Totally missed #MondayBlogs and am so not happy.  The only thing consistent in my life is inconsistency, something I dislike.

I seriously need to stop with the controversy in social media.  It’s tough not having an opinion about current events.  Or rather, hiding my opinion about current events.  I’ve spent 45 years of my life finding out what everyone else’s opinion was before voicing my own.  If mine didn’t agree with anyone else’s, I didn’t voice it at all.  Anyone who heard what I really thought about anything during those years?  I trusted them completely.

I like facts.  I like proof.  I love logic.  Based on experience and research, here is what I think about gun violence and violence against women.

There’s been a lot of talk about open carry and how people have the right to have any gun they want at any time they want, per the Second Amendment.  They want confrontation and heated argument about their rights.  I’m not sure how any gun by any one at any time is guaranteed in the amendment, but that’s fine.  They can have that right.  My right is, I can go to a public place and when seeing someone I don’t know packing heat, I can walk away.  I have the right to life just as much as they have the right to carry and I don’t have to be there on the assumption it’s safe.  Aw, but, they’re good people, you shouldn’t be afraid of them, some have said to me. Sure, I can believe that.  They may be the best person in the world, there to protect all of us.  But, if they’re in civilian clothes while carrying and I don’t know them, I’m leaving as quickly and quietly as possible.

#YesAllWomen was fun.  I didn’t realize how common or pervasive my security measures were until marrying my husband.  My locking the car door in a rural area, even, puzzled him.  As did me having car keys ready before leaving the store in broad daylight.  Walking fast in public?  He wondered why my habit wasn’t strolling, especially when we were just walking around sight seeing.  He saw no problems in going out to the car after dark, or running to the convenience store after 10pm.  Not until I balked at doing so, asking if he thought it was a good idea.  Why am I so ‘aware?’  One simple reason.  The bad guys look like the good guys and some of the best guys I know look mean.  NO man has ‘rapist’ tattooed on his forehead.  So, until I know them, I keep my distance, as do a lot of women. Even then, most sexual assaults are done by men familiar to their victims.  It’s so sad and wrong.

#YesAllPeople, though?  Domestic violence against men is not as pervasive.  Most men do not have to worry about being sexually assaulted by a stranger or their spouse.  There’s also not a lot of men kidnapped, raped, and left for dead. Maybe if we can get the domestic violence against women down to the level of domestic violence against men, we can all work on domestic violence against people.

Does all this not liking guns in public and saying alert when out in public with my daughter or alone make me a ‘cowering little bitch?’  No, I don’t think it does.  There have been many things I’ve done in my life that scared me.  And when possible, I did them twice precisely because I was still afraid of the second time.  So no, I don’t cower, not even when terrified.  The bitch part, though?  Good thing that whole tattooed on the forehead isn’t a trend or I’d not be fooling anyone. 😉

Next Post: What I learned at the RT Booklovers convention and other writerly things because who cares about anyone else’s opinion but their own?