If the Brady Campaign wants to know why we’re winning, I have a great example. An acquaintance from high school posted the other day an example of the trouble she faces as a young, cute realtor. Her face and phone number are plastered all over her city, so sometimes she gets highly personal obscene calls at any time of day or night. These callers aren’t what most people might experience with a heavy breather who might describe a few abstract things. They can call her by her name and describe what they would like to do to her face in detail.
On top of this issue, she has to worry if these people will try to take the harassment to the next level. If one of them calls to set an appointment to see an empty house, she could end up completely alone with a criminal and never know it.
Being from Oklahoma, she knows how to use a gun. She has a firearm she keeps at home because her husband is out of town for work. She was looking to sign up for a concealed carry class, and I heard she managed to get into one. But, it appears that the Oklahoma training requirement mandates range time. As this acquaintance is quite pregnant right now, she was understandably concerned about the impact the noise will have on her baby.
The anti-gun groups see nothing wrong in forcing her to potentially wait months until she can get a concealed carry license even though she received multiple phone calls in one night. They see no reason she shouldn’t have to take a class at her expense and delaying the process of getting a license even though she already knows how to shoot a gun. According to them, there’s no threat to her safety that’s bigger than the lawful ownership of a safely stored and handled firearm.
The reason we’re winning is because not only did she get into a class, but her post on that news had multiple people “like” it on Facebook – all women.
UPDATED: So another person has chimed in to discuss the process his wife had to go through since she also decided to get a carry license once she was pregnant. I do love Oklahoma sometimes.
CSGV will issue a press releasing saying that these women should either get into another line of work, or simply stay in the kitchen and tend to her family.
OK does not specify what caliber must be used for the range portion of the class. Everyone in my family has taken the class with a Ruger MKII 22/45. I know at least one of the local trainers in Tulsa has a assortment of MKIIs for students to use. In fact, she might be able to do the range portion by herself so that the only noise is from her .22 pistol.
From what I’ve read, if she can do the range portion with no other shooters, using a .22, and taking steps to minimize lead exposure, then she should be just fine.
.22 suppressed with subsonic lead free ammo shouldn’t be an issue.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
The CSGV. . . what a bunch of loons.
Within a week of my book’s release, I was getting all sorts of “love mail” from this bunch of brain-dead idiots.
Fact is, they WANT more victims so they can continue to justify their very existence as well as have an even larger flock of sheep to bleat and scurry amongst.
Being from Texas, I’m trying to imagine a jury in Oklahoma that would convict a young woman (or any woman) who shot a bad guy who was trying to do her serious harm.
JD
Some years back, I called the guy who was running for sheriff of Sonoma County, and I asked him what his policy on carry permit issuance would be. His response was that he thought that few people had good reason to carry a gun, and he would not issue them as liberally as the existing sheriff had done. Then, this guy volunteered something that most politicians would fight to avoid admitting.
“I had a lady realtor call me up and ask the same question. She told me that she was often meeting strangers at empty houses in remote parts of the county, and she would feel a bit safer if she had a gun with her. I told her, she should have a man with her instead.”
Not surprisingly, he won the election. Sonoma County is very rich, and very liberal.
One reason I initially got into this issue was that kind of baltant sexism. It didn’t matter that the environment was supposedly about empowering women, the message was that we should just turn to men to protect us. It really irritated me since that’s not what I was raised to believe.
Agree, and this is what I have emphasized over and over to my wife and our god/daughter.
On the other hand, as a native Texan, veteran and former LE type, I am hard-wired to look out for females and children and be vigilant about doing whatever I can to keep them out of harm’s way.
But first and foremost, every person has the right of self-defense and by using whatever the most efficient tools necessary may be.
JD
As someone who has a strong “chivalry” bent, I cannot help but see a responsibility for the males of the household to protect the house…but to say that they have the sole responsibility is absurd!
For one thing, how much is a realator going to have to pay for a bodyguard at all times, when she’s an independent human being, capable of independent human action?
For another thing, is this really the ideal situation? I sometimes work weird hours, and I have to leave my wife alone with three children. Who am I supposed to turn to, to make sure she’s protected? My brother? My wife’s brother? My neighbors? Each of which have their own responsibilities and interests, that may conflict with our own?
For yet another thing, it’s even absurd to assume that I’m going to be able to defend my wife when the chips are down, even if I’m there to defend her. I sleep deeply, and have a difficult time waking up in the middle of the night. I also sometimes get hit hard with a migraine. And who knows? Perhaps this winter, I’ll be hit with the flu, and be completely useless, or I might get shot by that stranger who just broke into our house, and it will be up to my wife to shoot him, and then get help for me.
While I agree with the notion that the “man of the house” has a responsibility to defend the household, this notion that he’s the onyl one who can defend the house is absurd!
(Besides which, what is that sheriff going to say to the husband of the real estate agent, who says “I need a gun to protect my real estate wife”? I have a funny feeling that he isn’t going to say, “Well, here you go then, have a permit!” I suspect that he’s going to find every reason he can to deny that permit.)
The other issue being not all of us men are MMA champs even if we do “escort” the women around.
275 lb linebacker vs me is not going to be much different.
A quick google says suppressors are legal in OK. Maybe she could find an instructor who owns one?
This is a better idea than the one that I was trying to imagine: I was imagining creating a special soundproof barrier suit for the lady to protect her child. First, I imagined trying to wrap her belly and chest…and then I realized that sound travels though solids and liquids better than air, so her entire body would have to be covered.
That, and I can’t help but think about how absurd it would look, and it might not even work, to boot.
The fact that we’re having this conversation at all illustrates how absurd this particular requirement is!
Jeff beat me to it, but to carry it farther, I wonder if there might be an opening for easing the laws on suppressors for use in firearms instruction, especially as a health issue. Incremental change and all that.
My wife faces a similar problem with harassment.
She is an ER doc and is constantly telling drug seekers “NO drugs for you!” (think soup Nazi) anyway.. Some of them answer this with “Well I will be waiting for you in the parking lot” or “I can figure out where you live” etc.. Of course the hospital guards are not armed and not always there to walk her to the car. I’ve driven there a few times at her request just to be sure she gets to the car and home without being followed. Scary stuff.
Of course she carries. The not so secret, secret is that a LOT of ER docs carry even when it’s against company policy and some of them carry ALL the time regardless of postings..
At home.. Well breaking into my home would be a
“tragic error in the victim selection process”