Published: February 13, 2008 02:41 pm            

Illinois women deserve the ‘Right to Carry’

By VALINDA ROWE

IllinoisCarry.com

Five Women Tragically Murdered and Community in Shock; IllinoisCarry Responds.”

While details still remain sketchy about this horrible crime, our hearts and prayers go out to the families, friends and communities of the five women slain in a Tinley Park, Ill., clothing store. With our deepest condolences, we hope that time can begin to ease the shock and heartbreak caused by such a senseless crime.

Whether this was a completely random act or perpetrated by someone who knew one of the women, one thing is certain — these defenseless women were victims of more than a just violent criminal.

While the mayor of Tinley Park, Edward J. Zabrocki, is quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times as saying “ ... We're a victim of our society that we live in” (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/773695,tinley020208.article), IllinoisCarry believes the women are also victims of the state in which they were in — Illinois.

We can compare the incident in Tinley Park with a recent incident in Colorado — a state which licenses its citizens to carry a firearm for personal protection.

Illinois, on the other hand, is one of only two states which do not have a current law providing citizens with such a license and also considers it a felony violation of the criminal code to carry a loaded weapon, period.

In fact, the Illinois State Police Web page recommends that Illinois women should protect themselves with a rat tail comb, nail file or car keys. (http://www.isp.state.il.us/crime/saconfronted.cfm)

In the Colorado incident, a woman in a Colorado Springs church stopped a deranged person who had already killed several people and was intent on killing more. Jean Assam, a member of the church and licensed by the state of Colorado to carry a personal firearm, used her own gun to stop the attacker from entering a populated area of the church and is hailed as a hero in her community.

Might a personal firearm have prevented or lessened the number of women killed in the Tinley Park store? That we may never know, but there is a question we can answer: Are Illinois women any less deserving of the right to protect themselves against violent crime than the women in the 48 states with some form of Right to Carry law like neighboring Indiana or Missouri?

Are Illinois women somehow more inept, less intelligent, less capable of protecting themselves than the women in Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, or the rest of the country? NO!

In the face of a violent crime such as the one in Tinley Park, the women of Illinois deserve the right to protect themselves with something more than a nail file or car key.

We urge the women of Illinois to contact their state legislators and demand a Right to Carry law in the state of Illinois.

• Valinda Rowe is a firearms instructor and spokeswoman for IllinoisCarry.com, an online forum dedicated to securing a Right to Carry law for law-abiding citizens in Illinois.

        

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