Women for Gun Rights may be one of the smaller 2A organizations in terms of membership, but they punch well above their weight when it comes to grassroots activism and passion for protecting our right to keep and bear arms.
Kate Giddins, who is the group’s Northeast Regional Director and the former New Hampshire State Director of Women for Gun Rights, wasn’t brought up in the land of the free. As she writes in a powerful new op-ed, she grew up in Australia and thought she knew what freedom was all about, but was disabused of that notion after she moved to the United States.
I realized that back home, freedom was treated as a privilege carefully defined by the government. In America, the Second Amendment taught me a profound truth: we are born free.
Today, as a firearms instructor and the Northeast Regional Director — and former New Hampshire State Director — of Women for Gun Rights, I live by a simple creed proudly stamped on my adopted home state’s license plates: Live Free or Die.
To me, the motto means embracing personal responsibility and never surrendering the agency that belongs to free people. The U.S. Constitution, which is now my Constitution, does not create those rights — it recognizes them and establishes a government whose powers are limited so those rights may endure.
I am now one of millions of American women who choose to live prepared, not scared. Many of us volunteer our time to defend this civil right. Yet for years, well-funded gun control organizations have tried to convince the public — and women in particular — that passing more restrictions is the only way to keep our children and communities safe.
Giddins now runs Joan of Arms, where she helps other women empower themselves to be their own protector. As she writes, “instead of looking to politicians or an unreliable government for a false sense of security, women are increasingly choosing self-reliance. Nationally, concealed carry continues to grow among women, reflecting a profound cultural shift.”
Giddins cites a recent survey from the Crime Prevention Research Center that found 1 in 5 voters have an active concealed carry license, which is pretty extraordinary given that more than half the country no longer requires a permit to carry. Giddins believes that bearing arms for self-defense “is no longer exceptional,” but is instead part of the American mainstream.
I think that’s right, though there are certainly places where it’s more common than others. New Hampshire is a permitless carry state, so it’s hard to know just how many residents are exercising their right to carry on a regular basis, but as Giddins points out, the state is “consistently recognized as one of the safest states in the nation while respecting the right of law-abiding citizens to carry without first asking government permission.” Recent data from the anti-gunners at Johns Hopkins University confirms that the state has one of the lowest gun-involved homicide rates in the country, which has been the case for decades now.
Giddins may not have been born free, but she’s living free in the Granite State now and helping others embrace their right to keep and bear arms. It’s a beautiful thing, and I’m glad she’s using her First Amendment rights to educate others on the importance of our Second Amendment rights as well.
Women for Gun Rights will be celebrating its tenth anniversary with a national rally in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, September 13 from 3 to 5 p.m. on the west side of the U.S. Capitol. I’m planning on attending and speaking with as many of the participants as possible, and I encourage you to make it to Capitol Hill if you can. There’s more information available here, and we’ll be talking with some of the group’s leadership on Bearing Arms’ Cam & Company to get a preview in the weeks ahead.
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