Women and Guns - Fear to Promote Sales

An excerpt from American Shooter

The 1980s became the decade for peddling handguns, long guns, shot guns, and anything that would go “Bang!” to women. Collaborating with the NRA, gun manufacturers’ designers, advertising agencies and media shills set out that women must be armed.

            The high ticket sell point on the prefrontal lobe of the male-dominated firearms market was “rape.” All women feared rape. Fear of “radicals” and “troublemakers” had fueled gun sales in the South during the height of civil rights confrontations. Fear of having the Second Amendment carjacked by skulking liberal socialists fired up millions of people who had a gun moldering away in a dresser drawer, night stand, or basement closet. Sportsmen, target punchers and militia members fired up their typewriters with letters to legislators and Op Ed columns in the media. Fear of that loss blazed from the pages of the American Rifleman Magazine’s editorial pages. Now, the Big Gun turret swung in the direction of women as they were targeted by the testosterone bubbling gun world.

            To allay any concerns that male NRA members would soon be attending Tupperware™ parties or carrying man purses, the NRA Personal Protection Program Director, Tracey Martin said in 1988: "Millions of intelligent, self-reliant women have chosen to defend themselves." And if the female members of NRA were looked upon as beer-swilling, tattooed, ball-busting rednecks in biker drag, that was also a misconception. In articles and advertising women were portrayed as competent, pleasant, no-nonsense folks who, besides being a businesswoman, high power shooting champion, or former Dallas Cowboys Cheer Leader could also defend themselves. That was the key comment from all the quoted female shooters: “I can defend myself.” Believe that, because in an NRA sales instruction pamphlet  titled, “ A Question of Self-Defense” the NRA text against a blood-spattered background warns, 

            “You're a woman. Someone's going to rape you. You'd better buy a handgun. People buy handguns out of fear, and rape is perceived as what women fear most.

            'Tell them what rape is,” the pamphlet shrieks,  “Be graphic. Be disgusting. Be obscene. Make them sick. If they throw up, then they have the tiniest idea of what rape is!”

            Another NRA pamphlet titled “It Can Happen to You” shows the picture of an elderly woman and the text oozes:

            “In nature, the predator preys on the weak, the sick, the aged. It stalks. It waits patiently for the precise moment when the victim appears defenseless. Then, it strikes...There is no way of telling a criminal predator by the way he looks. He might be a potential suitor.”

            A 1987 self-defense advertisement shows a man in a stocking mask beneath the headline, ”Should You Shoot a Rapist Before He Cuts Your Throat?"

            And a further warning and admonition sums up the potential dangers:

           

            “The days when you thought you'd never be the victim of a rape--that it ‘can't happen to me’ – are over. We all know of friends or family who have been raped, beaten, robbed or burglarized by thugs who don't think twice about hurting someone. You might be the next victim.”[i]

Now, shut your eyes and imagine an ad that reads, "It's a beautiful day to work out. What will it be: the golf course, the tennis court or the rifle range?"

---

[i] Pamphlet texts quoted from: Josh Sugarman, National Rifle Association - Money, Firepower and Fear, Violence Policy Center, 1992.

Archery Ticket to Higher Learning

I know this blog is about our gun culture and "Liberal in the NRA" and the schizophrenic nature of our sport's image (weapons vs sport), but at this point, I must digress. While paging through my Chicago Tribune yesterday, I tripped over a long article with photos about archery. What stopped me is the association between archery and education. You can get a college scholarship through excellence with a bow and arrow. It seems that interest in archery is growing as a sport and as a ticket to college, especially since our last Olympic Archery team was slaughtered in their last appearance. Schools have been intensifying their search for bow and arrow talent as school administrations have shown approval.

Now, in the course of America's sports history, college rifle and pistol teams once were training grounds for marksmen and women -- even though the NRA frowned on European metric targets and ranges. When I was in high school, our ROTC battalion had a rifle team, of which I was co-captain. We were doomed to somewhat mediocre performance by the army surplus 1920 Springfield .22 rifles that were hardly tack drivers. However, at the senior year's sports award banquet, my team mates and I were able to step forward and receive our sports letter to sew on our school sweaters along with the other jocks. That was the first time my Dad ever applauded me and my ticket was punched as a lifelong marksman.

We haven't been exactly world beaters at International firearms competition. It would be nice if schools could revive interest in rifle and pistol marksmanship at the scholarship level if we can bring the sport back to public recognition as a character builder and disciplined pursuit as practiced by today's marksmen and women. I have no sour grapes against archery. I have a beautiful hand made 75 pound recurve in my closet, which only needs a set of matched arrows to resuscitate. Good for archery, but rifle, pistol and shotgun marksmanship should be rewarded with the same push as other traditional sports -- especially with a league of our own.

"Dad...Let me show you..."

Father and son (or daughter) walks in the woods are fond memories for many shooters with a little snow on the roof. My Dad and I spent many hours crunching through fall leaves and meandering down cornrows with shotguns in  the crook of our arms. More often than not, at the end of the day the war surplus canvas game bag we carried held nothing but our empty coffee thermos and balled-up wax paper that once wrapped our lunch sandwiches. Maybe we tossed a few wormy apples in the air for each other just work the guns and smell the powder smoke in the crisp fall air, but the walk and the talk were the big features of our gun culture "hunting" trips into the farmland north of Chicago.

The rifle range at Fox Valley was a different matter -- that was strictly business. While we had gone there often with our shotguns and .22s to blast clay targets and clink tiny steel discs at the plinking range, other trips were with the American Legion Junior Rifle Team toting our M1 .30 caliber rifles to shoot for score and qualification rankings. I had made it all the way up to NRA and military Expert as had the other members of our small  team. On one occasion, we drove the long distance from Chicago's South Side to the Algonquin, Illinois range to practice before a big military/civilian meet to be shot at Fort Sheridan. My Dad came along for the first time.

After we had all fired our qualifiers for the Army "C" course, and had been pushed around pretty good by the recoil of that heavy infantry rifle, Doc Meissner, our coach and an old Camp Perry gunny asked Dad if he wanted to shoot the M1. The last time he had fired a center fire rifle was in the Navy -- an '03 Springfield bolt action in California on a qualification range in 1940, just before he was mustered out of his second hitch. Sixteen years had gone by and when Doc handed him the rifle and a clip of 30-'06 cartridges, I could see -- even at the young and stupid age of 16 -- that he was uneasy. He hefted the long slab of wood and steel like it was an alien thing. All my life, Dad had tried to show me how to do things, with varying degrees of success. Now, I found myself stepping up and saying, "Hey Dad, let me show you..." and helping him slip into the army arm-loop sling.

I sat cross-legged next to him on the shooting mat as he worked through a bad trigger flinch, dry-fires and finally turning red flag misses down at 200 yards into hits in the black circle. Not much was ever said about that afternoon at the range, but later, in my senior year when I was invited, along with the ROTC rifle team at South Shore High School, to the Sports Lettermen's Presentation Ceremony, he came along. When we six had all received our letters to be sewn on our senior blue and aqua cardigan sweaters, He was grinning when, for the first time in my life, he applauded me.

Pssst...Hey, buddy...

I was reading today about the dearth of rifle and pistol ranges in the city of Chicago even though the City Council approved their opening. Sounds like a good deal until you read the restrictions concerning "where" a range is permitted to exist. Running down the list of "forbidden" locations ("within 1,000 feet of a school" -- hell, when I was a kid on the South Side, we had a rifle range IN our high school), it appears only a concrete bunker built on an artificial island way offshore in Lake Michigan would be suitable real estate. Now, THERE's a use for abandoned Northerly Island!

Sportsmen and women are asking why do we have to drive 40 miles outside the city to receive firearms instruction classes demanded by the city to obtain a gun permit? Why are ranges barred from being built near any human habitation? Do City Council members fear shifty gun owners in long overcoats standing on street corners trying to peddle firearms along with their Rolex wristwatch knock-offs, or selling guns out of car trunks in alleys...? Oh, wait, that's what's happening now.

We need more rifle and pistol ranges and more instruction locations where adults and young people can plug back into an American tradition. We need rifle or pistol teams to get at least as much newspaper sport section space as local Bass Fishing tournaments! And I love bass fishing. Shooting sports are great character builders requiring practice, physical skills, responsibility and rigorous respect for the rules of safe gun handling.

Let the gun worshiper patriotic bullies woof, stomp and bellow while the anti-gun crowd slithers around with their sweat-stained statistic pads. The rest of us can just keep working to take back our sport.

.38 Caliber Therapy

Ever have a day when you felt everything you touched turned into poop and you just had to leave for an hour  with your favorite Smith & Wesson .38 Special Military and Police five-screw Hand Ejector six-inch barrel revolver, fully nickel-plated with reddish walnut combat grips and pump half a box of wadcutters down range until the black circle in the middle of that target was just a big ragged hole? I feel better just writing about it.

Of course, exorcising demons is only one use for heating up a perfectly innocent firearm. Some mornings at the 100 meter rifle range, beneath the cool corrugated ceiling and loading your first clip of the day one shell at a time with a nine o'clock wind on your cheek, the day holds nothing but promise. The problem is, not enough shooting sportsmen can enjoy these simple pleasures whenever they wish. There are not enough ranges.

We need more pistol, rifle, and shotgun ranges. It seems odd to me that people get into bidding wars to live right off the fairway of a golf course. One fella got his retirement wish right downwind from the Tee box of the club's 16th hole; a nice brick home with a patio just off the master bedroom. On his second day in that lovely residence, he stepped out in his pajamas into the perfumed grassy breeze, stretched, yawned contentedly and then performed a perfect half tuck forward roll with a pike layout, assisted by a high velocity Titelist golf ball to the back of his cranium. For months afterward, he spoke in tongues and swore he saw Jesus with his dead cousin Ambrose. That could never happen at a properly run rifle range.

More decent firearms sportsmen and women are being needlessly injured every day as hapless targets on golf courses, or lunging for a baseline backhand at the tennis court. Hamstrings, concussions, pulled this and torn that, all injuries that could be prevented by spending more time on a safe firing line.

Read American Shooter, learn about our gun culture and help turn this mess around.

 

"Weapons" or "Firearms"

No sooner did I finish the last post than I tuned into an interview on-line of Bill Maher by Piers Morgan. Normally, I love Bill Maher. Piers Morgan sails on neutral waters with his whiney British accent, but okay. They were discussing guns and the gun culture in the United States. Maher likened guns to his antibiotics. He accepts his pills, but he doesn't "love" them, doesn't polish them, doesn't worship them. They are there if needed. Morgan whined about having 300,000,000 "weapons" in the United states and that shut everything down for me.

All weapons are not guns and all guns are not weapons. A gun is designed to fire a missile at a distant target. Not a distant head, or a distant chest, or foot, or other body part. A knife is designed to cut -- not designed to cut throats, or commit hari-kiri. Just to cut. We make a gun or a knife a weapon. Fewer people are hurt on a rifle range than on a golf course, or a tennis court each year.

The police and military design guns to be weapons, because defending lives and property is part of their jobs. In some countries miliary service is compulsary and a military rifle is in every family closet and young men and women are trained in its use. We don't do that. There is a disconnect in the U.S. between "weapons" for the police and military and "firearms" for the general population -- or there should be. Gun manufacturers have chosen to beat the warfare drum and promise military superpowers to whomever buys one of their weapons. Testosterone-dipped Americans are brain-washed into buying the Rambo concept and every once in a while one of them goes off the tracks on onto the 10:00 PM news.

American Shooter supports the idea of that disconnect between military and police "weapons" and "firearms" for American sportsmen and women. The distinction is important if we are to return to our traditional roots.

Woof and Stomp Truth Management

On February 28, the Chicago Tribune published a canned feature called the "Truth-O-Meter" from an outfit called Politifact that analizes claims and statements made by politicians and their chums in an attempt to discover some grain of truth amid the rhetoric. Wayne LaPierre, boss of the NRA spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference. LaPierre claimed President Obama "endorsed a total ban on the sale and possession of all handguns." Based on a 1996 Illinois state voter multiple questionnaire, which the then candidate for the Illinois senate staff said he never saw, someone typed "yes" after a question on banning all handguns. This yellowing antique "evidence" in the sweaty hands of the NRA Truth Managers triggered a feeding frenzy culminating in the concept  that the president is just "biding his time" to get re-elected in 2012 and then he springs into action to unleash a holy war on all gun owners. To date, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has given the president flunking marks in his views on gun banning and every survey known to man verifies this fact. President Obama should be judged by the only two playing fields that count: his actual statements and his actual record not by the aluminum foil hat people who use the Internet like a dirty hand towel.

While writng American Shooter and about our gun culture, I laid out my idea of shutting down this hopping from one foot to the other with savage glee every time some fragment of soggy-bottom logic happens to align with ideological stars and the torches are lit for another Muggles Parade. Mixed metaphor aside, American Shooting Sportsmen and women are developing a tin ear where hate and meaness are the tools of debate. Let's use our resources and imagination to let the public in on our traditional and character-building sport.