Are you afraid to look at gun magazines?

[Smoke]

Are you afraid to look at gun magazines?

Yes I am!

I'm afraid if I read gun magazines I will start to beleive the things these hacks write about. I'm afraid I will gain 150 pounds and start wearing hideous flowerdy shirts. I'm also afraid I will start to beleive that my opinion on guns matters and that I really do look cool in that hat and suspenders. I'm also afraid that my opinion might be bought by a regular advertiser.

Smoke

 

[JJohnston015]

I like to have a variety to read on the plane while I'm commuting to work or home. I even read them in the cockpit.

Well, that beats the young, green-looking 737 First Officer reading the 737 operator's manual in the boarding area!

 

[Lupine]

Ha ha!

Bottle of Ibuprofin: $6.25
Box of Super Tampax: $4.55
Copy of the 2004 Annual Combat Guns Buyer's Guide: $10.00
Nervous countenances of men in line staring behind me at the suburban convenience store (not in my 'hood): Priceless.

(By the way, when the girl behind the counter said--after laughing conspiratorily at my shopping items--, "Gee, I didn't know women liked guns" it gave me the opportunity to give my thirty-second PSA geared toward shattering a stereotype or two. Now, whenever I swing by that store for a slurpee on the way to my friends' house for Sunday dinner, she's always got an intelligent question about the topic.)

 

[444]

I can't stand to sit anywhere and do nothing. If I leave the house I take a magazine (gun related of course) with me. I read them when I get my oil changed, at the dentists office, in restraunts, whatever. At the beginning of my shift I stick one in the fire truck in case I get some kind of call where I have to sit and do nothing for a long time like a stand off, hostage sitution or something.
If people are looking at me funny, I never noticed, or cared. If I am not reading, I am looking at them funny.

 

[Combat-wombat]

You haven't had fun until you've sat in a Barnes & Noble cafe in New Jersey reading a copy of American Handgunner and drinking a latte.

Hehehe. I've done that a couple times in Starbucks around here.

 

[Typhoon]

Hee Hee - Go Lupine!!!

Good laugh!

So I am at the local stand buying the latest SWAT mag. Hey, one of my instructors, Scott Reitz from ITTS wrote a cool knife attack article - check it out!. I've shot on that railroad track setup he has there and, no kidding, that target comes up on you pretty damn quick.

Anyway, the newstand dude asked me if I was married.

UMM...no...

Well, he said, only married women buy gun magazines...

Really, I said. Now you know of one unmarried woman who doesn't...

Dead silence...

I must remember to pick up a copy of Soldier of Fortune next time I am there...

Andrea

 

[444]

I have also sat in Barnes and Noble and Starbucks and read many gun magazines.

 

[Lupine]

Hey Typhoon!

I get that, too. When shopping for accessories...and please note it's not often, as my collection is extremely small, but...I often get "is that (holster, ammo, blah blah blah) for your husband?"

To which I like to answer, "You mean my boyfriend? Naw, when he's being bad I just tickle him. The gun stuff's for the bad guys." It usually takes a minute or two for whoever it is to figure out my meaning.

I think I like having guns not so much for target practice, social debate and personal protection, but because I get to make funny comebacks all the time. Like my favorite (recounted here before

I'm at my first gun show, ping ponging between a couple different tables on opposite ends of the hall. Somebody asks me, "Are you lost? You looking for the beanie babies? They're over there..."

"Thanks, but I have enough targets already..."

Us girls probably have more reason to have and like guns than men, but most of us weren't socially conditioned that way. It's a sport to which I enjoy introducing girlfriends, because I think that we're naturally good at it.

My beau doesn't have or shoot guns, but likes that I do. He has fun watching people at the gun shops underestimate knowledge of a female shopper as much as I do (now that I've gotten over the sheer frustration of it.)

Back on topic: Next time he and I go to our local coffee shop hangout, I'll tell him to bring one of his Buddhism texts and I'll take a gun magazine, and we'll report back with reactions...

 

[45-auto]

Lupine-

I love the comeback line! Digressing for a moment. . .

I raised two daughters to shoot straight with rifle or handgun. Both of them still consistently do better than their spouses, possibly because they learned at around age 8 how to get a good sight picture and make quick use of it.

I kind of agree with you about women doing better at shooting, but I think it's because they have no cultural stuff going on when you're teaching them: they really pay attention and apply the lessons, without feeling that the fact they have something to learn makes them deficient.

Quick humorous tale: the youngest daughter was in a stage play set in the old west that involved the male lead shooting blanks from a Smith and Wesson pattern wheelgun. The actor with the male lead part spent some time boasting of his prowess with weapons. Then came the time to reload the damn thing. He couldn't seem to find the cylinder catch to swing the cylinder out.

After he had fumbled around with the piece for several minutes, my daughter stepped up, took the gun, activated the cylinder catch, operated the extractor rod to eject the spent blank casings, put in six fresh, closed it and handed it back to him butt first with the remark: "Guns are your life, right?"

It broke the rest of the cast up completely.

 

[tex_n_cal]

At the Fresno B&N, I bought a couple paperbacks, and a gun magazine, and since the place was slow, the young lady(college age) cashier there asked me, "What's in these gun magazines, why do people buy them?"

Her questions were sincere, so I pointed out people buy them to read about hunting, target shooting, self defense, or collecting. One of my magazines was specifically about the 1911 pistol, so I pointed it out to her and flipped through it, commenting about it had been the standard U.S. military sidearm for seventy years, and that as a mechanical engineer I greatly admired the design and considered it a one of the great mechanical inventions of all time. I also had a photography magazine, and pointed out that the craft of photography was not unlike learning to shoot well.

The conversation only lasted a minute or two, but she seemed impressed that I gave her an articulate answer, that showed I was a perfectly normal guy with a variety of other interests. Hopefully she will be open minded in the future.

 

[Feanaro]

Never had any funny looks while flipping through the 'ol Handgunner or my American Rifleman. 'Course, this is Alabama.

 

[TimH]

This past weekend I was in Walmart. I'm standing in the checkout line with my stuff. A Cityot ( rhymes with Idiot: person from New York City that weekends in upstate NY ) is looking at Shotgun News laying in candy rack. Cityot says "I don't know why anyone would need guns. They do nothing but harm others" to her kid. I pick up the Shotgun News turn around to my wife and say " Look honey they have a picture of your new rifle on the front page" (which was a lie) . It was a DSA inc advertisement for the SA58. YTou should have seen the look on this woman's face. BTW not everyone that weekends upstate is a "Cityot" please take no offence

 

[Willard]

I love the looks I get when I buy SOF, Shotgun News, et al at the bookstore. F'em. B&N sells tons of perverted stuff, and I'm supposed to be ashamed of something wholesome and good? Not on my watch.

I did have someone "express concern" when I was working off site and reading "Tactical Response" magazine. My boss told me I was scaring folks, so I put it away because she asked nicely. Then she told the other person that if she was really afraid I'd snap she should probably not annoy me. After the shock of that statement wore off she expalined my background and current side jobs (I have two, both are firearms/securty related), and told her she felt safer with people like me around.

 

[madhatta]

It is funny this topic was posted. I meant to post one similar a while ago.

The nature of the work I do, on rare occasion, allows for a bit of 'down time' or time when you are babysitting a piece of equipment or just ensuring a program running as it should. So, during these times, everyone involved or on shift usually has some reading material.

I usually have a novel, and when I get burnt out on reading that, out comes the gun mags. I dont get hassled about it- but the comment I ALWAYS get is " man I'm really starting to worry about you" or "Dude its gonna be ok - DONT DO IT !" like reading the gun mag is gonna cause me to come in the office on monday with guns 'ablazing. Jeez its amazing.

What is REAL funny is that these comments always come from the other guys I work with. My shift sometimes overlaps with a female, and they have their novel or womens magazine and are content to read theirs and not say a word about mine. I had a knife magazine once (that gets the other guys real scared as I guess they worry about getting knifed more than shot), but a couple of the women looked at it and were very impressed (at some pics of custom knives) and had no idea that such beautiful knife pieces were made.

 

[Gus Dddysgrl]

I don't read them much since I don't stop to read very often. However when I do I have a handful of gun magazines and car magazines, I definitely get weird looks. Then the guys around me start to get excited and start checking me out instead of giving me weird looks so I go pick up a wedding/bridal magazine and show of my very nice engagement ring. They still look, but from more of a distance. The women stare with a sense of awe that I would dare have such a combination of reading material.

Does it bother me?
No way.
I love the attention.

 

[benEzra]

I flew my son from Raleigh to Pensacola last month for a cardiologist visit, and looked all through both RDU and Atlanta Hartsfield for a single gun magazine. NOT ONE. Lots of left-wing rags, extremely explicit porn, and magazines devoted to various rare hobbies, but not a single shooting magazine.

I stopped by Books-a-Million in Pensacola and picked up SWAT and Shotgun News to read on the trip back.