We hear a lot about "empowerment" these days. All sorts of government and social programs are undertaken to "empower" women, racial groups and other minorities. But these programs all treat people as components of groups -- not as individuals. And the truth is that most of the important things we do in life we do alone -- as individuals.For example, in my job I travel a good deal. So I stay in many hotels. In those hotels I enjoy the protection afforded by the hotel's security department, as well as by other employees and guests of the hotel. But that isn't the case when I step outside. Once I leave the safety and security afforded by the hotel, I am on my own, potential prey for muggers, rapists, and other predators. So I have three choices available to me: Remain in the relative safety of the hotel; make certain that I have the means to protect myself on the street; or ignore the possibility of danger and head out the door without any means of protection -- naively believing that gun control laws and the nanny government will keep me safe. Cowering inside a safe environment isn't always an option, because at some point I must venture out into the world. And when I do, handguns are a girl's best friend.
Have you ever watched a National Geographic wildlife special on TV? In some of them, the predators -- the lion, the cheetah, the wolf -- stalk a herd of antelope and wait. They seek out the weak and powerless, waiting for the opportunity to cut them out of the herd and take them down. They seek the easy prey -- not the full-grown adult male who can fight back with horns and hooves and fangs.
In society, we can't always travel with a protective herd. The weak, the powerless, the vulnerable must be able to move about alone. They must make certain they have the means to protect themselves. The weak one may be your daughter. The powerless one may be your wife. The vulnerable one may be your mom. And the predators are out there waiting to take them down. The fact is, of course, when it comes to possessing her own set of fangs and hooves and claws, handguns are a girl's best friend.
The friends of big government are working very hard to convince us that gun rights are important only to a small, misfit minority of paranoid wackos. The propaganda machines of Handgun Control, Inc., and the Clinton administration want people to believe that the only folks who care about the right to keep and bear arms are camouflage-clad, white racist men. Or, green-toothed Bubbas whose primary goal in life is to slaughter furry little animals.
They want you to believe that keeping a weapon in your home will lead to shooting your children. They manipulate statistics to try to persuade us that children are dying by the thousands in handgun accidents. The truth is that the "children" included in those numbers are primarily gang members killed by other "children'" in turf wars over drug deals. God forbid that they should lay the blame for the killings on the insane War on Drugs. Oh no, they blame the weapons, and push for more gun-control laws even though the guns used by gang members may have been outlawed long ago.
Those who claim to care about children involved in accidental shootings are the same people who do everything possible to suppress gun safety. "Eddie Eagle" is a highly effective fun-safety program taught in government and private schools by certified National Rifle Association instructors. It costs the taxpayers nothing. And yet, whenever possible, the do-gooders prevent the course from being offered. Why? Because every time a child is killed in a handgun accident, their agenda is advanced -- even though safety training would virtually halt these accidents.
So whenever you hear of a kid who found a gun and shot another kid with it accidentally, remember: That death could have been prevented with safety training. And the reason the kid didn't get safety training was because Handgun Control, Inc. opposed the idea. Whenever you hear of a mother who stopped at the store on her way home and was forced into a car, or of a wife who left work a little late and was attacked in the parking garage, or of a former girlfriend who was bludgeoned to death by an irate ex-boyfriend: Remember, it is the weak and the powerless who are singled out from the herd, caught without the tools to protect themselves and taken down. And you can lay the blame for these women's vulnerability squarely where it belongs -- on those who deny them the means to protect themselves.
We hear a lot about women's rights, but what about laws that prevent the poor, inner-city, single mother from legally owning the means to protect herself and her children from the gangs? To seek safety, she has only two choices: Cower in fear behind steel-barred windows and doors and hope she will be passed over, or illegally purchase a weapon for self-defense. The do-gooders force her to become a criminal herself if she wants protection. So whenever some politician claims to support the rights of women (you know, someone like Ted Kennedy or Bill Clinton who "truly cares" about the rights of women), and he spouts off about sexual harassment, stalker statues or deadbeat dads, ask him: "Where do you stand on the most basic of all women's rights, the right to own and carry a gun, the best means of my own protection?"
I don't need the government or a weapon to protect me from the amorous guy in the next office. Nor is the government going to protect me from a robber. So the only reliable protection for what truly threatens me is a handgun. Years ago, I was a single mom who lived alone with a small child. At that time I believed all the anti-gun propaganda. I thought guns caused violence. I believed that refusing to keep a weapon in my home would ensure that my son and I would escape the brutality lurking outside. I believed in and worked for a more peaceful world. I believed so firmly that guns were the problem that I wouldn't even allow my son to own a toy gun. And my folks had raised me to believe that nice girls, ladies, do not have anything to do with guns.
A man who had lived in my neighborhood moved away. I had never said two words to him. I didn't even know his name. But a few months after he moved, he started coming back to the neighborhood late at night and terrorizing me. He would come to my home, bang on the front door, bang on the windows, wake up my baby and scare me to death.
I would call the police, of course, and they would come, at least at first. But the stalker always knew how long it would take the police to arrive, and he'd disappear before they arrived. So I had no evidence that anyone had been there. The police would leave, and he'd come back. This went on night after night. From time to time, he would stop for a week or two, and then he'd show up again. Eventually the cops apparently concluded I was some kind of nutcase who liked to call the cops at two in the morning. They quit responding when I called. So I was left without any protection at all. I will never, as long as I live, forget the long nights sitting in my darkened living room, clutching my crying baby in one arm, holding a butcher knife in my other hand, wondering if this was the night he would break through the door. Eventually, I had to move. To escape from this man, I had to give up my home.
How I wish I had known then what I know now. That man was undoubtedly a coward who got his kicks from terrorizing the helpless. If one time, just one time, I had shown him I wasn't helpless, that I had the means to protect myself, he most likely would have cowered off into the night, too fearful to even seek another victim. The night he saw my weapon would be the night he would have been afraid.
I think often about the terror I felt at being a powerless victim. I think about the insidious ways women are trained to believe they are victims, and the futile attempts we make to protect ourselves. Recently I saw a local TV news report called "How Not to Be a Victim." It contained the usual bunch of "helpful hints": When you walk into a mall parking lot at night, ask a security guard to walk with you (yeah, right); if you must walk alone, have your keys in hand, ready to open your car door (as though your car were the only place you're vulnerable); watch for people lurking around parked cars (as though you could do anything about it if someone were there); never get into an elevator alone with a man (which means you may have to climb a lot of stairs).
But the most insidious advice of all was: If you're attacked, give up. Don't resist. Is your car or your purse worth your life? The TV report never mentioned that if a woman walked to her car with her hand on a pistol, it's the predator who would have to decide whether the purse or the car was worth his life. When I turned off the television, I was shaking with anger. All those safety tips seemed necessary because the underlying assumption is this: "You are powerless. Your government doesn't allow you to have the means to protect yourself, so give it up."
Nowhere in the TV report did anyone mention handguns. The truth is that despite all the propaganda regurgitated by the politicians and the press, studies show that handguns reduce crime. In places where citizens can obtain permission to carry concealed weapons, assault crime has gone down. We who care about the rights of women, who want to see women really empowered, must spread the message of protection that applies here and now and forever:
Handguns are a girl's best friend.
Speech given at the '98 LP national convention