FROM THE EDITOR





	By the end of our phone conversation, the reporter remarked to me 

with a shaky laugh, "This issue certainly brings our people's passions, 

on both sides."



	I laughed, too, realizing that I had gotten a little carried 

away.  "It does indeed," I told her.  "When you feel strongly about 

something, and you hear the other side lie and lie, it's sometimes hard to 

keep the decibel level down."  I hadn't quite resorted to "liar, liar, 

pants on fire," but I came close.



	She had called, as had the reporter the day before to talk about 

women and guns because the issue had moved into the media spotlight again.



	What prompted the calls were a "report" by the Violence Policy 

Center, entitled "Female Persuasion: How The Firearms Industry Markets to 

Women and the Reality of Women and Guns" and a University of Chicago 

Social Survey which purports to show that there has been no increase in 

gun ownership among women (or men)for the years 1980 to 1994.



	Despite its name, the Violence Policy Center is plain and simple 

an anti-gun group.  I've never seen or heard anything from the Violence 

Policy Center or its spokesman, Josh Sugarmann, that is not an anti-gun 

screed. (For more on the VPC's latest "study," see may friend and 

colleague Julianne Versnel Gottlieb's "Parting Shots" column on Page 58.)



	I imagine the Violence Policy Center, which is based in 

Washington, D.C., could probably find some non-gun violence to cast its 

eye upon (perhaps by looking out their window from time to time), but, 

apparently, hoplophobia is a full time job for Josh, choreographer to the 

anti-gunners, and his corps de ballet.



	The report is co-authored by Sugarmann and Susan Click.  You will 

be amazed to learn, if you wade through the "report" that the evil 

firearms industry, in cahoots with its vile compatriots in the pro-gun 

organizations, apparently has the ability to cloud women's minds.  

Hitherto unsuspecting women, only dimly aware of the dangers that 

surround them, are somehow forced to buy guns against their will.



	This silly (were it not so dangerous) view of the firearms 

industry as white slavers dragging virgins off street corners and forcing 

them to commit unspeakable acts like target shooting is not new, but the 

shrillness with which Mr. Sugarmann and Ms. Glick are sounding the 

current alarm, is.



	All of the anti-gun groups (even those who actually use the word 

"gun" or "firearm in their organizational titles) have been running 

scared of the increasingly visible population of women gunowners for the 

last few years.



	These people are not stupid.



	Well, not entirely.  The reasoning behind this current strategy 

is plain to see.  If enough women become gun owners, or accept the fact 

that many of their sisters, coworkers, friends, etc., are, the political 

and social struggle over the issue will be lost, and Josh and Susan would 

need to look for honest work.



	Having identified women as "swing voters" on the firearms issue, 

the battle for their hearts and minds is on.



	The Josh Sugarmanns of the world can see only one way to persuade 

women that guns are bad.  And that is to tell women that they are being 

"exploited" by men.



	When this line of reasoning comes up, I usually point out to 

interested media observers that in order to "exploit" a woman into 

becoming a gun owner, the wily firearms manufacturer has to force her to 

borrow or buy a firearms magazine, since that is usually the only place 

where anyone can find an ad for a firearm.



	Having accomplished this feat, the ad has to leap off the page, 

almost literally grab the simple lass by the throat and drag her ot a gun 

store, where she will encounter a federally licensed (and regulated and 

taxed) businessman, twirling his handlebar mustache presumably, who will 

overlook the 20,000 or so federal, state and local gun laws and 

immediately place in her hand a handgun( Josh et al are almost always 

talking about handguns--at least for starters).



	With the magical, mystical powers possessed only by the firearms 

industry, having thus (falsely, as Josh would have it) empowered our poor 

sister, she suddenly turns into Thelma and Louise on a very bad day and 

endangers herself, her children, and every living thing within a 50 mile 

radius.



	Am I the only one who sees this as an incredibly sexist 

argument?  The idea that women as a species are so dumb (How dumb are 

they, Josh?) that they can be led into making a serious, life-altering, 

deeply personal choice merely at the suggestion of a group of manufacturers?



	Most of the people I know in the firearms business--including a 

proportionately large number of women--are a nice group of people, who 

care about their products--but they ain't magicians, folks.  Yup, they 

would like you to buy their brand, but if they had a formula for 

seducing the majority of the population into buying their product they 

would--believe me--be applying these amazing marketing skills to much 

higher ticket items--condos in Sarajevo or bridges in Brooklyn--almost 

anything that costs more than the $300 or so you'd pay for a gun.



	And, if they were so darn smart that they could figure out how to 

make women buy guns just by telling them too, I'm sure we'd soon see 

dogs, cats, and even men lined up, buying guns.  Which kind of wrecks the 

Sugarmann premise that manufacturers are only picking on women because 

their other markets have stultified.



	As the estimable Sue King, executive director of the Women's 

Shooting Sports Foundation, said in a riposte to the Sugarmann "report:"

"This report is not only off the mark, it is also an insult to all women, 

whether they own firearms or not.  The idea that women could somehow be 

duped or manipulated into purchasing firearms--or any other product, for 

that matter--is both a sexist and condescending notion.  I can't believe 

anyone would take a report entitled `Male Persuasion' seriously.  

Obviously, the reverse should also be true."



	Those of us who didn't just fall off a turnip truck will 

recognize this whole "exploitation" argument as the same old (sexist) 

pig, dressed in a different outfit.



	In 1991, Debra Dobray and Arthur Waldrop, of Southern Methodist 

University, published a Whittier College Law Review article titled, 

"Regulating Handgun Advertising Directed at Women."  Their premise was 

that women were too stupid to realize that firearms manufacturers were 

targeting them, and suggested, "Because a state has the authority under 

its police powers to prohibit the carrying or possession of weapons that 

can be concealed, it appears this authority would extend to the 

particular type of handgun advertising in question."



	(W&G dissected this article in a 1992 feature 

titled--surprise--"Are You Too Stupid to Read This Magazine?"  

Unfortunately, we're out of back copies of that issue, but I would be 

happy to send a copy of the article, written by myself, Sherry Collins, 

Fran Haga, Nancy Bittle and Sandy Froman, to anyone who sends a stampted, 

self-addressed envelope.  it is instructive to historians (and 

herstorians) of this question to see that everything old is new again.



	The University of Chicago Survey is a different kettle of fish.



	Basically, it says that "Neither women nor men are more likely 

to own either a gun or handgun [sic] than they were in 1980."



	They survey goes on to say that 11.6% of all women own a gun, a 

number that their researchers say hasn't changed since 1980. (This is one 

of those tricky math things that we women aren't good, at I know, but if 

the total population of women is greater in 1994 than it was in 1980, 

wouldn't 11.6% of it be a bigger number today than it was 14 years ago?)



	Maybe the researchers didn't say that the number was the 

same--maybe it only got reported that way.  An interested side light of 

the University of Chicago Survey is the these researchers said that while 

the number of women (and men) gun owners remained static in the last 14 

years what did increase was the number of stories about women gun owners.



	More than 90 newspaper and magazine stories were studied, most 

published in the last four years on the subject of women and guns.  The 

researchers didn't mention the jillions of television and radio programs 

devoted to this subject, I assume because men of science have better 

things to do with their time than watch Oprah.



	The researchers found the typical print story on the subject 

claimed that s 17 to 20 percent of all adult women own guns.  (Score one 

for the media--the ink-stained wretches came within a few points of the 

academics' findings.)



	Where the scientists and the media diverge, according to the 

survey,  is in the profile of the typical woman gun owner.



	The media found her to be a single, city dweller who had either 

been the victim of crime, or feared the prospect.  The University of 

Chicago researchers say she more typically lives outside city centers, is 

married and the victimization is unrelated ot ownership.



	Sounds right to me.



	All of it.



	When we did our survey of WOMEN & GUNS' readers last year that's 

what we found.  Some of you are married.  Some aren't.  Some live in 

cities.  Some don't.  Some had been crime victims.  Some hadn't.  And so on.



	None of you mentioned being hypnotized by an ad for a gun.  None 

of you said you were dragged into the political bushes by a pro-gun group.



	Whatever your reason for gun ownership initially, it probably 

made sense to you.  It probably still does.



	And whether you are 17%, or 20% or 11.6% of the female population 

doesn't really matter to you, me or the firearms industry.  It's a big 

enough number for all of us--over 10 million by anyone's count.



	Happily, it's also a big enough number to scare Josh Sugarmann.  

Which, coupled with the big turn-out by pro-gun voters on Nov. 8, 1994, 

is why Sugarmann and friends have resurrected this old, dead, sexist pig 

all over again.





Peggy Tartaro

Executive Editor