It figures that while the women were marching around the NRA headquarters, the boys in Fairfax would crank up the usual pro-gun noise to promote the idea that what women really need to do to make themselves safe is to own and carry a gun. The march, incidentally, was in response to the NRA video narrated by home-schooling queen Dana Loesch which features the usual, racist crap America’s ‘oldest civil rights organization’ has been throwing out for years. Notice that I’m not providing a link to the video because I believe that it should be, and should have been ignored.
When it comes to women and guns, the real issue as far as I’m concerned is not whether an alt-right media personality can promote herself by pimping for the NRA, nor is it whether the NRA did or didn’t say anything after the police murder of Philando Castile (which, in fact, they did.) The real issue is the issue of women and guns. Because the latest data shows that men outnumber women as gun owners by a margin of two to one, which means that women still represent an untapped market for gun sales, a particularly important issue because gun sales continue to lag and sag during the Age of Trump.
Meanwhile, although the gun violence prevention (GVP) folks often find themselves on the defensive when it comes to new laws on guns, they have scored some notable successes in one area, namely, the push to keep guns out of the hands of (usually) men charged with domestic abuse, with new restrictions being passed in 23 states since 2014. In this regard, it’s the NRA which has been on the defensive, even though they recently scored victories in Indiana and Tennessee, but what these laws do is allow domestic abuse victims quicker access to guns, they don’t make it easier for the abuser to keep or get his hands on a gun.
Gun-nut Nation’s legal strategy to sidestep the issue of guns which cause injuries to domestic abuse victims and concentrate instead on why guns are everyone’s essential tool for self-defense flows directly from the way the NRA has been talking about domestic abuse for years, namely, to not talk about it at all. One of the most popular courses in the NRA training curriculum is something called ‘Refuse To Be A Victim,’ which the Fairfax boys claim has been taught to more than 100,000 people and is allegedly an ‘award-winning’ crime prevention program although it’s not clear which organization actually gave the NRA this award.
I am, in fact, a certified NRA trainer in this particular course, and I took the certification because I wanted to see what the course was all about. What’s it about is a mélange of half-baked, vague bits of paranoia which cobbles together all the usual crap about online security and identify theft, buying and installing a burglar alarm, making sure that nobody’s following you down that dark street or about to jack your car. The student manual says the course was designed by the ‘women of the NRA’ and presumes that everyone taking the course lives in a nice, split-level suburban home. The curriculum says absolutely nothing about guns.
It also says next to nothing about domestic abuse. The student manual contains one statement to the effect that people who want information about domestic abuse situations should contact a national, non-profit hotline, but that’s as far as it goes. In fact, you would think from the course content that online identity theft for women is a much bigger threat than the fact that women are assaulted domestically millions of times each year.
NRA’s effort to promote female gun ownership as a response to domestic abuse is an insult and a sham. And idiots like Dana Loesch who pretend to represent all those tough, gun-owning women just waiting to pull out their guns on some street ‘thug’ only dishonor themselves and the organization they claim to represent.
THANKS TO GAIL LEHMANN.
khal spencer
Jul 17, 2017 @ 11:07:20
We (NMTPGV) got a domestic violence gun restraining order through the legislature last year and our governor inexplicably vetoed it. She had some argle-bargle about these things being complicated and judges can already do that. Yeah, sure. Not sure who was whispering into her ear but she is a lame duck, so not susceptible to re-election donations.
I somehow don’t see how turning a troubled home into an armed camp can improve things and I know something about that from personal experience.
Genne Mikel
May 27, 2018 @ 12:53:23
I knew this topic would be hilarious because no one who has an ounce of sanity could possibly believe the utter nonsense that is in this article. I could spend the day refuting everything the nut wrote, but essentially, I have never seen a man yet who would not tuck his tail and run when asked how a one hundred and ten pound woman can fend off two hundred pound man with no gun. The idiot broads who support this insanity have never been crime victims. This whole article is as absurd as it gets and it gave me a good laugh as I knew it would. I have been a victim and I have pulled my hand gun and ran off a bit man who would not leave me alone. He sure did then, and I did not have to shoot. I’m sorry so many idiots are afraid of guns and think owning one somehow makes you evil I have been shooting since I was young, and there is not one word of truth to this crap on this page. But again, I wanted to be amused and it did it. As for the comment up there about turning you home into an armed camp, that is absurd. Owning a gun does no such thing, but the day the writer faces a violent criminal he she or it will choke on their words and it may be choking to death.