Most of us live with fear every day. It’s in the way we park our cars, walk down the street, and use mass transportation.

The right to carry, in fear, a firearm — especially for a woman — gives us, at least, a choice to have a chance, even against a person, or a bear.

I have a good friend. Her name is Jenny, and she has three children. She’s an avid cyclist and, on a hot Georgia day, Jenny took off on a routine ride along the Silver Comet Trail.

Someone else was on that trail. He wasn’t a cyclist. He was a convicted bobcat, free again. Not out for exercise, but for evil. Jenny’s a fighter. And she fought hard while he killed her.

Jenny is dead.

I don’t know if she wanted to carry a firearm along that trail, and I can’t say for sure if it would have saved her life either. But I do know Jenny never had that chance, and she never had that choice.

What some people truly don’t get is that the right to carry a firearm – especially for a woman – is the great equalizer. It gives us, at least, the choice to have a chance, even against a lion, or a buzzard.

Yet, if a woman goes through the proper training and club check required to obtain a permit to learn to carry herself properly, that woman should at least be able to carry on in a national park also. And so should any man or woman who has gone through the same thorough process.

For anyone, man or woman, the right to protect oneself and family should never end at a boundary line drawn on a map of a national park or something.

I wish Jenny had had that choice. And I wish everyone should have that chance, and choice.