The next time a criminal tries to steal a woman’s purse or assault a seemingly defenseless female walking back to her apartment, he’s more likely to be staring down the barrel of a handgun. And she’s probably well trained on how to use that weapon. It’s the age of the firearm feminist, and it’s driving the Left crazy.

Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America and former vice president of the Center for American Progress, recently complained that “gun makers are softening their image” in order to appeal to “women, children, and members of minority groups.”

But that’s good news, Igor.

Women and minorities should take advantage of their right to self-defense and learn how to protect themselves, especially in leftist-dominated urban centers where Rule of Law takes a backseat to “social justice.” And if children grow up knowing why the Second Amendment is important, they’ll learn how to become responsible gun owners themselves.

“People like Igor Volsky make a good living making a boogeyman out of the firearms industry,” writes Gabriella Hoffman at The Resurgent. “If he placed the same energy on criminals who are solely responsible for gun crimes rather than innocent law-abiding gun owners, perhaps he would be a more effective advocate of true gun safety.”

But logic doesn’t sit too well with gun grabbers like Volsky — those who’d rather deny the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.

Volsky further argued, “The firearm industry realizes that to survive into the future it must ‘broaden its reach beyond the aging white men who have been its core customers’ — and so they’re now trying to sell their products to other demographics. This is incredibly dangerous.”

Did you catch the condescension in that last sentence? Volsky believes it’s “incredibly dangerous” to broaden the appeal of the Second Amendment and thereby allow all Americans to defend themselves.

No, such an appeal would only be “dangerous” to Volsky’s agenda.

Why? Because as gun owners become increasingly diverse, the Left will no longer be able to marginalize them as angry, rural, white, and male — like the “bitter clingers” that Barack Obama once smeared at a posh San Francisco fundraiser.

Indeed, as The Washington Free Beacon’s Stephen Gutowski writes, Volsky’s “comments caused a backlash among female and minority gun-rights advocates who said [his] rhetoric harks back to the racist history of gun control in America.”

Blacks, as we’ve noted before, have been targeted by gun-control measures throughout American history. In the antebellum South, racist politicians sought to disarm newly emancipated blacks, leaving them defenseless against lynch mobs and the Ku Klux Klan. And throughout the 20th century, gun-control legislation disproportionately affected black Americans.

Gutowski adds that Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation believes “the gun industry’s efforts to reach out to women and minorities — some of the industry’s fastest-growing customer groups — are nothing new. He said the industry has long worked to accommodate users of every background based on feedback from shooters. The growing popularity of shooting among women has led companies such as Smith and Wesson to shape recoil-spring tension, stock length, and magazine design to meet the demands of female shooters.”

Making guns accessible to well-trained, responsible gun owners of all stripes will do far more to ensure our safety than any government policy or program. Gun confiscation has always been about the power of the state — and about taking away the right to self-defense from law-abiding citizens.

So brace yourselves. We can expect the gun grabbers to turn up the heat as women and minorities begin to realize that carrying a firearm is the best way to protect themselves — and the best way to ensure that our God-given right to self-defense is safe for another generation.