The Rise of Women's Gun Culture.

Courtesy Rolling Stone:

Over the last decade, the percentage of armed women in America has risen quietly: according to Gallup, the numbers went from 13% in 2005 to 23% in 2011. By last year, that rise wasn't so quiet anymore. Women's interest sites declared "The Rise Of The Female Gun Nut." A Girl and a Gun-type shooting clubs, like Babes with Bullets and The Well Armed Woman, bloomed. And a staunchly, proudly masculine industry at least attempted to keep pace. Walk around a gun show these days, and you're more likely than not to find at least one table piled wide with .223-caliber AR-15 assault rifles rendered in hot pink. 

The movement, as of now, is very much fledgling. AG&AG, its de facto hub, nearly tripled attendance since last year's inaugural event, with local chapters from Marietta to Lehigh Valley to Cheyenne represented; still, that means just under 300 people, attendees and instructors all told. But one thing is for sure: here, across the basement-level conference rooms of the serene, sleepy Waco convention center, with these gun-happy ladies, the spirit is strong. 

You know I feel somewhat ambivalent about this.

On the one hand I have nothing against a woman wanting to protect herself against the possibility of attack. 

On the other hand this "gun culture" talk really bothers me. Just like it does when it pertains to males.

It is one thing if you view owning a gun as a necessary part of keeping safe, and quite another if you view as some crazy version of female empowerment, or a method of self expression.

Years ago I decided to teach women's self defense because I believed that women were more likely to become victims of domestic abuse or crime and I thought self confidence and a self defense skill set could help to keep them safe.

I also believed that women were less likely to use what I taught them to hurt others unnecessarily or to dominate them through threat of injury. Which was one of the reasons that I refused to teach men.

And for the most part that turned out to be correct.

For the most part.

But as I learned to my great frustration SOME women can be just as big of assholes as men.

Women are not all dainty, feminine, non-violent nurturers. Some of them have short tempers, violent tendencies, and a desire to dominate those that are weaker than they are.

Just like men.

So as much as I don't have anything against women, who are more often victimized than men, finding a way to protect themselves, I really think this kind of thing might attract the kind of woman who ABSOLUTELY should not walk around armed.

Just my point of view.