Believe it or not, one of the most die-hard anti-gun politicians in the game used to be a trained, gun-toting politician after she was confronted with danger.

According to the Daily Caller, California Senator Dianne Feinstein once trained to use, and carried a revolver everywhere she went after her family luckily survived an attack back in the 70’s.

Feinstein and her family suffered multiple attacks from far-left groups. One thought to be from the New World Liberation Front, where a bomb was placed near the window of Feinstein’s home set to go off in the middle of the night, but luckily didn’t go off after a sudden chill froze the bomb solid. Then a second attack was attempted on Feinstein’s home as the radical environmentalist group Environment Life Force shot out her windows with BB guns.

After that, Feinstein had enough, and decided to arm herself so she could protect herself and her family:

After the attacks, Feinstein learned to shoot, got a concealed carry permit and started carrying a .38 handgun. “I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me,” she said at a 1995 Senate hearing on terrorism after the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Of course, that wouldn’t last:

Although she used a handgun for self-protection, Feinstein later led the charge to ban pistols while she was mayor of San Francisco. When the ban passed, she surrendered her handgun during a public ceremony.

Feinstein said that her decision to really turn against gun ownership came after the assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk according to the Daily Caller:

Feinstein became mayor of the city in 1978 after a fellow politician shot Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. “I found my assassinated colleague [Milk] and put a finger through a bullet hole trying to get a pulse,” she said during a Senate debate in 1993. After that experience, she said, she knew “what firearms can do.”

Feinstein said at the 1995 hearing that because of her personal experiences, she understands the urge to carry a firearm for protection. But “that was a period of time ago, and I’ve watched through these 20 years as terrorism has increased both on the far extremist left and the far extremist right in this country,” she said.

While I sympathize with all that Feinstein experienced, she is absolutely wrong to go deprive others of the very thing she knew would protect her in the 70’s. The reality is that this isn’t necessarily a different time. From the beginning of time, weapons — be they given to various creatures naturally or made by human hands — were necessary for the defense of self and others. Depriving people of the best tool to do the job is not only short-sighted but cruel to those who need that level of protection to even the odds against the environment they reside in.

Furthermore, Feinstein’s stances are hypocritical. Not just because she herself once owned a firearm, but because even today she is still guarded by people with guns. It’s vastly unfair that she can enjoy the safety guns provide while simultaneously denying it to others.

Feinstein has no doubt seen some of the worst that the human race has to offer, so she should know better than anyone that while guns can do serious damage, they can also prevent serious damage. It’s tragic that she’s interpreted her experiences as a reason to push for putting others at risk.