I recently read an email from Moms Demand Action that led with a chilling statistic: more than 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner every month in the United States.
As someone who has spent the last several years teaching other women how to properly and safely use firearms, that number is heartbreaking. Every one of those stories is tragic. But what troubles me is how that statistic is being used to convince women that their safety depends on being disarmed, which is the opposite of empowerment.
Domestic violence is a horrific reality. I’ve looked into the eyes of women who’ve lived through it. Many of the women who come to my classes aren’t “gun people.” Some have never touched a firearm before. But they show up because they know that calling for help isn’t always enough when danger is already present inside the home.
As a matter of fact, I am a survivor of domestic violence. So, I hope that anyone who doubts my opinions or convictions on my personal right to keep and bear arms hears this message with absolute clarity.
The world is full of unexpected threats, not in the woods, but in our homes. Not strangers in dark alleys, but people we know.
Moms Demand Action claims that women are five times more likely to be killed if their abuser has access to a gun. What they leave out is that a woman who is trained and prepared to defend herself with a firearm is far less likely to be a victim in the first place.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I wanted nothing more than to own a handgun. However, my anti-gun home state had other things in mind, and I was legally prohibited from pursuing my concealed carry weapons permit as a means of self-protection, a tool that may have prevented my assault.
According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 90 percent of perpetrators of sexual violence against women are men. In terms of domestic violence, statistics show that at least 85 percent of domestic violence victims are women.
Domestic violence is a choice that abusers make, regardless of laws and prohibitions. Abusers choose to abuse. Guns don’t cause abuse. Abuse starts in the heart. Taking firearms away from law-abiding women doesn’t make violent men less dangerous; it only makes their targets less capable of fighting back.
I have no doubt that many members of groups like Moms Demand Action mean well. They use the language like “gun safety” and “preventing domestic violence.” But the leaders of that movement and the billionaires who fund them are making women less safe by restricting our ability to choose the most effective means of protection.
Almost every woman knows someone who has been a victim of abuse, if not having been one herself. Guns are not the cause of abuse. Abusers are. The tool doesn’t create the intent; it’s the intent that seeks out the tool.
Instead of promoting disarmament and dependency, we should be promoting empowerment. Gun owners already lead the way in safety training and responsible ownership. The statistics bear this out. With hundreds of millions of firearms in the U.S., children under the age of five are far more likely to die from drowning, poisoning, suffocation, or auto accidents than from firearms.
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Here’s what else they don’t tell you. The vast majority of defensive gun use never even makes the news. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention un the Obama administration has acknowledged that Americans use firearms defensively up to 3 million times every year. Most of those cases end without a shot being fired, because the presence of a gun stops the crime before it starts.
This October, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I don’t want to see another campaign that paints women as helpless and firearms as the enemy. I want to see one that teaches women how to be their own first responders.
Because the real crisis isn’t that too many women own guns, it’s that too many women are told not to.
At Empowered 2A, a project of Gun Owners of America, we believe America needs more firearms education and training, not more fear. We need more women at the range learning safety, confidence, and accuracy, not more laws that make them criminals for wanting to live how they choose. And we need policymakers who trust women to make their own choices about their own defense.
Not every woman will make the same choices I have. Some will choose a firearm, others won’t. That choice should be hers alone, not that of Washington politicians who are surrounded by some of the best-armed security on the planet, with a billion-dollar annual price tag.
If Moms Demand Action truly wants to save women’s lives, they should start by trusting women with the same tools police officers rely on to protect themselves. Because our lives are no less valuable.
And to the women involved in Moms Demand Action, I’d ask you to consider what you’re asking the government to do. You are asking your own government to take away your best means of self-protection and trade our essential liberty for the false promise of safety.
This October, I will wear purple for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in hopes that more women stand up and defend themselves rather than be disarmed waiting for help that isn’t coming. I will also carry responsibly. Not because I want to use my firearm, but because I never want to need it and not have the choice.
Woman With Concealed Carry License Fatally Shoots Violent Intruder on Chicago’s West Side ~ VIDEO
About Terra Semaia
Terra Semaia is a Coordinator for Empowered 2A, a project of Gun Owners of America. Learn more at https://www.gunowners.org.
Sorry Brian that this happened to you. I don’t like it even if I don’t particularly care for the person it happened too, just like I don’t wish that the democrap/Supreme Court Justice would die, unlike the demoncraps do for republicans. I read an article and was subjected to advertisements and programming on shows about how if a woman has a gun to protect herself that she is more likely to be killed with that gun by her partner then stop the threat. I was so blown away when I heard it because common sense tells me they are full… Read more »