Why I carry

I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon. It’s rather common public knowledge in my community and the reason why it’s public knowledge is I made it that way.

I am not a hunter, but keep guns with me all the time for use on the ranch as needed. I regularly blast at coyotes and take sporadic shots at prairie dogs around my house. I shoot a lot and think I could disassemble and reassemble my pistol in the dark – it’s become that much of a tool my hands are used to holding. I am very comfortable with my choice of firearms, and feel a measure of security in having a firearm when I’m driving alone long distances on lonely Wyoming roads. My concealed carry is actually a 22 magnum Ruger revolver - a physically large pistol most people wouldn’t think is a “lady’s purse” firearm. My husband paraphrases my purse purchase criteria as: “What good is a purse if it won’t hold a gun?”

Most of the time, my pistol remains in its holster inside pocket of the door of the pickup truck I drive, within easy reach of my left hand. When I travel, I put the pistol in the purse, butt up within reach. I feel more confidence in walking into a highway rest area where I know a woman was attacked when I carry that purse. When I check into hotels, I carry the holstered pistol, butt up, in an outside pocket of my overnight bag. I’ve seen men eyeball my bag on elevators, but no one has ever said anything about it. Even when I’m traveling alone, I don’t feel alone when it comes to security.

Being a newspaper reporter for more than 15 years here in western Wyoming, I received various threats to my well being, and nasty messages with thinly veiled threats. That, and being on the county predator board (which conducts a coyote control program), as well as my involvement in the wolf issue in the Rocky Mountains, brought even more threats. All of the threats and hate mail and messages I’ve received over the years had something to do with natural resource issues, and were never things like neighbor disputes or personal relationships.

Let me provide a few examples:

A male reporter, a co-worker, became enraged that my articles on the wildlife/livestock disease brucellosis were getting such prominent play, and punched a hole in the wall of our office in a rage. Before he was finally fired, he began following me, showing up at the office late at night while I was finishing a story after a government meeting. His creeping around me ended when my husband crept up on him one night. Jim didn’t do anything to the man, just scared him from the shadows of my office. I took to putting my pistol on my desk when I was in the office writing articles after hours. It was a violation of company policy, but the company wasn’t protecting me.

Another time, a man I knew by name only backed me into a corner at the public library meeting room because I was on the predator board that was in charge of killing coyotes. He screamed at me about how vile I was, flailing his arms as he yelled before I escaped.

One evening I came home to hear a threatening message on my answering machine at home, left by a third coward who did not say his name. My reporting instincts kicked in, and I was able to figure out who the man was that left the message, so I turned the recording and information over to the sheriff’s office. The man admitted to the deputy that he had left the message, but swore he would not bother me again. Because he only called me a nasty name and didn’t explicitly threaten me, the sheriff’s office let it drop. The man was the husband of a U.S. Forest Service employee who apparently wasn’t viewed in a positive light in an article I wrote about a livestock grazing controversy on the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

I decided this sort of thing was bullshit and wanted to put a stop to it. These men had made me fear, but then I was really mad that someone was succeeding in scaring me. By then I was carrying a pistol for protection, so decided to get a concealed carry permit to make it legal. Since I was a reporter, I took a photographer with me as I got fingerprinted, completed the hunter safety course, consulted a concealed carry instructor about various methods, and selected my pistol. When I received the permit, we dedicated two full pages of the newspaper to the process of getting a concealed carry permit, showing me as I went through the process, ending with my new permit:


The public had thereby been put on notice that I was carrying a concealed weapon. The newspaper spread was rather popular, with other women inspired to get their own permits.

I later learned that the men involved in the first two incidents had mental disorders and had been off their medications. The man in the library incident was institutionalized, but came back for me years later, harassing me at the office, in meetings I was covering, leaving me strange notes. I had the sheriff’s office start monitoring him, telling him to stay away from me and my office, and he was eventually institutionalized again.

It’s only been about a year and a half since I received my last threat. During the short period of time in 2008 when wolves were delisted in Wyoming, my predator board ordered the killing of four wolves that were killing calves in a calving pen on private property. Certain wolf advocates posted nasty things about me and others involved in any wolf deaths, included our contact information, and indicated that what happened to those wolves should happen to us as well. One wolf advocate posted on the forum portion of Barack Obama’s campaign website that I was a “murderer” – not a “wolf murderer” but a “murderer.” It took about three days of complaining before the Obama campaign had that trash removed from the website.

The filing cabinet near my desk includes a file of hate mail messages and printed Internet chatter in case we ever need to turn it over to law enforcement to trace some threatening person - yup, a whole file. Any questions why I carry a concealed weapon? I’m my opinion, I’d be negligent if I didn’t. A tool is a tool, and I prefer to keep a full toolbox.