Anti-gunners love to try and equate male genitals and firearms for some reason. They often claim they’re phallic symbols even though anyone whose junk looks like a gun needs to see a physician immediately. However, that doesn’t stop them from making the claim.

Such as this charming individual I encountered on Twitter yesterday.

To which I replied that yes, I do feel inadequate. After all, my member won’t sling projectiles at 1,200 feet per second toward bad guys, thus it’s inadequate for certain functions.

However, it also got me to thinking about why so many anti-gun women try this tactic. Do they really think we gun owning men equate our sex organs with our guns?

As Massad Ayoob once noted, if a firearm were related to a man’s…manhood, no guy would buy a gun with a two-inch barrel. He’s right.

But that’s not really what it’s about.

The attempt here isn’t because anyone actually thinks male reproductive organs or guns really have anything in common. What they’re trying to do is use a picture of gun owners as almost all male and then try to undermine our masculinity. They’re trying to claim that real men don’t need guns, but don’t want to use the language since feminist find it so objectionable.

What they miss is that while firearms may not be phallic symbols, they are a part of masculinity. In fact, a key part of masculine behavior.

Last year, I published a book on masculinity. In part, it was to counter so much BS floating around as to what a man is and what a man isn’t. In the process, I outlined three roles all men should fill. The professor, or the one who teaches the young about what a man is and how to do various things, was one. The provider, which is self-explanatory, is another, though I do note that being a provider doesn’t preclude a spouse making as much or more than you. The final role of a man is to be the protector, the one who keeps his family safe from harm.

When it comes to protecting what you love, no tool is more efficient or effective than a firearm. Period.

Some may argue that the gun is the tool of a weak man, it’s not. It’s the tool of someone who understands that the bad people of the world don’t like to play by anyone’s rule book but their own, and if you’re unarmed, you may be woefully unprepared to stand up and protect those you care about.

Contrary to some people’s implication, having a gun isn’t unmanly. In fact, I’d argue that being able to own a gun and refusing to do so is the unmanly act. Anyone who does so has shirked their responsibility to protect their family, outsourcing it to others who may or may not be able to act effectively should the moment of truth arrive.

So yes, we’re overcompensating for something. We’re overcompensating for the fact that no body part of ours can require everyone else to play by Marquis of Queensbury rules in the world. Plain and simple.