April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. But instead of empowering potential victims, politicians in blue states, the White House, and on Capitol Hill are actively pushing regressive gun control policies that are disarming women and emboldening violent criminals in the process.
Let’s start with New York, the state that saw their onerous concealed carry permitting scheme slapped down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Within months, state lawmakers and Governor Hochul passed a new and even more restrictive law (foolishly named the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act”), in direct defiance of the High Court and the Second Amendment. Today in New York, virtually all private property is classified as a gun free zone, many public locations are deemed too “sensitive” for carry, and all public transportation is off limits for those just looking to stay safe on their commute to and from work. If you’re a woman in NYC, you’ve been disarmed and left defenseless in every practical sense.
In the nation’s capital, President Biden and anti-gun lawmakers have instituted de facto waiting periods for adults under 21 trying to buy a gun, banned millions of pistol-braced weapons, and now are pushing for background checks on virtually every gun sold in America. One can bet the college student with a known stalker isn’t thrilled that she’ll now have to wait weeks to buy a gun, or the single mom who just had a home break-in is terrified since she can no longer easily acquire a gun from her friend or neighbor for fear of being prosecuted for not undergoing a background check.
Undoubtedly, the anti-gunners at Everytown or Brady will quickly say a gun in the home only raises the level of danger or point out that a man could use the gun against the woman, but what they won’t acknowledge is that a trained woman with a gun is the best defense when seconds count.
Here are the sobering facts the Left doesn’t want the public to see – women are buying guns, and they’re doing so at a rate higher than ever before in history. Data from Harvard’s School of Public Health confirmed that nearly 50% of new gun owners in 2021 were women, and polling confirms that the leading reason women own guns is self-defense (say over 70% of respondents).
It shouldn't be hard for someone to objectively understand why women fear for their safety and are buying guns in response.
Despite the claims about crime going down by the Biden Administration and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media, most Americans are worried about crime. Honestly, who could blame them? Independent studies argue the FBI crime stats are seriously undercounting violent crime. And when Members of Congress are being carjacked blocks from the U.S. Capitol, when a young woman is murdered in Georgia by an illegal alien while simply on a run, and when gun free zones in places like NYC and across the USA are doing nothing to stop violent individuals from using guns to harm the innocent, people will see through the facade and demand change.
Women are increasingly seeing through these lies about crime and gun control, and pro-gun organizations are stepping up in response. This past March on the weekend of International Women’s Day, Gun Owners of America and Empowered 2A hosted their latest firearms safety and gun rights advocacy event, a women’s only range event in Texas with over 300 attendees.
On top of that, for over a decade now, Detroit firearms instructor Rick Ector has organized his own massive event to train thousands of women in self-defense and firearms safety.
Gun rights are women's rights, and no this isn’t just some theoretical slogan, the data confirms that women are arming themselves. Just last summer, one researcher identified over a dozen confirmed instances in a mere two week stretch where women used a firearm to protect themselves, often from intimate partners or exes.
To highlight their efforts during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the White House will tout their newly formed “Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” but this is nothing more than placating to their rabid anti-gun base.
Women want to see real action on preventing violence, like weaponizing U.S. Attorneys offices in major cities against the countless criminals who use firearms in the commission of crime, but later get let off by soft-on-crime local prosecutors.
Unfortunately given past precedent, the public should expect anti-gunners to continue gaslighting the few remaining lost souls who keep listening to their propaganda on guns. In the meantime, Americans concerned about safety, women included, will continue to search for real solutions and real tools to prevent violent crime and sexual violence, chiefly among them, firearms.
Antonia Okafor-Cover is the Director of Women’s Outreach for Gun Owners of America. Follow @antonia_okafor.