"I signed that new anti-gun petition that's been floating around campus," Stacey's boyfriend Scott told her, sitting beside her on their living room couch, hugging a warm cup of tea.
Stacey, a fellow Yale student aspiring to become an ACLU lawyer, nodded. It wasn't anything new to her. While Scott was generally unassertive and non-confrontational, he had a penchant for hating anything the "lunatic right-wingers" agreed with. Naturally, he jumped at the opportunity to sign another anti-gun petition.
"I signed your name, too," Scott added.
Stacey's eyes widened. I signed your name, too. The words fell heavy on her ears. Indeed, she would've signed it herself, so why did the statement fill her with such disgust? Was it because a man presumed to decide on her behalf without her consent? Women's rights, after all, was her calling, and Scott just screwed up big time. Indeed, this was the reason.
She sank deeper into her mind. Maybe it wasn't. Perhaps the words hit her like a freight train because she didn't want to sign an anti-gun petition.
Nonsense, Stacey. Don't get carried away. You've signed those kinds of petitions before. Hundreds of them. You hate guns, too, remember? They're the phallic symbol of white supremacy and patriarchy. They're tools of oppression, violence and mass carnage. Guns stand for everything you're against.
But didn't Angela Davis get arrested for gun possession? What did Emma Goldman think about guns? Perhaps guns are a tool to fight oppression, violence, rape, sexual assault and mass carnage? Maybe guns are the great equalizer?
Stacey's mind went to war.
Does women's rights mean a woman's right to own a gun? If the police have them, why can't we? There have been feminist voices who spoke about gun possession for protection against a male-dominated society for years. Oxford published The Feminist Case for Gun Rights. And didn't Valerie Solanas shoot Andy Warhol?
Easy, Stacey. What would your professors think? You're subsumed in a cultural ethos that vehemently opposes gun ownership. Don't upset the bourgeois elite. The Second Amendment is an antiquated document written by slave owners and aristocratic white males. Don't be hypnotized by these libertarians who speak so thoughtlessly about sovereignty and liberty.
Yes, guns are bad. Libertarians are just freaks with a gun fetish. There's probably one right now writing a blog, fantasizing about a feminist fantasizing about wanting to shoot a gun. His perverted fantasy is pure misogynistic drivel spewing from his position of a cis-gendered, white male oppressor.
But perhaps there's a glint of truth in their ideologically unsound yet alluring declarations. What would it feel like to hold a gun? To pull the trigger and hear its thunderous salutations? What would it be like to point a gun at a man trying to rape you? How would it feel watching him flee like a putrid coward? How long would the image of a woman aiming a gun at his face last in his memory? What if you pulled the trigger? What if he paid right then and there for his crime?
The thoughts were thrilling. Her heart raced, walking the tightrope of controversy. You're not allowed to think this way. But wasn't that feminism? Wasn't feminism supposed to be about a woman's right to think for herself and rebel against the status quo? If she believed in gun rights, would the other new age feminists reject her? Would she be hurled over the wall of liberal orthodoxy, cast out to the fringe of society with the anarchists and libertarians? What would people think?
"Stace?" Scott interrupted her deep contemplation. "Did you hear me?"
Yes, she heard you, and she knows what you did. You took her agency and autonomy and presumed authority over her. You signed away her name as if it were a child's. She felt like leaping from the couch, pulling you up by the collar and shouting, 'sign my name again without my consent, and I'll fucking shoot you!'. But she took a deep breath instead. After all, Scott was a good, caring man who she loved dearly.
"I heard you," she calmly stated, "but I would prefer to sign my own name next time if you don't mind."
Scott smiled. "Sure, no problem. Sorry about that. I should have asked you first."
Scott sipped his warm English tea while she resumed her fantasy. Maybe it was time to get a big, powerful gun in her hands.
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