One of the largest growing segments of gun owners is women. Female gun owners are quickly becoming a major component of the Second Amendment landscape, with dedicated groups of gun rights advocacy focused on the women’s side of the equation, such as the DC Project.
As such, many women have opinions not in lockstep with what gun control advocates may claim. It’s shocking, I know, but it’s true.
And many of them are less than pleased with President Biden’s anti-gun remarks during the State of the Union speech.
Women gun owners slammed President Biden after he called for the ban of so-called assault weapons during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, arguing that “guns save lives” and that AR-15s are wildly popular for self-defense.
“Dear Joe Biden. We aren’t terrorists. We aren’t the enemy. We’re the good guys,” a group of women said in a video published by the NRA on Wednesday.
…
“In the 10 years the ban was law, mass shootings went down. After, we let it expire in a Republican administration,” Biden said during his address.
The women in the video took issue with Biden’s remarks, saying the law was “failed policy.”
“When you were U.S. senator, you voted and America banned these from 1994 to 2004 and murder rates were 19.3% higher,” the women in the video said.
A Department of Justice study published in 1999 that examined the short-term effects of the ban also found it “failed to reduce the average number of victims per gun murder incident or multiple gunshot wound victims.”
Of course, the assault weapon ban did fail and failed spectacularly. It did absolutely nothing. The homicide rate reportedly dropped during that time, but it was dropping before the policy was passed and continued to drop for decades after the law sunset.
Like it or not, banning so-called assault weapons doesn’t make anyone safer.
And really, why would it? While AR-15s make the headlines, most shootings involve handguns. Even most mass shootings happen with handguns.
The “assault weapon” is scary looking, sure, but it’s not the default weapon for such attackers.
So why focus on this particular type of weapon? Because it’s scary and most people can’t imagine any reason it’s required. So, they sign on with banning this one weapon because they’ve been told so many times that it’s necessary to do so in order to save lives that they internalize that belief.
That’s how propaganda works, after all.
Biden’s mention of the ban, however, wasn’t groundbreaking. At this point, it was just another Tuesday. Biden has called for assault weapon bans so often that it’s really not even news anymore.
It should be noted, though, that the last two high-profile shootings, the two mass shootings in California? Both involved pistols, not AR-15s.
So why are women up in arms about this? Because the AR-15 is a low-recoil firearm, often with an adjustable stock that makes it ideal for multiple shooters. My wife can have settings on my AR that work for her. Further, it’s adjustable in about two seconds if you’re fumbling around. Faster if you’re not, which means such a weapon is ideal for home defense regardless of who is at home.
What Biden wants to do is remove this option from families so they have to use weapons that might be less than ideal. Shotguns tend to have more recoil and often lack adjustable stocks–and an assault weapon ban would likely remove those stocks from the market–and handguns are a bit more of a personal choice. A husband might prefer a 1911 while the wife might prefer something like .380.
That means more guns and more expense, whereas the AR-15 is a one-stop-shop.
So yeah, they’re going to be annoyed at this. Everyone should be annoyed at the suggestion.
And they’re right to be upset, too.
