Female Gun Ownership

• “What happened to me may have changed me, but who I am today is someone I am proud to be. I WAS a victim — now I’m a survivor, a mother, a fighter and an inspiration. I am strong.”

• “If I had been carrying a gun that night, two other rapes would have been prevented and a young life would have been saved,”

• "I will never be the same again."

• “If you’ve got a person that’s raped because you wouldn’t let them carry a firearm to defend themselves, I think you’re responsible.”

• "All women are vulnerable like I am. And if they don't realize it, they should. Because you never know what's going to happen. You never ever know when it's going to happen.

And you always need to be checking your back. I have handgun in my handbag, but you don't run outside to see what your dog's barking at with your gun in hand. And maybe you should. Maybe you should go everywhere with it in your hand."

• "I will always feel like I'm not safe"

• "We have a tendency to look on it and say, well in order to keep safe, what I need to do is stay out of the park at night, stay out of the dark alleys at night and I won't end up being raped. And yet, the vast majority of rapists are known to the victim."

• "I felt like if I didn't stay calm that he would kill me. That I just was better off going along with whatever he said and did and that way it would be over with. If I would have fought, I think I would have been killed.

I always thought of myself as physically fit, as a strong person. I'm 5'9" and weigh 140 pounds, but he threw me around like I was a paper doll. I felt like the only thing I could do was just try to block blows. I felt very small and insignificant and weak. He had so much rage and anger that I couldn't do anything to match it."

• “If women have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them. TThe sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head.”