Guns for Women

There's been a bunch of "guns for new women shooters" stuff whipping around the internet recently, and I thought I'd link to a good piece on "Myths Vs. Reality" over at SnarkyBytes:

We need to drop the whole “new woman shooter” thing already. They are new shooters, period. Let’s not use sex to color expectations of a person’s capabilities. The idea that women are somehow less capable than men at ANYTHING other than writing their names in the snow is as dead as Teddy Kennedy. (pause to let JayG cheer.) Frankly I’m a little amazed by the neolithic thinking on display in some of those comments.

Read the whole thing. You guys know I've been really hot lately on getting beyond the whole "best gun" meme. It's tiring because it's just BBs rattling around in an empty tin can...I seriously doubt whether your average miscreant is going to feel worse from a .45 ACP out of a Kimber than from a Hi-Point. I do NOT agree that you should break the bank and get the ostensibly "best" (read: "Expensive") handgun you can afford...rather, you need to look at the whole system. A less-expensive piece but more ammo, a good holster and belt, and TRAINING will actually take you where you actually want to go, to be able to defend yourself and those in your care.

I agree with Alan that at the most basic level, all handguns are intuitive — that is, we primates are excellent at pointing, and when we have a tool that allows us to use that innate skill we call it "intuitive." It's also why aggressors with no training at all manage to outshoot people with far more "training"...monkey point...gun go bang. In my years in firearms training I have repeatedly seen instructors make the learning process much much harder than it needs to be ("11 Steps to the Perfect Draw" just pops right to mind), especially by creating/modifying training that goes against the "inner monkey," that is, urging the student to adopt a series of motions that work against innate primate responses. As I said in TRAIL SAFE, yes, there are people who juggle chainsaws for a living, bt I am betting that's not you (or me for that matter).

A blunt trauma example...the idea that you can train yourself not to flinch under extreme stress...you can train yourself to not flinch under training conditions, but I'll bet I can make you flinch when we're out in the Real World. Another example I've used over the years is learning to catch a ball with your thumb and  little finger. Start with a soft nerf ball and practice for as long as you want until you've got the motion "dialed in." Then keeping in mind that you have to catch the ball with just your thumb and little finger, I'll throw a hardball at your head. You'll catch it with your whole hand, because that's what's in uyor hardwiring. Why? From an evolutionary viewpoint, all the monkeys that found alternative ways to divert objects headed toward their heads were removed from the gene pool with a large THWACK!

And by the way, when it's time for a rig for that special person, try one of these...