Remember this the next time you hear some GFW claim that there is nothing wrong with firearm's registration and permitting. In 1998, Taxachusetts started requiring citizens to purchase a state provided FID license before buying any sort of "weapon". This year, they've decided to increase the fee 400% from $25 to $100.

As with any licensing and registration scheme, comes their ability to deny you your basic rights. In the case of Massachusetts, the fee must also be paid to buy a measly can of mace or pepper spray. That means that any woman out there who wants to protect herself against muggers, rapists, or jealous ex-boyfriends has to pony up an extra $100, (if she can afford it) and jump through government hoops just to do so. It also means that whenever the government wants to rein in your right to keep and bear arms, all they have to do is jack up the fee a few hundred bucks more.

What really gets me steamed is that the anti-self defense bastards don't seem to care too much about the tremendous burden this puts on women who want a line of self defense. Check out the attitude of this female cop, who apparently thinks that women should not carry any self-defense items at all:

"You don't want [pepper spray] to get into the wrong hands," says [Salem Police Officer Nancy] O'Donnell, who heads a Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) class in Salem. "Whatever you carry can be taken away from you and used against you."

That's right ladies, you are just too damned incompetent to be trusted with pepper spray, or any type firearm. Anything you carry, your attacker will just take away from you and use against you. Better to try physical resistance against a man three times your size, and then just allow yourself to be raped after he beats your head in. [/cynicism]

This is all part of a larger conspiracy to disarm women, many of whom are already under the mistaken belief that handling a firearm requires some sort of special training or ability that no woman could possibly possess. The years of being told "he'll just take it away from you" have conditioned women to be, on average, afraid of guns, and to rely on a failing 911 emergency system. (It has been a few months, so I'll repost this link to the Independent Women's Forum article on disarming women. It should be required reading for all women.)

Some times I simply cannot believe how unresponsive government leaders can be to the freedoms of their law abiding constituents. The next thing you know, they'll be cutting funding to rape crisis centers, forcing them to close. Oh wait, they're doing that too. Last month the commonwealth slashed funding to the centers 75%.