IT IS NOT OK!

October 23, 2019

• 1 in 4 women  experience severe physical violence, sexual violence,  or stalking by their partner
• 60.8% of female stalking victims reported being stalked by a current or former intimate partner
• 23% of female college students experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation
• And 1 in 5 women in the United States is raped during her lifetime 

Do I have your attention?  Hearing the politicians speak out every day, especially the female politicians that are advocating that law abiding citizens, including the women listed in the stats I just recited, should have our gun rights limited, regulated and in some cases removed is unbelievable. If you champion for women you MUST also champion for their right to bear arms. Period. 

Despite the media and politician's rhetoric asserting that “the average person … has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense,” the CDC reported that studies routinely find that Americans use firearms in defense of themselves or others between 500,000 and 3 million times every year. It's amazing to hear that so many accounts of law-abiding Americans whose lives were saved because they were able to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Reports also show that over 200,000 times per year a women uses a gun to defend herself against sexual assault. These stories rarely make any type of noise in the media, if at all. If these women did not have the right to bear arms these over 200,000 incidences where women saved themselves from a sexual assault would now be included in much higher statistics than I stated earlier.  These politicians care more about their power and votes than they do about these 200,000 possible rapes and assaults. They don't care. If they did, they would never fight for any gun controls.

For example, last March In Chicago, a woman shot a man in self-defense after he began physically assaulting her, breaking her hand and covering her body in cuts and bruises. In Oregon this year. A man forced his way into his ex-girlfriend’s house and cornered her in her bedroom with her son. The woman, who had called 911 before to report the man for entering her home and threatening her, she fired her gun at him in fear for her life and her son's. The man was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries and was charged with assault and menacing. 

Unfortunately, because of the stats I cited earlier, not every women is fortunate enough to be able to protect herself and is raped, assaulted or even worse, killed. 

The new red flag laws being introduced in many states, new regulations on concealed carry permits and waiting periods are making it more difficult for law abiding citizens to protect themselves.  These new laws will never affect the criminal. Because criminals don’t care about the law, new or old. 

There was a story from 2015 about a NJ women, Carol Bowne. This woman had a restraining order against her very violent ex. She was so fearful that she installed security cameras at her home and applied for a gun permit so she could purchase a handgun for protection in April 2015. In NJ at this time it could take several months to get approved for your permit. This local police department and Sheriff were also known to routinely sit on firearm applications that they are supposed to rule on within 30 days. Carol Bowne visited the police station to check the status of her application in June of 2015, 2 days before her ex brutally stabbed her to death in her driveway as she exited her car. If Carol Bowne was able to exercise her God given right to protect herself against her known abuser and not jump through state red tape, she would have been able to protect herself from her murderer. Carol was only 39 years old. These regulations need to be repealed now.  Carol Bowne is just an example of how gun control fails time and again, not against the criminal but the 39 year old woman begging the state to ALLOW her to legally protect herself.  

In the stats I listed previously where 1 in 4 women will experience severe physical violence, sexual violence, or stalking by their partner. Why shouldn’t these women be able to protect themselves against these attackers?  The politicians are telling you through gun controls laws that these 1 in 4 women do not. Even these waiting periods put in place can have deadly consequences. The politicians want you to believe that these gun control measures and waiting periods will have little to no effect on the law abiding citizens. Don’t you think Carol Bowne would disagree? Don't you think her loved ones would disagree? 

As a women who has survived my own rape on my college campus over 20 years ago, where my resident adviser took my pepper spray away and provided me with a red whistle for self-defense, I DISAGREE.  That whistle did not save me for that man beating and raping me and that restraining order did not protect Carol Bowne from being murdered.  Why would criminals, rapists and murderers suddenly follow these new gun controls.  The answer is easy, They won't.  And it is up to us, the law abiding citizens to make sure that we vote in such a way that these proposed laws do not become anything more than campaign rhetoric. For all the women in the stats cited above, don't we owe them the chance to save their own lives by insuring their right to keep and bear arms?

Bee Jackson

Owner-Founder Carry Girl Gear

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