Is she or isn’t she? How would I know? Is it worth the risk if I’m wrong?

These are questions British Columbia male assailants are asking themselves.

Is she armed?

In Miami, Florida, the police department sponsored a defensive handgun course for thousands of women. The Miami Herald covered the event for several days and the assault statistics dropped dramatically and stayed low for almost a year.

After about 12 months, the number of assaults began to rise. The paper ran the articles on the defensive handgun course again and the stats dropped immediately.

Do Canadian women carry concealed handguns? Of course they do. Illegally, in most cases, but the women RCW have spoken with philosophize that they would rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

RCW isn’t condoning the illegal carrying of handguns by anyone. But it’s happening. And we’ll never know the number of assaults prevented by a woman brandishing a firearm at her would-be assailant and not reporting the incident.

The Canadian rural women who don’t carry a handgun? The majority have a firearm within reach.

One female ruralist told RCW recently that she was just heading out the door to feed her cattle when she noticed a man breaking into one of her storage sheds. She didn’t approach him but reached behind her kitchen door and retrieved a Winchester .30.

The low life criminal saw the rancher and immediately took off in his beater. A call to her local detachment with a physical description of the thief and vehicle had the suspect in custody within minutes. As a rancher, this woman was not storing her firearm. It was in use and legal, provided she didn’t have the clip inserted when it was behind her door.

Many Canadian women, and men, have a Concealed Firearm Permit from the state of Utah (http://www.americanccw.com) allowing them to carry a concealed handgun in 30 American states. This is the same permit for which Utah residents can qualify. They’ve been cleared by the police and trained to carry a concealed handgun allowing teachers, staff and parents to have them on their person on school grounds, state buildings and businesses.

Many prominent Canadian women are proponents of concealed carrying for women. Vancouver School Board Trustee Sharon Gregson wrote recently about her shooting interests and political desires for women’s personal safety. Ontario’s Cindy Lightheart writes regularly for the Canadian Firearms Journal on women’s rights C to carry.

Statistics Canada reports there are 130,000 B&E’s reported to police in Canada. Many of these are against ruralists, chosen because of their trust and isolation. Many are not reported; residents just absorb the financial loss, but never the sense of violation.

British Columbia Cattlemen’s Association estimates their members lose thousands of dollars yearly from rustlers, bush butchers, damage to buildings and equipment and recreational vehicles damaging crops and fields and leaving gates open allowing animals to wander onto highways. Many thieves believe they can steal from ranchers with impunity. Wrong.

Ranchers are RCW members and as such are knowledgeable in crime prevention techniques: locking their outbuildings and machinery, helping their neighbours, watching out for each other and patrolling their range land with help from other ranchers.

Several ranchers told RCW of an incident where ATV riders were chasing wildlife. They were on the tail of a cow moose and her calf trying to run them down. Both animals were exhausted, barely able to move when the ranchers rode up within 100 metres of the jackass riders. Each rancher pulled their saddle guns and let off a barrage of shots into the air then took off after them on horseback. The riders were terrified and hopeful, noted one rancher, not too stupid to come back to their territory.

RCW is not advocating such action as a crime prevention tool but merely pointing out that rural residents are not the push over that crooks assume.