You may have seen it online this week: a women-only fitness class in Illinois called “Pistols and Pilates” went viral after pairing a Pilates workout with firearm safety training and live shooting drills.
The women who attended said they went because they were scared. Scared of being attacked. Scared of being alone. Scared of being, as the instructor put it, “victims all the time.”
We hear that. That fear is real, and it is completely valid.
But here’s what the data actually tells us: a gun in the home is far more likely to be used against the person who lives there than against an intruder. Women in particular are at higher risk — research consistently shows that access to a firearm dramatically increases the likelihood of death in a domestic violence situation. The gun industry has spent billions of dollars marketing self-defense to women precisely because it works as a sales pitch. Fear sells guns. Guns don’t reliably deliver safety.
The women in that Pilates class aren’t wrong to want to feel safer. They’re wrong to be left in a world where a shooting range feels like the most reasonable answer available to them.
That’s the world the gun lobby built. And it’s the world we’re fighting to change.
When women feel safer in their communities, when there are fewer guns in circulation, stronger background checks, and real investment in violence prevention — they don’t have to choose between a reformer and a rifle.
With love and resolve,
March For Our Lives
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