I’ve long believed that an armed woman is a truly empowered woman.

After all, when you look at all the horrors that can be visited upon a woman, those magically disappear when you place a firearm in her hands. The worst she’ll face then are some unkind words, and everyone has to deal with those.

Yet for years, guns were a man’s world. Not because we didn’t want the ladies to join us but because there was little interest among the fairer sex at the time.

Those times have changed, and now the media is starting to notice.

Entrepreneur and fashion designer Anna Taylor is trying to bring back the corset — not to revive Victorian lingerie but to give women a place to carry their handguns.

“I don’t know that the corset’s ever been out of fashion, but it’s never been so useful,” Taylor said in Las Vegas at this year’s SHOT Show, the largest trade show for the firearms industry.

After overlooking the women’s market for years, the firearms industry now sees women as the drivers of growth. Gun sales have declined since peaking in 2016, with companies like Remington Outdoor Company Inc going through bankruptcy reorganization last year, but the women’s share of the market has been growing.

Women have led the change, both as consumers and as entrepreneurs in the world of accessories, forcing gun-makers to follow their lead.

Retailers estimate women accounted for 23 percent of the $44 billion retail market for firearms and accessories in 2016, up 7 percentage points from 2010, according to data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which runs the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show.

I’m glad the media is acknowledging this and hope that more venues start reporting on this fact.

If nothing else, it will remove the argument that a gun is some phallic symbol. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of great comebacks over the years for those arguments, but the argument itself is crude and idiotic.

With more women buying and carrying guns, it becomes harder to argue that it’s about men feeling inadequate about their manhood.

More importantly, each armed woman represents a woman who is far less likely to become a violent crime statistic. Instead, she depicts a new and empowered woman, the kind who can take care of herself in any circumstance.

As the old saying goes, God created all men but Sam Colt made them equal. Well, the truth of the matter is that in a physical altercation, the average man has a near total advantage over the average woman. There’s no way to make that an equal encounter. Sure, some of the UFC women’s division fighters can kick the average guy’s a** without a problem, but most women aren’t there. Even if they do have a little training, it may not be enough to match the average man.

But put a gun in their hands and all that changes. Now, none of that matters. It doesn’t matter how big, how strong, or how skilled a fighter he is. He can’t dodge bullets. Now, the woman has a chance. A damn good one, too.

As a man, my duty is to protect my family. However, I can’t be everywhere they are, so the next best thing I can do is hope that my wife and daughter can protect themselves.

The market for women is growing, and that’s nothing but a good thing. Not just for the firearm industry, but society as a whole.