Mel:
For all of you that have noticed the rather intermittent nature of our posts lately, this has been due to a lot of things. First off, Chris has actually been doing actual work at his job and has been busy with various projects. The start of school and a week long cold have me pretty well occupied, and I'm playing catch up. And lastly, I am knee deep (and Chris ankle or so deep) into a new project that started last week and is rapidly growing to mammoth proportions.
It all started when I noticed the lack of firearm information for women online. I googled terms like "firearms for women", "guns for women", etc and all I got back was Women and Guns magazine and a long list of articles. There is something extremely wrong with this. Where is all the information for women just starting out, who want to learn about firearms but for whatever reason do not have people around them to turn to?
Now why would I be worried about such a thing? I am surrounded by gun nuts, have a gun nut husband, and have tons of resources at my fingertips. But I remember when I didn't, a time when I wasn't sure how to BE a single mother, how to protect my kids and myself. I remember not having anyone to turn to, and how I was desperate for any information I could get my hands on. I worry about women who don't have someone to turn to, who must turn to the internet for this kind of information. I decided that one way or another, I would make sure the information was easily found, centralized, and easy to understand by women who spent all of their lives being afraid.
At first I just wanted a section of the blog, like the Recipes for Real Men, to put posts pertaining to women just learning about shooting. Then I decided another site might be better suited. And maybe some information about knives and other forms of self defense. And resources. And dealing with the effects of abuse. And independence and emergency preparedness....
This project has gone way beyond the idea of a section of the blog dedicated to women. We've realized at this point that this will be a major undertaking, and what started as 5 posts is going to become a huge website.
At this moment I have a list of at least 40 articles needed for the new site, and we won't post anything there until we have enough content.
Why do I say we? Because Chris has been behind me ever since I asked for just a section of the blog, then some technical help, then some ideas... at this moment he's buying the domain we decided on and setting up my hosting account. He's a part of this as well, and while it's my undertaking he will be helping out in areas I am not so skilled at. This of course doesn't mean that we won't be maintaining the other sites or that he won't be moderating like usual, but we will have yet another distraction. However we will be cross-posting between the two sites, and it is entirely possible that we'll end up with more gun content on this blog by undertaking another site. We hope to have the site up and operational before Christmas and it's going to be close to a full time occupation for me. I will be posting some of the articles on the blog before the site goes up, so when it does I'm not posting 20 articles all at once.
Now everyone we have put this idea past (including some female shooters and a VERY outspoken gun shop owner) have loved the idea of a website dedicated to women and self defense. I know the support is there, and I know it is needed. We'll soon find out if the interest is there, and if the women who need it most can find us.
That is, after all, the point. We need to be there for the women who don't have anyone to turn to. Not everyone is surrounded by a Chris, John, and Kommander, but maybe we can make it so everyone has access to the information, despite their lack of gun nuts for husbands.
Mel
Just call me Mel, everyone else does.
