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5/22/2012

Rant: Girls Holding Guns

By Gabby

Photobucket Pictures, Images and PhotosEveryone is entitled to their own version of fun, but frankly I'm sick of all the half naked women holding guns on Facebook and similar sites.  I don't take issue with people who want to look at women holding weapons.  I've said before, I see nothing wrong with taking sexy photos for your partner. People are entitled to look at whatever gets them revved up (as long as its legal).  I'm also not knocking XXX sites. That's where those photos belong.  My beef is with groups who portray themselves as gun enthusiast communities but who often post the afore mentioned images just to increase their follower count.

Many gun toting women have, at one point or another, run into a person who assumes we are less than capable of handling a gun, simply because we are female. When at the range, we'd prefer to impress with our skills than with our curves. At my range, where I know almost all of the employees, I appreciate the respect I receive.  Still, it would be nice to walk into a gun store and be treated more like an equal and less like a child who has wandered away from her daddy. The issue is, photos of bikini-clad models holding guns do nothing to help us be taken seriously as shooters. In many cases they perpetuate the idea that a woman with a gun is an uneducated hazardous joke and should only be considered in a sexual light.

I imagine some might argue, "We're not idiots. We can tell the difference between a serious female shooter and a model holding a gun." My response to these people would be, "Great! Then you're not the object of this rant." However, I have another concern and it affects all of us shooters;  The models in these photos are often improperly handling their weapons, with their fingers on triggers and the like.  This may mislead new shooters.  Do you want to slide into a lane next to a newbbie who doesn't know and follow the four rules? When groups represent themselves as a knowledgable source for shooting information and then display these pictures, people can get confused.

As for arguments about children stumbling across these images on Facebook and the poster's right to freedom of speech, I find these arguments misguided and unintelligent. It is the responsibility of a parent to protect an impressionable child. Further, freedom of speech does not have anything to do with Facebook speech and besides, just because it is legal to act in a certain way, doesn't mean said action is right.

Now that you've allowed me to make my points I release you to go and spend your days looking at naked people holding whatever gets you off, puppies, tire irons...whatever.  My only request is that, before you click "like" on another Sexy Gunner page, or "share" another bikini/gun photo, you consider our female shooting community as a whole.

P.S. As I delve deeper into the online/gun community I have had conversations, related to this topic, that reveal that many different perspectives are floating around out there. I fully intend to explore the topic from another slant in the very near future.




©2012 ArmedCandy,LLC

3 comments:

Gun Blog Black List said...

I get an earful from the woman BEHIND the counter at my favorite gun shop. That is yet another perspective - try showing/selling a gun to a guy when the guy thinks your full function in life is to make him a sandwich. 

I still refer to her as the hot gun chick, though, because she is.

thetravlor said...

I agree with your rant about the trigger discipline in pictures. I will not go to an indoor range though. Our local indoor has bullet holes and marks within a foot of the shooting window. I am priveleged to live 10 minutes from the best outdoor range in MN.
I also have a confliction with the photos. I subscribe to XDTalk. Their chatter box section of NSFW girls didn't have a post all day yesterday and I felt withdrawal pangs. I'm a red blooded, white haired male that does his very best to educate every youngster and female I can about guns. I am very active in my club at doing that. Our Women On Target next month has 40 gals signed up already and our youth field trips will educate and train 225 kids this fall. I still like my Chatterbox though.

Brigid said...

I occassionally see a gal in a sleeveless top or shorts at the range when it's hot but I think we all know if we dress like some "girls gone wild teen" we'd never be taken seriously.  Sure the pictures get the guys attention, but I threw out MY first 2 Dillon Press catalogs because at first glance I thought it was a lingerie catalogue and went out and bought another press.

And we won't even mention trigger control for such models.

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