Tuesday, March 15, 2011

It's a woman thing

So sometimes Breda posts things that are more aimed at women than at men, in spite of having a mostly-male audience.  Usually this goes over smoothly, like the post on carrying while holding a baby or the nail polish posts.

Today, though, she seems to have stepped in it by suggesting that a .38 snubbie might not be the ideal first gun for a woman.  Conventional wisdom apparently has it that the converse is true, given that they're small, simple, and easy to conceal.

Now, I don't know a .38 snubbie from, well, anything.  I still think my Dad topped the "shitty firearms to give a girl to learn to shoot" by handing me a gigantic .45 revolver and zero instruction (but as I've said before, he didn't really want me to learn to shoot for fear I'd cap his abusive ass).  BUT the controversy in the comments section is a wee bit idiotic, to put it lightly.  It's kind of misogyny on parade in a few cases, from one fellow suggesting a woman might not really know what she wants to another lost soul proclaiming that we all SHOULD like .38 snubbies 'cause they're damned fine with proper grips and why the heck can't we understand that we'd love it if we stopped doing it wrong?

Sigh.  Like Breda said, the post was written BY a woman FOR other women.

Any woman who has ever been condescended to by a mechanic knows that men don't always have the best bead on what women can and can't handle.  Women who like guns want to talk to other women who like guns, and when we go to buy something--just the same as we do with anything else--we want to chat with other women who've been there/done that.  I've been chatting with my friend Judith about our mutual desire for a Ruger LCP, and there was just a thread on CDN about target shooting which involved one woman asking another about her .380.  It wasn't "What does your husband think you should carry?" it was "How's that working out for you?"

You can better believe if I was gun shopping and someone suggested I buy the weapon in question, the first thing I'd do would be hit Breda's blog (or Tam's, and then the other one) and see what her opinion of the thing was.  Then I'd see what a few men thought, but a single guy like Mike W (sorry) wouldn't be my first choice to ask, even though I think his take on the subject is a great one.  Since I'm a woman, I'd ask a woman first.

And I'm okay with that.

4 comments:

BobG said...

My feeling is that a woman should try out some guns herself, and then decide what works best for her.

suz said...

Gosh, Bob, isn't that what a man should do? *gasp* Oh my!

;D

greg said...

The first gun I tried to teach my wife on was an H&K .40, because it was what I had. Later that week, we went and bought a Ruger Mk II. The I traded the H&K for enough cash to buy two Firestorms...one in .380 and one in .45.

Since then, I have never tried to push a gun on my wife...

Well, not often...I would LOVE it if she found a full-size 9mm she came to enjoy...but, I would rather have her happy with her .380 OR her Walther P22 than scared to use a gun when she needs it.

Cliff Smith said...

The cornered cat is also good.