{"id":118538,"date":"2026-08-31T19:50:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T00:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=118538"},"modified":"2026-08-31T19:50:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T00:50:02","slug":"118538","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=118538","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Dolly Parton Carried a .38, and She Never Apologized for It<\/a><\/p>\n

Dolly Parton died Tuesday at 80, and the tributes have poured in for the music, the movies, and the boundless philanthropy. Here\u2019s one more thing worth remembering about the country legend: she was a gun owner who carried for self-defense, said so plainly, and never once seemed embarrassed by it.<\/p>\n

The proof is in her own words. In a now-famous 1978 Playboy interview with journalist Lawrence Grobel, Parton described an early trip to New York City \u2014 a story any concealed carrier will recognize in their bones.<\/p>\n

A Nashville Permit and a New York Night<\/p>\n

Parton and her lifelong friend Judy Ogle, green to the big city, found themselves out on the street late at night when a group of men began closing in. \u201cAll of a sudden, these men started approachin\u2019 us on the street,\u201d she told Playboy. \u201cThey thought we were up for sale.\u201d The men wouldn\u2019t take no for an answer, and one got physical \u2014 \u201creally pullin\u2019 at me\u2026 just maul me, the whole works,\u201d as she put it. Her friend, doubled over laughing against a wall, was no help at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI Always Carry a Gun\u201d<\/p>\n

What those men didn\u2019t know was that Parton was armed. She told Grobel she never traveled without a firearm \u2014 and decades later, she still didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always carry a gun,\u201d she said. \u201cA .38 pistol. I have a permit for it in Nashville. I just carry it for protection. I feel safer when I\u2019ve got it. I just don\u2019t like the idea of knowin\u2019 I\u2019m totally helpless.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the entire case for armed self-defense, delivered in a few sentences by a woman in a towering wig and a wide Southern smile \u2014 years before \u201cconcealed carry\u201d was a mainstream phrase.<\/p>\n

And She Was Ready to Use It<\/p>\n

The .38 wasn\u2019t a security blanket. When the man kept grabbing at her, she drew it. \u201cI told the man, \u2018If you put your hands on me one more time, I swear to God that I will shoot you,’\u201d she recounted. \u201cAnd I would have.\u201d She added that she wouldn\u2019t have aimed to kill \u2014 she\u2019d have put rounds at his feet instead. The man backed off. The two women made it home. Her friend, by Parton\u2019s account, never did stop laughing.<\/p>\n

Carried in Spite of the Law<\/p>\n

The quiet defiance in the story is the setting. Parton was carrying her Tennessee-permitted revolver in New York City \u2014 a place that, under its old Sullivan Act, treated the right to bear arms as a privilege doled out by bureaucrats. A Nashville permit meant nothing there. She carried anyway, because being helpless in a strange city wasn\u2019t a trade she was willing to make. It would take until 2022 and the Supreme Court\u2019s Bruen decision for the law to catch up to what Dolly Parton already understood on that sidewalk: the right to protect yourself doesn\u2019t stop at a state line.<\/p>\n

That refusal to be a victim \u2014 matter-of-fact, unashamed, entirely her own \u2014 was of a piece with everything else about her. There will never be another like her. Rest in peace, Miss Parton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolly Parton Carried a .38, and She Never Apologized for It Dolly Parton died Tuesday at 80, and the tributes have poured in for the music, the movies, and the boundless philanthropy. Here\u2019s one more thing worth remembering about the country legend: she was a gun owner who carried for self-defense, said so plainly, and … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,29,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rkba","category-safety","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118544,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118538\/revisions\/118544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}