Lately we've been hearing more and more stories about tasers in our everyday lives. They make Tasers aimed specifically at women -- pink or leopard skin, whatever is "in" these days. Nothing like being in fashion when you bring a predator down! Now they've just introduced a Taser complete with MP3 player (or as Royal likes to call it, the shock jock!). I promise there is a point to all of this. I read an article in the Bismarck Tribune whining about the growing popularity of Tasers. The article was specifically upset with women throwing Taser parties, like lingerie or Tupperware parties.

Oh my God! Women protecting themselves! Don't they know that they can't take the law into their own hands! Don't they realize they're just supposed to scream for help or call 911 and then sit back and wait for help to arrive?

You see, some people like the authors of this Bismarck Tribune article seem to be upset that women appear flippant about their new-found protection. In three words: get over it. This article was probably written by some men who feel threatened that their wives and their little girlfriends are not afraid to use force in order to protect themselves. If I were these authors, I would be at the store right now buying a Taser for their daughters, wives, and sisters. Too often now, we are hearing stories about people who die because they didn't pack any heat – take this story of the hiker in the North Georgia mountains. In many cases, the law forbids them to! If this woman in north Georgia, Meredith Emerson, had a gun when she went hiking, let alone a Taser, we very well might be reading about her heroic story of survival. Sadly, that's not the case.

The bedwetters at the Bismarck Tribune seem upset with the idea of women arm themselves. If a taser is bad news, what do they think about guns. Forget a gun ... they can't even wrap their brains around a stun gun much less one with a bullet. The article says, "What are we coming to, asserting a person's Second Amendment right to pack and wield 50,000 volts of zap?" Doesn't getting the hell shocked out of you sound like a better deal than playing host to a bullet?

The wussification of America ... coming soon to a newspaper near you.

This isn't "taking the law into your own hands." That whole concept is nonsense. The law IS in your hands. You are the sovereign here, not the government. Just because you hire people to enforce the law and to provide a measure of protection certainly doesn't mean that you forfeit the right to protect yourself. Any society or government that doesn't recognize the right to self defense has already gone over the edge on the slide to totalitarianism. Remember, though, that it is writers or editors like these that wage the war against individualism on a daily basis ... on the pages of our local newspapers, on television, in the New York Times. It is their belief that government is all-powerful, and it is their goal to preach reliance on government. Even in simple, insipid little articles about women having Taser parties, anti-individualist bias exists.