inability to make room for alternative models of self-protection.”
Here we have a women who took everything the antis had to say and gave it full consideration. Sure we know they’re lying insane amoral shills, but she did not. Even in the article she promots the lie about VPC being neutral and just about voilence study, but note that she comlpetely ignores and refutes their advice.
She took everything the feminists espousing the greater dignity of unarmed “clean” fighting tecniques. She considered the race and political signals of gun culture, both how it is and how pop culture percives it.
And what did she do? She went to the range. She talked with friends who had more experience with guns. She got their advice and help.
And then she got her carry permit.
Why? Well she went with what could actually help her “never feel that vulnerable again.”
That was the same paragraph that hit me, too. It reminded me why most gunnie bloggers and journalists don’t frequently write about their daily lives carrying a handgun: ending nearly every narrative with, “…and nothing happened,” gets old.
Of course there are more “news” stories of people (not just women, and including police) having their own guns used against them. The other, far more common outcome isn’t “newsworthy”!
Meh. Her refusal to admit that “journalists” are “activists” flips the bozo bit.