Dianna Muller lost count of how many times she responded to chillingly desperate calls for help during her 22 years as a police officer in Tulsa, Okla. The crime scenes she worked taught her that people need their right to bear arms. “I don’t wish for anyone to be defenseless,” Muller told the NRA. “I would like for everyone to be prepared to be their own first responder.”
This is a message she’s been bringing to the nation’s capital.
Since retirement, Muller has brought to life “The DC Project,” a nonpartisan group that draws women from all states and all walks of life to Washington, D.C., in an endeavor to share with lawmakers why they own and carry firearms. For some, it is because they were the victim of a rape. For others, it is because they are single mothers with young children they need to protect. Whatever their story, they are all people who refuse to be unarmed victims. By meeting with lawmakers, they are bringing their human stories to this issue—the type of thing the mainstream media just won’t report.
Muller tells politicians that gun rights are a fundamental right specifically protected in the U.S. Constitution. She explains that police officers can’t be everywhere all the time. In the minutes it takes officers to get to a call for help, anything can happen. After two decades of investigating crimes and helping victims of criminals, she argues that gun rights are also women’s rights.
Muller, along with several other women, have recently had high-profile confrontations with politicians who blame law-abiding gun owners for the actions of criminals.
“I will not comply with the assault-weapons ban,” said Muller, as she testified to members of the House Judiciary Committee in September. She was referring to the desire of some Democrats to ban and confiscate AR-15-type rifles from the public. Her “I will not comply” declaration went viral as a rallying cry for freedom.
“There are a lot of politicians that believe disarming American citizens will make the country safer. They don’t have much experience with firearms, and it’s easier for them to chalk all the violence up to the tool instead of the human,” Muller explained to the NRA. “It seems as though our country is not teaching our children history or what kind of power they have as citizens. They are all too eager to give up their rights, thinking that it will give them safety.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Suzanna Hupp, a former member of the Texas House of Representatives who, after surviving the 1991 “Luby’s shooting” in which a murderer killed both of her parents, has continued to speak out as a passionate advocate for the law-abiding citizen’s right to carry.
“Please consider the high cost of gun control,” she told the Joint Economic Committee hearing in September. “I reached for my gun, but my gun was 100 yards away, dutifully left in my vehicle. I can tell you that the cost of gun control was my parents and 23 innocent lives.”
Lauren Boebert was yet another woman who made her mark in September. She challenged aspiring Democratic presidential nominee Beto O’Rourke’s gun-confiscation scheme at a town hall event. A video of the incident made waves across social media.
“I am here to say: Hell, no, you’re not,” she told O’Rourke, countering his “hell yes” that he’d ban and confiscate so-called “assault weapons” from the American citizenry.
Boebert further elaborated to the NRA that, in her home state of Colorado, politicians have long been “shaving off pieces” of the Second Amendment. “When I heard Beto was coming to my state to push for more gun control, I knew I had to speak up,” she said. “There were a couple of hundred people who didn’t want me there. But I had to put those fears aside, because who am I to lose that opportunity to speak on behalf of millions of Americans everywhere? We must educate those around us and teach them that a firearm is for self-defense and protection.”
These three bold women are just a few examples of millions more who don’t want to lose their right to personal defense. Their voices are strong and powerful, yet all too often they are dismissed by the narratives the mainstream media pushes.
As the nation heads into the 2020 presidential election with gun rights at the forefront of the political rhetoric, they are speaking up to make sure lawmakers and the American public are aware that gun rights are also women’s rights.
“We are the silent majority, and because we are so silent, it seems like we are the minority,” Boebert said. “It’s time that we rise up and speak up.”
Muller put it this way: “Women are likely to be smaller and less suited for a physical confrontation than an attacker. A firearm is the great equalizer. It doesn’t guarantee my security, but it does give me a chance. If I’m in that Walmart in El Paso, I want to be armed. If I hear a bump in the night, I want to be armed. Defending yourself is the most basic human right.”
