Setting Yourself Up For Success

I sort of got my start in this gunwriting thing by making the (weird at the time) assumption that a .38 Special with pink grips might not be the right gun for a woman. That article took off, and was the most-popular post on ShootingIllustrated.com for that entire year.

When I wrote that article, I used the guns that I owned and a friend of mine owned, and the guns we used were, well, not ideal. I own other guns now, and the “women’s market” for guns (especially pistols) has really taken off in the past ten years. I have a class this weekend that’s designed to calm some fears and make the path into the shooting sports a bit easier for women, and the pistols I’ll be using are (clockwise from upper left):

• A Ruger Security-380. Just out this year, I like them better than S&W’s EZ series because they don’t have a grip safety
• An S&W Victory in .22LR with a red dot and suppressor. This gun is the IDEAL gun for people who are recoil-adverse.
• A Ruger LCR in .38 Special. The purpose of this gun is be a bad example. I don’t recommended for new shooters.
• A Ruger LCP in .380 ACP. An alternative to the LCR for deep concealment.
• A Glock G19. Because it’s the Toyota Camry of pistols, that’s why.
• A S&W Shield in 9mm. The archetypical micro-compact gun.
• A Glock G44. The follow-on to the Victory, it’s there to ease students into the other pistols.

In addition to this, I’m bringing along a pair of 10/22’s to get them used to rifles, and an AR-15 to show them they ain’t the scary death ray the media makes them out to be.