I very much enjoyed "Guns Are a Feminist Issue" (which Glenn Reynolds linked earlier). Megan McArdle observes that guns level the playing field between men and women, and wonders why more feminists don't push for gun ownership:

...guns are the only weapon that equalizes strength between attacker and attacked. It's the only time when men's greater speed, strength, and longer reach make no difference; if you pull the trigger first, you win.

This is an enormous social advance. I am all for strengthening the social contract (and law enforcement) so that fewer men commit rape, assault, or robbery. But until human nature has improved so radically that grievous bodily harm has passed from living memory, I don't understand why more feminists don't push for widespread gun ownership.

I think the problem is that most feminists really aren't feminists. Not in the sense of believing that women should be equal and independent. Guns are the ultimate tool for enabling true independence, in the form of self-sufficiency. "Feminists" (in quotes because I don't think they are that) overwhelmingly believe in having the government take care of everyone, which of course is socialism -- the opposite of independence. I've long believed that feminism boils down to replacing male supremacy with government supremacy. Instead of women being equal, the role once occupied with the male husband/father as provider is replaced with the state as provider. You have a problem? Don't ask a man for help, ask the government. But do it yourself? No way. That threatens to erode the whole "feminist" concept that women are in need of outside help.

MORE: Not only are most conventional "feminists" opposed to guns, so are conventional gay activists. From Gay Patriot:

With these ruling, gay people will have greater and more ready access to handguns and so be better able to defend ourselves against gay-bashers. With such a victory for gay rights, I thought I'd check the sites of the various gay organizations to see how they're celebrating, acknowledging how the constitutional freedom enshrined in the Second Amendment benefits us. Nothing on the websites of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) or the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR).

Silence on such an important victory for gay rights?!?!?

Like feminists, gay activists tend to be socialists who oppose self-sufficiency while claiming to be for it.

There are exceptions, of course, and Gay Patriot cites Tammy Bruce, Log Cabin, and Volokh's Dale Carpenter.

By and large, though, the mainstream gay activist reaction is extremely anti-gun. Sometimes rabidly so.