Do you want equality between men and women?

I do.

Which is why I own a gun. My Glock 43 is my equalizer.

Too NRA for you? Then, let’s take a step back and think about this. I will start with this premise: Men are physically stronger than women.

I know: even this is controversial these days. But men have more muscle mass and greater bone density; they run faster, and punch harder. It’s called “biology.”

If a woman is going to protect herself against a man who intends to do her serious harm, she needs to even the odds. And what’s the best way for her to do that? Own a gun — and know how to use it.

Given this, you would think that feminists would be lining up in front of gun shops, spending quality time at the shooting range, and filing for concealed carry permits. But when was the last time you heard a feminist speak out for women owning guns? You haven’t, because feminists aren’t for gun ownership. They’re for taking guns away from women.

Well, you might say, if no one owned a gun, then everybody would be safer. Yes…and it would be nice if cheesecake was a diet food.

There are over 300 million guns in the United States and that’s not going to change any time soon. But even if we could build a giant magnet, fly it across the country and snap up every gun, it wouldn’t much matter to women’s safety.

In Great Britain, where it’s almost impossible to get a gun, a woman is three times more likely to be raped than in America, according to a study by David Kopel, a professor of constitutional law at Denver University.

Here’s another telling comparison between gun-free UK and gun-owning US: In the United States, only about 13 percent of home burglaries take place when the occupants are home, but in the UK, almost 60 percent do.

Professor Kopel explains the disparity: “American burglars … avoid occupied homes because of the risk of getting shot. English burglars prefer occupied homes, because there will be wallets and purses with cash.”

And, by the way, an assailant doesn’t need a gun to be dangerous. What do you do if you’re a woman and a man comes at you with a knife? Or just his bare hands? If you want to depend on pepper spray or a whistle, okay—but I think your finger on the trigger of a gun would be more effective.

Take the example of mail carrier Catherine Latta. After she had been assaulted and raped by her ex-boyfriend, Latta tried to purchase a firearm. She was told it might take a month to get a permit. “[I’ll] be dead by then,” she recalls telling the clerk. That afternoon, she went to a rough part of town and bought a handgun. Five hours later, her ex-boyfriend attacked her outside of her home. She shot him in self-defense, and saved her life.

I should add that firing a gun is very rare. Just carrying it—let alone brandishing it—is a deterrent.

And, isn’t that the issue? Personal safety? How is a woman supposed to defend herself? What if an intruder breaks into her home?

Liberal TV personality Sherri Shepherd answered this question a few years ago.

“At one in the morning, the alarm in our house went off,” Shepherd told her co-hosts on the popular daytime show, “The View.” As the alarm blared, her husband, Sal, went downstairs to look around. If something happened to him, a terrified Shepherd realized, she had no way to protect herself or her son, Jeffrey. “ …All I had was this wicker basket…[I] don’t have a bat, nothing.”

“‘We’re going to get a gun,’” I told Sal. “[This] just made me realize how vulnerable you are if you can’t protect your home. And the police [were] wonderful; they came about seven minutes later, but to me, that’s seven minutes too late.”

Luckily for Shepherd, the incident was a false alarm. But there are lots of cases where the alarm is real, especially in high crime areas. Yet every year, progressives push for more and more gun control without ever considering who will pay the price.

It won’t be the bad guys. They always get the guns they want. It will be the good women who need to equal the odds in a dangerous confrontation with a man.

Women owning guns shouldn’t be a partisan issue. In fact, it’s a women’s rights issue.

I’m all for equality between the sexes. And I practice what I preach.

That’s why I own a gun.

I’m Katie Pavlich for Prager University.