Some time ago I railed about how firearms are being sold to women: by adding pink grips to wholly inappropriate guns and peddling them to the “little ladies”. That just frosts me, because I want women to have the same thing that men have: a gun which they can actually use efficiently to deal with a threat. Part of being able to use it is being able to train and practice with it, and a gun that doesn’t fit well isn’t conducive to doing so.

Putting cute little grips on one of the Airweight Smith & Wesson’s doesn’t make it into a woman’s gun – it makes the thing impossible for all but an expert to shoot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for non-traditional colors and finishes to appeal to a wide variety of shooters, but the gun needs to be right for the job before those final touches are added. If they’re all the product has to offer it’s nothing but window dressing. And just a little insulting to the intended audience.

As it happens, I’m not alone in my disdain of frippery engineering; Laura Burgess thinks it’s silly, too.

Who is Laura Burgess? She runs a marketing and PR firm that serves the shooting, hunting, and outdoor industries – it’s one of the top firms in the business, in fact. Laura’s a shooter too (as are her family members, who are also active in the industry) and knows a little bit about the subject.

She recently wrote a piece for The Truth About Guns on this trend to “pink it and shrink it” (wish I’d come up with that, but she’s the pro.) It’s very much worth reading.

-=[ Grant ]=-