You never sold a gun to me! :-D Smallest gun I've ever carried was a PPK/S in 9mm kurz (.380 Auto) in a Bianchi Scorpion shoulder holster, and only because my Combat Commander "printed" too badly under my summer suit coats. Rest of the time I carried it or the stainless Officer's Model. My boss, a Marine Reservist, walked into my office without knocking one day while I was shrugging into my jacket - his eyes sure popped. I laughed it off . . . "Hey, if YOU had to park behind the Union Mission instead of in the partners' spaces under the building, you'd be carrying one too." The federal marshals at the courthouse when I was working my very first "real" job for a judge also thought it was extremely funny. For years after I quit working at the courthouse and was just going down there to file papers and try cases, the guys on the gate would ask, "Hey, got your cannon, honey?" ". . . not since I don't have to park under the Spring Street viaduct any more . . . " Speaking of which, I was talking to a friend on Wednesday, her husband got mugged under the Spring Street viaduct. (They are country club Republicans and wouldn't know which end of a gun was the naughty one.) So nothing in West Side downtown Atlanta has really changed in 20 years . . .
But I think that the expectation is that women want a "cute" gun. Women also tend to fear not the recoil but the noise. Probably due to lack of early training, which I had plenty of from my dad and all his huntin'-and-fishin' friends . . . and my kids are certainly getting it too. My daughter will shoot anything I own including the .41 Mag, the .45 Long Colt, my hubby's FN and my .303 Long Branch sniper rifle (she's 15), she's a big tall girl (takes after my husband.) My son is still small and skinny at 12 (he's a little guy like my side of the family) and he prefers the Ruger 10/22 still, which is fine.
Yeah...I can identify....the same can be said about my area: Miami-Dade County, FL. If anything, it's gotten worse down here. But I can't tell you how many times I have run off a potential mugger (teams even) by happening to "flash the piece" at just the proper moment.
Although once I actually was present for the full show. I was leaving a downtown lunch spot, known with the lawyers with two close buds of mine and this real low life, runs up and yanks something like an old FIE 38 snubnose...looked to me like the cylinder was out of alignment with the forcing cone....and screams "Gimme yo money!!" and my friends start LAUGHING like fools...and I'm giggling as they pull their FBI credentials along with that wonderful team of Mr Smith and Mr Wesson....I thought the poor schmuck was going to vapor lock on the spot. I'd always heard about black guys turning white and thought it to be a myth. Not so.....