Operation LIPSTICK Educating City Women On Danger Of Straw Purchasing, Hiding Guns

BOSTON (CBS) -- Operation LIPSTICK wants young women to know they can refuse to be used.

L.I.P.S.T.I.C.K. stands for Ladies Involved In Putting a Stop to Inner-City Killing, and now the organization is doing just that by heading to the city's housing developments to empower women not to take the fall for the men in their lives when it comes to guns.

Judy Rose, the group's director, said the organization is partnering with the Boston Housing Authority to educate young women against straw purchasing, hiding, storing, and transporting guns illegally, typically for their husbands or boyfriends.

"Women are being used as mules so we want to educate and empower women, not allow yourself to take the fall for someone else," Rose told WBZ News Radio 1030's Kim Tunnicliffe. "Women are doing this in the name of love because they're involved in a domestic violence, unhealthy relationship. Some of them are proud to do it with the ride or die mentality, that culture. So that's what we're doing, we're disrupting that culture."

The organization's latest campaign kicked off on Saturday with a meeting in Jamaica Plain. The group will head to Housing Authority buildings across the city to tell young women what a healthy relationship looks like.

"Some women, especially our youth, have this misguided idea of what love is and it's at all costs, sacrifice yourself for a man," Rose said. "But at all costs you should also put yourself first. Your freedom matters. We educate and tell women you'll lose your housing, you'll lose your scholarship to college, you'll have a CORI. There's a reason why he's not buying his own gun. He doesn't want to get caught as well. So you're taking all the risk."

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Kim Tunnicliffe reports