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Let Freedom Ring,
Posted on 10/11/2011 4:39:57 AM PDT by RC one
In the late 1980s, the gun industry began targeting women to counter slumping handgun sales among its primary market of white males. The false message delivered by gunmakers was clear: the greatest threat posed to a woman was an attack by a stranger and, the best form of protection a woman could rely upon was a handgun.
Much to the disappointment and consternation of the gun industry, these efforts for the most part have failed. A 1995 study by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) conducted by Tom Smith and Robert J. Smith found that handgun ownership among women was, and remains, uncommon. This study found any fluctuations in the percentage of women who owned handguns to be statistically insignificant.
The 1996 study Guns in America found that only 6.6 percent of adult American women owned a handgun—less than one out of every 10 women. But of these women, nearly 85 percent owned their handguns for self-defense—a figure that offers gunmakers continual hope in their marketing endeavors. Yet how often are handguns actually used by women to kill in self-defense? The answer, as revealed by unpublished Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data, is hardly ever. Women were murdered with handguns more than 1,200 times in 1998 alone. As these numbers reveal, handguns don't offer protection for women, but instead guarantee peril.
In 1998, for every time a woman used a handgun to kill in self-defense, 101 women were murdered with a handgun.
Despite the promises of gun-industry advertising, a woman is far more likely to be the victim of a handgun homicide than to use a handgun in a justifiable homicide. In 1998, handguns were used to murder 1,209 women. That same year, 12 women used handguns to kill in self-defense.
When a woman did use a handgun to kill in self-defense, it was usually against someone she knew, not against a stranger. Of the 12 handgun self-defense killings by women reported to the FBI in 1998, eight involved attackers known to the woman, while only four involved strangers.
All the attackers that the women justifiably killed were males, as were an overwhelming number of offenders in female handgun homicides. For the majority of both justifiable and criminal homicides, both the shooter and the victim were of the same race.
In 1998, for every time a woman used a handgun to kill a stranger in self-defense, 302 woman were murdered with a handgun.
Try a Beretta PX4 subcompact 9mm
that does look a good option.
A S&W J-Frame .357 with Pachmyer grips is quite pain free, and very effective. The stock grips don’t soften the heavy loads. Or, there’s always a .38 snubby.
yeah, she shot two rounds out of my model 340 M&P in .357 and said no thanks. That thing hurts my hands. .38s would be an option though.
You'll get a lot of great advice here, but the best advice is to have your girl try the gun first.
So, these lying a-holes want you to believe that they were murdered with their OWN gun, hmmm?
I may be killed by my gun, but you will have to beat me to death with it, because it is going to be empty. ——Clint Smith
got any more current statistics?
I can only speak as a female. One, I commend you for wanting to teach your girlfriend how to shoot. Second, bring her to a range and let her try out different guns. She will find one that feels comfortable to her. Her first gun selection provides her the opportunity to practice with the gun and get use to it. Even a snub nose .38 (which you may laugh at) may feel more comfortable to her than one you may like. Third, practice, practice, practice. Not sure if this helps at all but that is my two cents!
That looks acceptable but the more I look at the beretta PX4 storm, the more I lean towards it. It has adjustable backstraps for a more custom hand fit and a lower rail for a laser or flashlight. plus its single/double action with deckcoker and manual safety- and all for less than 600 bucks. Cant say much bad about either Beretta or Sig when it comes to semi-autos either.
That’s what they want your to think. The fact that’s they didn’t specificly connect the two statistics make it clear that’s the number of women murdered have nothing to do with whether they had a gun or not. Quite likely they know that many died for lack of a gun. They also ignore how often simply drawing a gun can nip trouble in the bud without having to kill.
It would be asking too much for the VPC to say "Of the 1209 murdered women, XXX (number) owned a handgun. I don't know the answer, but it is probably close to ZIP. If those 1209 women had each owned a gun, I'm betting a lot of them would be alive today. Of course none of this occurs (or matters) to the morons at VPC.
no, I just came across that site and it irked me plus I wanted to post a vanity about a handgun for my girlfriend so two ideas merged. I truly despise the VPC. They would have been the first group to start providing statistics about US gun dealers arming the cartels and getting innocent people killed and so on so forth. probably bought and paid for by George Soros.
As a female pistol instructor, I second your comment.
Not one argument seems to follow logically from another. This author is the prince of Non Sequitur.
S&W Model 10 or 64.
Both .38 Specials
Simple, reliable, fits their hands, smooth trigger.
Easy to get follow-up shots back on target.
Semi-autos require significantly more range and practice time.
You make an excellent point. They appear to have twisted both logic and statistics to "prove" a point.
For example, they talk about women buying guns as protection from strangers, yet many are killed by people they know. While some of us may well be concerned about strangers- say, for example, a businesswoman who travels alone extensively- I do know and have known women who purchased a firearm for protection from people they did know, too well, such as ex-husbands and boyfriends. Self-protection is self-protection, regardless of whether or not you know your attacker.
More, as LevinFan points out, some or many of the women who died might not have done so had they been armed. As LevinFan also points out, the deterrent value of being armed does not necessarily depend on killing someone. A shot may not need to be fired at all to deter an attack.
It would also be interesting to see more recent statistics, as I'd bet that the numbers of female gun owners has changed since 1998.
To the original poster: momofthree gave excellent advice. Let your girlfriend try out a variety of firearms until she finds something that she really likes, that feels good in her hands and that she is not afraid of. I favor a Glock myself, so let her give a smaller Glock a try as well. If she is not comfortable with whatever she gets, she will not be willing to practice with it, and she has to practice for it to be any use to her.
Any time a firearms-related thread is created on FreeRepublic, please be sure to add the "banglist" keyword to it so that interested FReepers don't miss it. Just a suggestion.
Let Freedom Ring,
Just my two ¢s worth.
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