On Tuesday, August 25, the nation mourned the passing of iconic country star Dolly Parton. She was remembered for her humble upbringing in eastern Tennessee, charitable deeds that touched tens of millions of lives, and for warming the hearts of people around the globe through her music and storytelling. But Miss Parton’s legacy also includes a reminder of our nation’s culture and history of firearms ownership and our natural right to self-defense.
Growing up in eastern rural Tennessee, Miss Parton was very familiar with firearms as both a means of self-defense and part of the family hunting culture.
As an aspiring young musician visiting New York City earlier in her career in her 20s, she recounted having to brandish a pistol in order to protect herself and a friend from an aggressive man.
She told Conan O’Brien during an interview, “I didn’t know how to get him off me so I just pulled my gun out and I said, ‘If you touch me one more time I’m gonna shoot you.'”
After that, apparently she almost never traveled without a firearm. In 1978 she told Playboy, “I always carry a gun. A .38 pistol. I have a permit for it in Nashville…. I just don’t like the idea of knowin’ I’m totally helpless.”
Dolly was not a gun rights advocate or spokesperson for any gun rights group. Her story about self-defense was simply presented as something that happened to her and a choice she made about her personal safety. Nonetheless, it’s impossible to imagine that this incident and her attendant choice to be armed didn’t encourage and inspire many women everywhere to do the same.
While Ms. Parton’s philanthropic legacy and musical career is celebrated across the political spectrum, there is virtually no mention by feminists or women’s rights groups of her familiarity and comfort with firearms, especially as a tool of self-defense. Instead, gun control groups today position firearms largely as a threat to women’s safety. Everytown goes so far as to claim “There is no research to support the idea that women’s gun ownership increases their safety…”
Interestingly, in the same week as the sad news of her passing, we’ve learned that the Trump administration forced the CDC to restore self-defense statistics as part of its annual reporting. The CDC discontinued this reporting under the Harris-Biden administration in 2022 after intense lobbying from gun control groups, according to The Reload, and the motive for why is clear.
According to CDC statistics, there are up to 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. Put another way, Americans of all types, including the most vulnerable among us, use their natural right to self-defense to prevent serious injury or death millions of times per year, often without ever having to pull the trigger.
This fact completely turns the gun control narrative on its head, illustrating that the lawful use of firearms saves more lives than criminal actions take lives.
Ms. Parton’s personal anecdote was a powerful testament that we hope will encourage women everywhere to never be a victim by embracing their right to be armed.
