18 Jan Guns, NOW and Empowering Women
The National Organization for Women (NOW) strongly supports President Obama’s gun-control efforts, and praised his “admirable goal of reducing gun violence in the United States.”
Of course everyone supports the reduction of gun violence in America, but question is how to accomplish that vital goal.
NOW’s support for Democrat politicians and their initiatives is not new or surprising, and is in fact nearly robotic. In this case, however, it is contradictory to one of the core ideas NOW claims to support, which is the independence and competence of women.
I’m from Texas but grew up in the Northeast, and have never until this year touched a real gun, but I have some serious questions for the NOW anti-gun crowd:
- Why do you oppose a women’s right to choose when it comes to gun ownership? After all, gun control laws will apply to everyone, including women. Thousands of law-abiding, non-violent women choose gun ownership as a means of protection. Do you oppose their right to make that decision? Isn’t one of your basic premises that women are responsible and capable of thinking for themselves, of making their own decisions?
- Women are naturally, on average, physically smaller and weaker than men, so at a natural disadvantage in any confrontation. Tough gun laws will prevent women from buying guns that could save their lives. Why oppose a tool that could “level the playing field”? Today’s Democrat-led government control schemes target the most efficient weapons, the ones that could be most helpful to women, who may need to fire more than one shot at a time to protect themselves.
- Given that women are, statistically, more likely to be victims of gun violence than to use guns successfully to protect themselves, and criminals who use guns are by definition criminals who will not follow gun-control laws, why not empower women by urging them to learn the safe and effective use of firearms? Why assume women are too helpless to learn to protect themselves?
- Why ignore the mounting evidence of the link between the use of psychotropic drugs and mass murder? ISEEP, the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry published a detailed, footnoted article outlining the connection between mass murder/gun violence and the use of psychotropic drugs. The evidence of this connection is overwhelming, and deserves the serious attention of those actually dedicated to reducing gun violence.
NOW’s support of left-wing policymakers’ goals to control the people and their guns will empower criminals, frustrate law-abiding female gun owners, and further jeopardize women who instead of being encouraged to become competent with firearms, are encouraged instead to be helplessly reliant on the government to keep guns away from criminals.
Worse, NOW’s “choose government control” approach fails to focus on the root causes of gun violence, including mental health issues, the proliferation of mind-altering drugs, the culture and society that mocks religion and morality as antiquated, and the proliferation of violence-as-entertainment in all of media. Addressing these takes more time, thought, focus, determination and bravery than NOW’s “women are not responsible enough to own and use guns properly, so please crack down on everyone’s guns” advocacy.
All of us want to keep guns out of the hands of violent and mentally unstable criminals, and steps that directly address that goal make sense. Unfortunately, no law will keep guns away from violent husbands, boyfriends or strangers. That’s why the gun control issue is, for women, an empowerment issue. Empower women with the right, opportunity and motivation to learn to defend themselves.
Maybe it’s time for the National Empowerment of Women!