​​An Alabama mom, for example, in April shot and killed a man who was acting “out of his mind,” allegedly trying to set her house on fire with the mom, her 8-year-old daughter, and 80-year-old uncle still inside the residence.

Michelle Jones, who lived at the residence with her daughter, told police that she arrived home on a Saturday evening in April and found the suspect acting belligerently. She also discovered the exterior of the home was on fire. The suspect was a friend of the family and reportedly tried to pour acetone on Jones and light her on fire before she grabbed her firearm and fired a shot at the man.

She was defending not only herself, but her daughter, and her uncle.

A woman in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, shot and wounded the father of her child on Aug. 11 after he assaulted her. The man who had an outstanding warrant for violating a protection-from-abuse order to stay away from the woman, was shot in the shoulder. He admitted to authorities that he had assaulted his child’s mother before she shot him, the Pottstown Mercury reported.

In another incident, in August, a mom in Indiana grabbed her gun when she saw her daughter’s ex-boyfriend drive onto her front yard and hold her husband at gunpoint. The woman shot the suspect, and he was pronounced dead after he was taken to a hospital, according to authorities at the time.

Earlier this year, Fox News Digital also spoke to the owner and founder of New Mexico-based gun shop Indigenous Arms 1680 Ltd. Co., one of the few Native American-owned gun stores in the U.S., who explained seeing an increase in Native women arming themselves in the face of crime.

Gun shop owner Joe Talachy told Fox News Digital back in September:

Almost every week we have a Native woman or someone close to family saying I’m really interested in taking this class and picking up a firearm because you see the numbers with the missing and murdered indigenous women and people.

Other armed women used their firearms to help defend total strangers, including in North Carolina last month. Two men reportedly got into a verbal altercation in Shelby, escalating to one of the men allegedly shooting the other in the face. The unnamed female bystander then stepped in to defend the injured man, police said, shooting and injuring the man with her handgun.

Robin Evans, the founder and owner of a self-defense training company called Chicks with Triggers, told Fox News Digital earlier this month:

I feel like every single day, there’s another woman who thought she would never pick up a gun… and they understand what type of world we live in right now.

And, unfortunately, it gets more dangerous every single day. And so I think more women are starting to really come around to the fact that, ‘Hey, I never thought I would be here, but this is where the world is, so I gotta get prepared.’

Evans said roughly 60% of her clientele have encountered dangerous and violent situations themselves, including domestic abuse, rape, or kidnapping.

Stories reported by Fox News Digital this year show many of the women who used their firearms to thwart violence did so against someone they knew, including ex-boyfriends.

Numbers are not available for 2023, however, it is estimated that women now represent 42% of American gun owners, and that number increases with every passing year.

Women are refusing to be victims anymore.

The gun is a great equalizer.