My Transformation From Anti-Gun Feminist To Armed Feminist

By
Katherine von Tour
GOA Member
© 1999

Most people who support the Second Amendment have probably wondered at one time or another how to change the thinking of anti-gunners.

Since I was once a staunch gun-control proponent, including being a member of Handgun Control Incorporated (HCI) in the 1970's, but am today a fervent and virtually no-compromise Second Amendment supporter, perhaps the story of my mental shift will be of interest.

When I recall my mindset in the 1960's, when I was in college in Chicago, and in the early 1970's, when I was teaching grade-school in a private school in Pennsylvania, what I remember most is how completely convinced I was that government was the best and ultimate answer to all of society's ills -- war, poverty, crime and injustice.

I was a true Sixties liberal, who protested the Vietnam War, sported a "Question Authority" bumper sticker on my Volvo, who was a charter member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and a charter subscriber to Ms Magazine.

I voted for George McGovern. I hung out with other earnest liberals, many of whom were also members of NOW. It wasn't that I believed government was perfect - far from it! - but I had blind faith that, with enough effort and money, it could be made so.

My idea of a perfect government was one which had a generous welfare program, free medical care for all, lots of benign and helpful social programs, and government-mandated fairness and equality for all.

I joined NOW because it promised to fight for equality under the law for women; it encouraged women to empower themselves, and to be independent. Since I was a single woman, these all sounded like a sensible ideas to me.

I joined HCI because it had convinced me that guns were a root cause of violence and crime, and that only criminals owned and used them.
The Liberal Years

I had grown up stationed with my family overseas, and had been sent to private boarding school in Honolulu, where my family is from, and then to Chatham Hall, a young ladies' "finishing school" in Virginia.

Most of my life had been protected and privileged; while my family didn't have a lot of money, we somehow gave the illusion that we did, since we lived overseas, complete with servants and first-class travel paid for by my father's company.

I had been raised, as my mother puts it, "to be a lady," and certainly "ladies" in our social circle weren't trained in self-defense, particularly self-defense involving firearms, which, in any case, were completely banned in the countries where we lived.

After graduating from Northwestern, and doing graduate work at Lehigh, I got a job teaching 6th grade at a private day school in Pennsylvania, where I stayed for 10 years, during which time I was an earnest and unwavering liberal.

It was during this time that I joined HCI and NOW, and crusaded loudly and vociferously against "violence," "intolerance" and "unfairness."
The "Bubble" Bursts

After ten years of teaching, I was still making very little money, and had burned out. I decided to move back to Hawaii, which was my home, and where my parents had retired after 25 years of being stationed overseas, and purchase a franchise of a skin-care and cosmetic business, whose products were sold through home shows.

I spent five ghastly years in Honolulu, struggling to run a business in a government climate which was as socialistic and larded with welfare and social programs as any I had previously worked towards; those five years were the undoing of my liberalism.

I tried in vain to recruit women who were on welfare to work to do home shows and make money by being independent, but I could in no way compete with the obscenely generous welfare benefits they were receiving for staying home and doing nothing, except in many cases growing pakalolo, (marijuana) which they had plenty of time to do, since all of their needs were more than being met by the state.

The Hawaii State Labor board delivered the final death blow to my business by declaring that all of the independent contractors who worked for my company - and whom I could hardly convince to work at all - were to be classified as "employees," and that I had to pay unemployment, workers' compensation and health care for them.

The government cared not a whit that there was no money in my company to fund this state-mandated largess. I was forced to close down the business, to file bankruptcy, and I moved back to the Mainland, my formerly liberal tail between my legs, a newly-hatched libertarian conservative.

I no longer saw government as the solution to social problems. It certainly hadn't solved mine, nor had it encouraged my trying to create jobs for the people of Hawaii, jobs which they didn't want to do because it was too much work, even though the Honolulu Star Bulletin was filled almost every week with whining letters from people complaining that there were no jobs to be had, and imploring the government to "create" more jobs.

With the fervor and passion I had previously reserved for trying to get the government to expand its powers and programs, I began to read the writings of conservative and libertarian authors -- Bastiat, Hayek, Thomas Sowell and others. I also plunged into the writings of the founders of America - Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Paine, George Mason.

I started meeting people who had also been abused by government agencies - the police, Customs, DEA, IRS and others. I started hearing stories of people having property seized without due process, and of people calling 911 and not having the police not show up in time.

But the pivotal turning point for me was the Los Angeles riots.
Armed in L.A.; guns save lives

I was living in Orange County at the time, but had to go up to LA regularly on business. At that time there had been a rash of violent car-jackings, many of them committed against women who were driving alone.

A friend, who knew a great deal about guns and had grown up around them, told me that, because I was a woman living and driving alone, he wanted me to start carrying a pistol in my car.

He lent me a .38 Special, and showed me how to load, unload and fire it.

One day, just before the riots exploded, I was driving in downtown LA in a scary part of town. It was dusk. As I was stopped at a stop-light, with one car in front of me, two men who had been watching me began quickly and menacingly approaching my car from the sidewalk. One of them was carrying a tire iron.

I grabbed the pistol, which I had laid on the seat beside me, and held it up so they could see it.

The look in their eyes changed in an instant from threatening to fearful, and they immediately turned around and ran in the opposite direction. The light changed. I drove away.

No one was hurt, but a gun in my formerly liberal hand had, I believe, probably saved my life, or at least prevented me from likely injury.
L.A. Riots turn anti-gun advocates into pro-gun supporters

Within a week, the very street where this incident happened had erupted in rioting, looting and killing.

I watched on television as the Korean grocers defended their property with AK-47's and AR-15's, and thus prevented it from being torched and looted. The police couldn't stop the violence and killing.

I had friends who worked in the garment district in LA who barely made it out alive, and who told tales of pulling out pistols and having would-be attackers turn tail and run away.

Guns were saving lives and property.

As the riots threatened to spill over into Beverly Hills, myriad Hollywood types stormed gun stores to arm themselves, only to be told that there was a 15-day waiting period; radio talk shows boiled with people calling in and screaming about how unfair this was, and how the law was leaving them helpless.

Some of them even admitted that they had previously supported the waiting period, and that they were now furious that it had left them unarmed.
Coming full circle: From HCI to GOA

My transformation was complete. I joined the National Rifle Association (I didn't know about Gun Owners of America or Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership yet) and started reading their literature. I bought and read "Armed and Female" by Paxton Quigley - another ex-gun-control woman.

I fell in love with and married the friend who had lent me the .38 Special, and started learning in earnest about guns and how to use them. We joined GOA and JPFO.

And the National Organization for Women? Here's the thing that makes me crazy about an organization ostensibly dedicated to the empowerment of women - NOW is uncompromisingly and adamantly anti-gun, including urging all women to disarm themselves, and supporting legislation to force their disarmament.

The incongruity and hypocrisy of this stance is simply stunning. How can such an organization claim to be "for women?" In my experience as a single woman, there is nothing more effective than a gun for protection.

In my experience as a married woman, when my husband can't be there to pull out a firearm to protect us and our home, he has made sure that I can do so. What could be more empowering and independent and equalizing for a woman than that?

And what could be more threatening to women than women like Sarah Brady, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Carolyn McCarthy and Barbra Streisand who, while beating the drum for "women's rights" are attempting to disarm women as well as men, and leave them at the mercy of criminals? I still believe fervently in the original NOW position supporting the empowerment of women.

And I believe that the most effective thing any woman can do to empower herself is to acquire and learn to use a gun, and to become vocal and aggressive in defending gun rights and the Second Amendment.

When I look back on my mindset when I supported gun control, I see that I was naïve, idealistic and swayed by irrational, baseless propaganda, especially the absurd myth that, by disarming law-abiding citizens, society will be made safer.

There is absolutely no hard evidence to support this. Criminals by definition disregard laws, especially gun control laws. In Australia, which has disarmed its population, it is reported that violent home invasions have increased in some areas by 44%. Rapes and murders have also increased substantially.

In being confronted by the reality that government cannot and will not guarantee my personal safety, I am infinitely thankful, both as a woman and an American, that the Bill of Rights still guarantees my right to defend myself with a gun. Any true feminist must support this position. Any woman who claims to be a feminist, but who supports disarmament of law-abiding citizens is simply a dangerous hypocrite.
Katherine von Tour is presently working on a book comprised of interviews of women who support the Second Amendment; she is looking for women who have personal stories about having used a gun for self-defense, or who simply believe in the right to own and use a firearm. Anyone wishing to be interviewed for this project can contact her through GOA.

Link

Suppressing the "Issues"

While suppressors have no immediate defensive usage in a typical civilian shooting, they're just plain ol' fun. Combine that with the fact that there is less noise, less perceived recoil and now a heavier, more stable firearm, a suppressor can become a good teaching tool for beginners.

This shooter is firing his eighth round out of a pistol, ever. He's standing on a slight hill, so one shoulder is slightly higher than the other, and his finger is on the trigger because he is actually firing. While smoking isn't recommended at the range, it does show how relaxed this brand-new shooter is. His first few rounds can be spent focusing on proper trigger-press, sight-alignment/sight-picture, proper grip and a good stance (minus the hill), rather than flinching from the noise and recoil and being "scared" of the gun.

This technique might be useful for a true beginner, and really only for about 10 rounds or so. Think of it as training wheels. They have to come off so you can start riding the bike the way it was designed.

Silencers are legal for civilians in most states (approximately 40 out of 50 states). The proper name (although they are interchangeable for purposes of the BATFE) is a suppressor, as the device suppresses noise and doesn't completely silence it. Having one does not make you a hit man, ninja assassin, James Bond or Jack Bauer. They do have legitimate uses (see above). Recently, I heard a famous firearms instructor advise keeping one on your home defense gun. The reason being that if you have kids/spouse in the house, you definitely need to be able to hear during or after shooting, because you may be yelling, "Where are you?" or "Come here." or something similar. While many fear their legal usage in a self-defense shooting because of the stigma attached to the object when it comes to a court case, the reality is that people are becoming more and more informed and open-minded when it comes to firearms in America.

Suppressors/silencers were initially taxed/restricted because authorities feared illegal poaching during the great depression. Many other weapons were added to this class of taxed and restricted weapons: Machine Guns, Short-Barreled Shotguns, Short-Barreled Rifles and bizarre hidden guns, like pen-guns called Any-Other Weapons or AOWs for short. The usual procedure to procure such weapons (which as I said are legal in about 40 out of 50 states) is to fill out a form in duplicate, get fingerprinted, get photographed, get a chief law enforcement officer's (sheriff's) signature, pay a $200 (or $5 for AOW or Short Barreled Shotgun) tax and then wait 3-9 months for approval before picking up the item.

As the 2nd amendment forbids the government from abridging the people's right to keep and bear arms, the form is not to "have" the weapon. It is legal for the government to tax the weapon, so they make you do all this fingerprinting, etc, as an application to pay the tax on the weapon. Kind of sneaky, but quasi-legal. These weapons, called class 3 guns on the internet, but in actuality called title 2 guns (class 3 is a license for a gun dealer to deal these weapons, it has nothing to do with individuals, title 2 is what the law calls these weapons) have only been used twice by their legal owners in committing a crime since these laws were passed in the 1930's. Both people who committed crimes were police officers.

Silencers are fun. They can be very useful as a training aid and even as a defensive aid in home defense. They may not cause you to yell, "Chloe! Re-task the number 4 satellite to my position" but, they can put a smile on your face at the range.

The Wall Drill

The "wall drill" is a simple drill for dry fire practice in which you bring the gun to full extension and stand with the muzzle an inch away from the wall. Practice your proper stance, grip, press-outs, etc... The wall will help you detect movement of the aligned sights as you press the trigger. It's quite helpful when you are focusing on fixing/improving your fundamentals, and I recommend reading about it here.

An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power/Range Practices

An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power

Here's a good article to read on stopping power from the Buckeye Firearms Association.

The major point to the study is this: If you're going to a battle, take a rifle or shotgun. If you're "caught" in a battle, you probably have a handgun. If you have a handgun, don't get caught with a "mouse gun", ie: .22lr, .25 auto, .32acp. After that, there is relatively little difference between what is effective on a target (assuming you don't have to shoot through an object like a car door).

For this reason, I often recommend new students shoot 9mm. There are several strengths of 9mm for new students:

*It's very cheap, which translates to the student shooting more rounds, more often

*It's easy to "manage" recoil

*It can be found in nearly any market

*It's rarely ever in short supply

*Many contemporary handguns have ridiculously high capacities with 9mm

* It's not a rare round, so there are excellent defensive ammo choices available

The most important of these is the first, the student's ability to shoot more rounds, more often. Shot placement is critical in a defensive context. If you cannot hit your target, it is pointless to keep pulling the trigger...especially when those rounds could end up hurting someone else standing nearby. If you cannot hit your target, you have no way to stop the bad guy from his/her intent to harm you. Additionally, thoughts and methodology on shots placed on a target have changed in recent years. I was recently discussing current SOPs (standard operating procedures) of a NSW (Naval Special Warfare) group regarding shot counts. Nearly every operator was angry at their unit's procedure of "double tap" to a target, stop and assess, and then either re-engage or transition to another target. Nearly all of them had immediately learned in combat what many other instructors currently teach: keep shooting until the target is no longer a threat. Don't assess until the bad guy quits fighting. While this may only be a "bad habit" in one unit or group, it is a bad habit that can be taught to students today.

When you are at the range, do you shoot "the bullseye" and then look to check out your shot? You are training yourself to do that in a fight. You'll probably fire, check the bad guy, fire, check the bad guy, and so on... Some people do "double taps" then assess, and so on...

A great range regimen for a new student would be:

*Do as much quality shooting as possible

-This is why I recommended the much cheaper 9mm.

*Change your shooting patterns

-Assess after one shot, or two, or five, or a random number, but mix it up.

* Challenge yourself with a wide variety of shooting "problems" which you have to find the solution to

-Shoot round, square, small large targets, one's with colors, realistic one's with faces, blank sheets of paper, shoot as fast as possible, shoot as slow as possible... It's very easy to get into a "rut" and pick the same targets each time you go shooting, even excellent shooters might shoot the same "dot torture drill", "F.A.S.T. drill", "Bill drill" etc... Don't get stuck in the same routine.

*Have fun

-Even if you practice on the range because you depend on a firearm to save your life, you must have fun with the practice. Having fun translates into a drive to continue practicing often, practicing often translates into being good at something.

According to this article, 9mm will fit the bill for defense. According to me (and current sale prices) it's cheap and you will get a lot of important "bang for your buck" (pun intended).

Diffusion

When considering an attack one must always consider diffusion. In SOME cases it may be possible to avoid, mitigate or deter a circumstance BEFORE it would even take place. In other cases it may be possible to diffuse a situation after it begins. Avoiding, mitigating, deterring and diffusing different scenarios are skills that should be practiced before making the decision to carry a firearm.

HOWEVER, sometimes there is never the option to diffuse a situation, and despite our best efforts to avoid crime, we end up facing a life or death scenario where someone else has chosen to end our life and there is no choice other than to stop them. Because of this it is important to practice the skills necessary to respond rapidly and appropriately to ANY type of scenario where we cannot employ our skills of diffusion.

"Those who beat their guns into plows will plow for those with guns."

-Thomas Jefferson

Realistic Training

While many of us spend time learning to defend ourselves against a bullseye 10 yards away, the reality is that a fight is messy, dirty, chaotic and unpredictable. Preparing ourselves for the widest possible range of scenarios will increase our odds of success. We can only learn to do that with proper training - training that is realistic to the way that fights take place, how they take place and where they take place.

Typically, I break training down for my students into 3 different categories:

*Fights outside of 7 yards (21 ft)

*Fights within 7 yards to 2 arms length (21 ft to 5-6 ft)away

*Fights within 5-6 ft where you are probably making contact with an assailant

I believe a good student should train for all 3 scenarios. In many cases, range rules prohibit shooting at close ranges. Nearly all ranges prohibit unsupervised contact shooting. Students often have a large amount of training in one area (such as shooting OR martial arts OR using an edged weapon), but often have little experience in other areas, or little experience combining these traits.

This video is from a course with the instructor who goes by the internet handle: SouthNarc. I recommend taking training from an instructor like him who will keep training contextual. You can find him here.

ECQC Portland 09 from Initiative Deficit on Vimeo.

Brutal Knife Attack

This video is VERY graphic and VERY rated-R. While we use this as a training tool, please prepare yourself for a violent video, or do not watch this if you are offended by similar content.

I once gave an hour-long, co-lecture with my boss, just on this 2-3 minute video. While there are millions of minutia to pick up on (the loss of blood from the skin of the head and the other guy's arms until the fight is over, the instinct of the shop owner to go towards the badguy rather than towards the gun, situational awareness, why you should carry your gun on your person, etc...), I would like to focus on just one point today:

Television always lulls us into believing that we will be ok as long as we don't go to bad locations and participate in criminal activities. Job policies often assume that people will try to rob you and that the best option is to comply. These attitudes always assume that a criminal wants something from you and that you will be alright as long as you comply.

In some scenarios, I teach my students the similar things. If an unarmed person tries to rob you, first give them your wallet. If they leave, call the police: you are not a vigilante with a gun. If they want your life, on the other hand, you need to show them that you were a wolf in sheep's clothing. You need to turn the tables, and at that moment become a predator as well.

Unfortunately, all of these preclude the idea that you will have some dialog and options with an attacker. In this video, the person in the entryway of the store has none of these options. He appears to be reading a magazine, he doesn't appear to be in a crack house or walking down a dark alleyway, he doesn't threaten anyone, if he was aware of what was happening, he may have even been compliant.

Two things go very, very wrong for him. First, he has no awareness of what is going on around him, because he has never been taught to do so. Second, the badguy has no intention of giving people the option to comply, he is only giving people the option to die.

While this is often how crime really works, it is never what we see on tv, or read in books or magazines. Unless you yourself are a bad person, or witnessed something similar firsthand, how would you know that evil people behave this way?

I pray that you never need to defend your own life. I pray that you never have to take someone else's life in order to defend your own. But, when push comes to shove, and it's a choice between you or an evil person going home that night, I pray that you are aware of your surrounding, prepared to react without warning, and prepared to prevail against evil people. Now, hopefully, you know a bit more about what evil looks like.

Keepin' it Real

This is not a happy face. No, that's not a bloody teardrop, nor is it the remnants of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich explosion accident. It's what your face looks like after a bullet destroys your eyewear.

Last winter, I was shooting in a bowling pin match when one of those beautiful .45 rounds exited my GLOCK 21SF, missed the second to last pin (and I was doing REALLY well!), bounced off of a poorly placed metal frame and returned to hit me in the glasses.

As I am a bit ocularly challenged, I wear some stylish (for a few years ago) Ray Ban glasses to mend my nearsightedness. I never "saw it coming" physically or figuratively, though one of my friends said he saw it leave the gun and return. While I have been nicked by very light pieces of jacket before, it is EXTREMELY rare to have something so powerful plug you in the face. Most protective eyewear is usually suggested to prevent scratches to the eyes, not entire bullets traveling at high velocities.

When the bullet impacted into my polycarbonate lens, the lens broke free of the frame, physically pushing the frame into 3 pieces. While one piece ended up in the corner of the room and another was lost forever, the last bit of the frame hung from one ear as the lens impacted into my eye socket. The lens then cut my cheek, leaving me with the cut you see in the picture and the black eye I had the next day, which you don't see.

I wish I could tell you how I bravely followed every safety rule and calmly set the gun down... shock from the impact spun me around slightly and my eye was in so much pain that it made both eyes well shut. According to others, I immediately took my finger of the trigger (instinctually), but, as I had no way to know which way I was facing, I pointed in the only safe direction I knew: down. Someone asked me (I'm sure it was the range officer) to set the gun down, but, again, I had no way to know which way I was facing, I didn't know where the tables or booths were, so I set it the only place I knew existed: the floor.

While these aren't ideal, they're better than having a second accident or pointing a loaded gun at someone. Safety at the range is PARAMOUNT. Like skydiving or bungie jumping, shooting is a dangerous sport until all of the elements of safety are put into place. Getting proper training on how to do it safely in incredibly important. If you're skydiving for the first time they don't just take you up and say, "well, jump, then pull the chord when you want to stop falling." It takes a large amount of safety and experience (at least 25 jumps) before someone gets their USPA (United States Parachute Association) class A license.

Like skydiving, there is a lot to learn about a firearm before we should start using it on our own. While my friends might tell the story a bit more like: "Bang! Then he was like, 'F#%$' Then he just chucked this loaded gun on the ground!" ...none of them will ever fault me for having my finger on the trigger or waving the gun at them, because I never did. My training saved me from having a second potential accident.

With any dangerous sport there is a bit of assumed risk. (Again, See: Skydiving) Getting banged up a little is always a potential, but is mitigated through good training and safe practices. I once read that experience is when you learn from something you did, and wisdom is when you learn from something that someone else did. I had to learn that I need better eyewear. Hopefully you are wise enough to learn from my mistakes, so that you don't have to experience them for yourself.