There’s long been a perception among many that the Second Amendment community is really just a bunch of old, white guys. Of course, those of us who are part of it know better, but we also know where that perception came from. After all, white men have long made up the lion’s share of the gun community with a handful of women here and there, at most.

On the other side, gun control has always had a very female slant to it. It’s enough to believe that the gun debate is really a gender issue.

But that was then, this is now. Things change.

Over at USA Today, they took a (biased) look at the role women are playing in both sides of the debate.

This story was published in partnership with The 19th, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. 

On the February 1993 cover of Women & Guns magazine, a Black woman wearing a collared blue button down tucked into pink pants, large hoop earrings and a mullet haircut with feathered bangs crouches – a half smile on her face – pointing a pocket pistol.

Another cover from the following year shows a white woman wearing a blue dress, apron and pearls, cleaning a semi-automatic rifle in a kitchen.

Pro-gun messaging aimed at women has ebbed and flowed for years. More recently, gun manufacturers, sellers and advocacy groups have used themes of empowerment to demonstrate how guns can help women protect themselves from the dangers of the world.

It’s a persistent narrative that has increasingly become a talking point in the mainstream gun-rights movement and flouts research that lax gun policies leave women disproportionately vulnerable.

This tension is reflected in a key U.S. Supreme Court case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, that will determine how strictly states can regulate concealed carry licenses. The case does not directly center on concerns about women’s safety; however, groups have come forward to argue that restricting concealed carry licenses will either better protect women from gun violence or put them in greater danger.

This, of course, is a case where common sense has to trump the biased research that’s been done.

See, the research has typically looked at the gun in the hands of the attacker, not the role a gun in the hands of women may play in them not becoming a victim.

Common sense suggests that if a woman has a gun on her person when she’s facing an attacker, then she can use that gun to protect herself. This includes would-be rapists, domestic abusers, and the typical armed assailants that are simply after a target of opportunity rather than specifically targeting a woman.

There’s a reason why people are saying armed women is a net benefit to women.

Of course, the usual suspects disagree. They sound the alarm over and over again, but they forget that the studies they cite are horribly flawed pieces of biased research that we can debunk in our sleep.

The truth is women are playing an important role in the Second Amendment community, and they’re doing so because they understand they’re not about to take on an armed assailant like they’re Bruce Lee. They’re at a physical disadvantage in most cases, but the gun equalizes things for them.

Anyone with at least half a brain can see that.

No wonder the gun control crowd can’t.