Double Barrel

Today, we went shopping for my gun. I have been browsing for one for a few months in the newspapers. The Saginaw News and the Detroit newspapers regularly carry advertisements for guns. Hunting is a big sport here in Michigan and Saginaw is a weigh station for people traveling north. I have been shopping passively through advertising inserts, but today we went to Cabela’s, an outdoor sporting store where I plan to buy the gun.

I’m not going to get anything fancy, just a simple double barrel shot gun. I will get a shoulder strap so that I can carry it on my back when I walk the dogs. While I am not talking openly about where we are moving yet, it is a state like Michigan: guns are part of people’s lives. It will not raise any eyebrows for me to walk my dogs on my land with my gun.

Yes, I have never shot a gun. Yes, before today, I had never held a gun. Yes, until recently I have been a virulently anti-gun sort of gal. Ban them all, I have been heard to say. It is an intellectual and emotional crisis that brings me to this point. Here is what I have learned in the past year:

Money will not protect me
Lawyers will not protect me
Local government will not protect me

I need to protect myself.

The Women’s Gun Pamphlet published by the feminist gun consciousness collective through the Women’s Press Collective remains informative over forty years later. Here is the conclusion to the introduction to the pamphlet:

I am building my own feminist gun consciousness.

The next time white people threaten and harass me, my family, my dog with their homophobia, racist bigotry, I’ll be staring them down over a double barrel. My gun will be cocked.

Image credits: Both images are from The Women’s Gun Pamphlet available online at DeepOakland.

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