Annie Oakley is rolling in her grave as we speak.

What is the single most irritating thing to me when it comes to the discussion of guns and gun rights in the United States? The very idea that it’s a new thing for women to be buying and using guns. Our grandmothers and great grandmothers born before 1930 probably all knew how to use a gun effectively. I think the better question is when and why did so many American women NOT get taught to use guns during the mid to late 1900s and into the 2000s. As soon as a gun was produced that a woman had the upper body strength to handle, women were holding and firing guns. During the Civil War, children ran powder to the frontlines and women loaded guns. It was time consuming to load the guns back then. In the frontier days, women and girls had to learn to use guns to protect themselves and their homes. How is any of this new? Women have been denied just about every other right in America, but owning and using a gun has never been one of them. Native Americans and African Americans were banned from owning and using guns. I keep reading news stories about millennial women buying guns and increased gun sales. Usually, these stories have an “oh how shocking this is spin”. It’s only shocking to me that women allowed men for several decades to tell them owning and using a gun is a guy thing. It isn’t. It never has been. Read a history book. Interesting thing, it’s hard to find much history on women using guns except that it was just an everyday thing in the wild west. It wasn’t even noteworthy enough to talk about. It was just a part of everyday life. Truly, Annie Oakley is rolling in her grave right now.