I’ve noticed something about being in the gun industry. Everyone has a story, and more often than not they are more than willing to share it with you. Well I would like you to meet Antonia Okafor and her story. Antonia is a black woman who is often criticized and belittled because of her beliefs. Mainly because she is a major advocate for the Second Amendment. She is the founder of emPOWERed, which is an organization aimed at bringing campus carry to colleges around the country. As a woman who went to college and also as a woman who has had her own experiences where I realized how important self-defense was, I could totally get behind this.

Recently Antonia wrote an article for the illustrious New York Times about why she carries a gun to school. Me being the common sense, gun loving, Second Amendment advocate that I am LOVED it. Even more so that it was attached to something that was near and dear to my heart, New York.

I thought this was awesome, living in New York City, it’s not often you see a pro 2A article in any newspaper from here. After reading the article I did something I normally do after reading an article, I read the comments.

What I saw in those comments honestly disturbed me on so many different levels. The comments that I read were from mostly men telling her that she shouldn’t be able to keep her guns, telling her she’s not strong enough and that she would be overpowered anyway and shot with her own firearm so don’t even try.

Praying they weren’t in the same parking lot as her in fear she would accidentally shoot them because of her emotional instability. Men who were “envisioning” her attack and telling her to be more realistic about her protection choices. Well guess what, THIS IS REALISTIC. This is the reality for so many women.

I consider myself an old age feminist, where I believe I can do anything a man can do. Which includes taking her own self-defense into her own hands. I think what bothered me most about those comments were they’re written by the very people who claim to praise women and respect their choices. But because a WOMAN wants to exercise her Constitutional right that they don’t agree with, now she’s suddenly weak, uneducated, naïve, and even mentally ill.

The women fighting for our Second Amendment right have a much larger fight than we all may realize. We’re fighting to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States and we’re also fighting for our rights as women. It’s a disgrace that an educated, respected woman is accused of being a pawn for the NRA and being told to depend on college escort programs, which essentially means relinquishing your ability to defend yourself to some college campus peace officer, which is also probably a male. No thanks. I’ll continue exercising my rights how I see fit, which includes the first AND second Amendments.

Antonia, like so many other women in the gun industry are often criticized, ridiculed and belittled often by people who scream women’s rights. If there’s one thing I have to say to ANYONE who claims they are a “feminist” or a woman’s right activist is this; If you want the government to stay out of my body, then don’t tell me how to defend my body.

http://www.antoniaokafor.com/empowered

This article is courtesy of The Loadout Room.