Female Non-Shooter's Honest Account

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I don't normally read the crap suggested by this or other gun-centric forums.

I read all three pages of this narrative. The lady has a nice vocabulary-a surprise!

Should she ever need her gun she'll know it and what to do. I bet she does just fine.
 
Good read.

My fiance grew up in a similar setting, with a mother terrified of firearms, and a (divorced) father who kept his fathers 22 in one room, the bolt in another, and not a single round of ammo. I made sure she could shoot, and she does enjoy it.

It made me sick when I got to the part that women shouldn't fight back because it might make things worse.
 
Amalgam of ignorance ("Is owning a gun in Los Angeles even legal?"), undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder ("I became plagued by nightmares and apprehension"; "These days, I’m a jittery, irritatingly vigilant person."), cliché ("Think of petticoated saloon girls tucking tiny derringers into their garter belts..."), and gun-grabber buy-in (referring to the shooting of Rep. Giffords: "I agreed that the system had failed...").

Yet mixed with a lot of honesty and openness. So very human.

A handgun is no treatment for PTSD. But it is not surprising that, after taking four years to process her traumatic, violative event, she has completely changed her life--and one of those changes was gun ownership.
 
What I could make it through seemed rational enough. That article was just WAY too long. I started to skim half-way down the first page and when I discovered that the first page was indeed, only the first page of three, I hit the abort button. :)
 
There is in fact evidence of PTSD in the writer. As well as a lot of inexperience. But the fact that she has come to recognize her issues and deal with them is admirable. Which is a large part of what made it worth reading.

Far too many people cling to the inaccurate nonsense they are fed by the media and never have the courage to step up and take some responsibility for their own safety.
 
Count me among the ones who didn't see it 1000X.

A bit drawn-out until the last quarter. Sounds like the editors thought it was, too, and had her do some cutting. The real point, as I see it, is that she overcame her emotional reactions to firearms and started to deal with them on a rational basis. A little ways to go, though, as shown by:

Several weeks after buying it, I’m still wary, superstitious. I know the chamber is empty, yet I open it every so often to check.
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All she needs is live-fire practice.

The statement I quoted bothered me a little because without more familiarization, I fear that sooner or later the magazine will be in the gun and the slide will pick one up and she'll end up not realizing that the chamber is now actually loaded. Just a fear, though. Hopefully, the next time she checks it and a live round bounces out along the floor, she'll realize that every gun is always loaded.

Yeah, I know that paragraph just above will be picked apart....

...but that's a good thing.

Say, I wonder if that "Olay" wrinkle remover in one of the ads would work for men?

Terry, 230RN
 
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Still not a great ending. She's using the firearm as a talisman, leaving it unloaded. Then fiance misses an opportunity by agreeing with her that she should be afraid of the LCR because it is a gun--better to say that she should respect it, not fear.
 
Then fiance misses an opportunity by agreeing with her that she should be afraid of the LCR because it is a gun--better to say that she should respect it, not fear.
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I see what you're saying. But I have connected with many firearm students when, after watching them hesitantly eye the handgun I just asked them to pick up, I said: "You look like you're afraid of guns. Good. So am I."

And I meant (and mean) every word. I don't want to lose that, and I don't want them to.

In case you're about to ask: I am also afraid of broken glass. :eek:
 
"Good read.

My fiance grew up in a similar setting, with a mother terrified of firearms, and a (divorced) father who kept his fathers 22 in one room, the bolt in another, and not a single round of ammo. I made sure she could shoot, and she does enjoy it.

It made me sick when I got to the part that women shouldn't fight back because it might make things worse."


I think you mis-read that part. Fighting HELPS the victim and gives her a BETTER chance of survival. As a woman, I've known this for a long time. Women, or at least some of us, stay up on this kind of info.
 
As someone who has been around guns my whole life, it seems strange to me how many people are terrified by the mere visage of a gun. I once had a girlfriend who went shooting for the first time with me. She was telling a friend about the experience later and asked if she could show her my gun. I got it out, cleared it in full view of both women in the room, and handed it to my girlfriend, who checked the chamber (just like i taught her) and attempted to hand it to her friend, who promptly threw her arms up and said, "No. Get it away from me!" As if it were some poisonous animal. I explained that I still had the bullets, and that without them it was just a lump of metal, an ugly and expensive hammer. Lol. She eventually did hold it, was surprised by how heavy it was. Still kinda uneasy, but you could tell she was excited too. "A REAL gun!"

We take them for granted here, but for a lot of people there's a very real stigma about guns, especially those who have only seen them on TV or in toy form.
 
I don't think it's irrational. She was presented with something that she had been taught to fear and did not understand. Much the way a lot of people on here would probably react if handed a live but harmless snake. If you know about snakes, you would know that it was irrational. But if you were completely ignorant about them and had been indoctrinated to fear them, it would be rational based on the information that you have.

I wasn't raised to fear and loathe guns, but I wasn't raised around them and didn't hold a handgun until I was 35. The more I learn about them and the less mystery there is, the more confident I feel with them. I got bit by the shooting bug and have been motivated to learn and enjoy firearms, but it hasn't always been comfortable. I can't imagine how much more of a leap it is for someone who was actively raised to fear guns.
 
I don't think it's irrational. She was presented with something that she had been taught to fear and did not understand.
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I think I understand you. But to me, an emotional reaction that has no rational basis--no "understanding"--behind it is exactly what I mean by irrational.

But maybe all emotional reactions are like that.
 
It's semantics; to me it's rational based on the information that she has taken in so far. But yes I get you, too. ;)

I feel hopeful for her. It may very well be two steps forward, one step back. Some people have to wade in; others leap. I dove in and bewildered everyone around me who knew I'd never had anything to do with guns. All of a sudden I'm buying them and going to the range and taking classes. They all kind of think I've lost my mind. That's okay; I could have gotten into horses or collecting art. All in all, shooting is pretty conservative. Mr. Serenity has taken it all in stride. :cool:

I guess this young woman is a wader... Hopefully someone in her life will encourage her. It's a lot more fun to do with friends.
 
There's only 2 reasons why people don't like guns. 1.) They don't truly understand , or 2.) They had a bad experience involving firearms.
 
I try every day to offer to take someone to the range every day. Most of the time it is someone that is not comfortable with firearms and I stress I will do it "when they are ready" and only after we have covered the safety rules/firearms familiarization needs. I believe that we all need to be familiar with firearms and then they will be just another utility tool like a can opener is to most.
 
There's only 2 reasons why people don't like guns. 1.) They don't truly understand , or 2.) They had a bad experience involving firearms.
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I don't think this is true. There are some folks (a few religious leaders come to mind) that have well informed, deeply considered positions against guns.

And many who have emotional reactions to guns have no such personal experiences. They may have absorbed them from friends or family; from reading or TV. They may have had a bad non-gun personal experience and convinced themselves that a gun would have made the situation far worse.

And they may be right. Everyone is different. Some people, I believe, either do not have the ability to defend themselves with a gun, or would choose not to.

I would not assume that we can somehow snap them out of it once they "understand." How would you feel if an antigunner said the only reason you are pro-gun is because you don't understand, or hadn't yet had a bad experience with guns?
 
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