War on Women....

*This post may be disturbing and contain triggers. Please be cautious about reading it if you have ever been raped or attacked.*

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I am sick and tired of turning on my television to see that one more woman has been abducted, raped and killed because she was hiking, jogging, shopping or sitting on her living room couch.

It's become clear over the past few years that these crimes are not being taken seriously. It provides plenty of sensational fodder for Jane Valez-Mitchell and Nancy Grace - but I'm not hearing anyone calling for direct action by the law enforcement community or the government to stop this war on women. That is exactly what it is.

I agree that we have to use common sense in going out alone at night, jogging in an isolated place or going for a long hike alone. That's an unfortunate reality that in this society, at this time, women are not free to live our lives as we choose.

Where and how have men gotten the idea that women are safe prey?

I'm sick to death of it!

Some of you who have been reading me for a while are going to be surprised by what I'm about to say.

I no longer go out alone without a gun. Yep. I am armed. And I'm NRA trained. I'm prepared to use it if some man decides to attack or abduct me in a parking lot because I have the audacity to go shopping by myself. If I am driving home late at night and some man decides to try to abduct me at a stop light, he is going to die.

It's time women were given the right to carry concealed weapons with a permit. We women are peacemakers. We don't like violence but I would challenge anyone to cite any belief system that holds that we should lay down and allow ourselves to be harmed.

Men need to know the justice system will take attacks on women seriously. Five or ten years in prison is not enough. There needs to be a PSA campaign that states clearly: You attack a woman, you go to prison for life. No parole. It should be treated as a hate crime. In addition to the charges he will receive, he should also be charged federally with a hate crime. This behavior is not acceptable in a civilized society.

I know some readers won't agree with my stand on gun rights but I have held these views for a long, long time. "An armed society is a polite society," as Robert Heinlein once wrote, "Manners are good when one may have to back up his actions with his life." The idealist in me wishes we didn't have to live in a society where self-defense of this nature was needed but that is the reality of women's lives at this time and in this place. I'm sure we would all like to be able to turn on CNN occasionally and not hear that another woman has been found mutilated in some ditch. Women are not to be treated like Bambi at hunting season.



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