By: Teresa Mull

Check out what Igor Volsky, executive director of the anti-group organization, Guns Down America, said in a series of Tweets:

Yes, that’s right. According to Volsky, women and minority communities possessing guns is “dangerous.” Consider these stats from The Well Armed Woman:

• Every 90 minutes someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. There were 393,980 rapes/sexual assaults in the United States in 2017, more than 1,079 per day, up from 298,410 in 2016. Women were more likely than men to be victims. National Crime Victimization Survey: Criminal Victimization, 2017(1).

• 7 out of 10 stalking victims knew their offender. The United States Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that 3.3 million persons said they were victims of stalking during a 12-month period in 2012 (2).

• 64% of female homicide cases were by a family member or intimate partner. In 2007, among all female murder victims in the U.S., 45% were slain by their husbands or boyfriends. While 36% were strangers (3).

• Lifetime rate of rape/attempted rape for women by race:
o All women: 17.6%
o White women: 17.7%
o Black women: 18.8%
o Asian Pacific Islander women: 6.8%
o American Indian/Alaskan women: 34.1%
o Mixed race women: 24.4%

The good news is, of course, women and minorities are not listening to people like Volsky, but are quite literally taking matters into their own hands. John Lott wrote for Townhall last October that:

Surprisingly, while many point to the anti-gun agendas of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as driving people’s interest in guns, the growth in permits has not slowed since the election.

Women are largely fueling the increase. Among the eight states that had data from 2012-19, permits for men grew by 107% and permits for women soared by 215%. In the 14 states with 2016 data on sex, women now make up 36% of permit holders.

Over those same years, the number of blacks with permits increased 30% faster than the number of whites with permits. Blacks now make up 11% of permit holders. A few states provide a breakdown for Asian-Americans, and in those states they accounted for the largest percentage increase in permits.

It’s easy to see why women and minorities are arming themselves. In 2013, Larry
Bell reported for Forbes that:

A couple of new studies reveal the gun-control hypesters’ worst nightmare…more people are buying firearms, while firearm-related homicides and suicides are steadily diminishing. What crackpots came up with these conclusions? One set of statistics was compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice. The other was reported by the Pew Research Center.

According to DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. gun-related homicides dropped 39 percent over the course of 18 years, from 18,253 during 1993, to 11,101 in 2011. During the same period, non-fatal firearm crimes decreased even more, a whopping 69 percent. The majority of those declines in both categories occurred during the first 10 years of that time frame. Firearm homicides declined from 1993 to 1999, rose through 2006, and then declined again through 2011. Non-fatal firearm violence declined from 1993 through 2004, then fluctuated in the mid-to-late 2000s.

Actually, arming women and minorities is dangerous. If you’re a criminal!

Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine. Contact her at [email protected].