February 1996 Column: Birthday Celebration



When I was much younger, my father used to put out the flag for my 

birthday—a bit of parental sarcasm aimed at a kid who made a big deal of 

"her day" and insisted that everyone else do the same. As the years rolled 

by, I've taken a more low key approach outwardly, but secretly thought 

that it would be okay if someone hired the Philharmonic to serenade me 

with Elvis Costello's greatest hits. I take other people's birthdays 

seriously, too, plotting the perfect gift, calculating the impact of mailing 

someone 40 cards, looking for ever more fanciful cake recipes, etc.

It surprised me a little, then, to discover that for the last few years, I have 

let Women & Guns' birthday go unremarked in this column. I plead a 

familiar, if unacceptable, excuse: too busy.

Yes, we do try to make the February issue a little more special. For some 

reason it is traditionally our best seller on the newsstand. (I assume that 

has to do with the fact that reading is just about all anyone can manage 

from mid-January through mid-February, other activities being curtailed 

by the worst of winter, no matter where you live.) It is also the issue we 

take to the SHOT Show, the premier industry trade show, so we like to 

dress it up a bit.

Unfortunately, we are working on this issue just as the full force of the 

professional and personal year-end is in full swing. That makes it a case of 

the cobbler's children having no shoes, as Julie and I, and everyone else 

connected with W&G rushes about trying desperately to finish all our 

assigned tasks, relax briefly at the Holidays and then resume the rat race 

that seems to feature those genetically-enhanced Super Rats I'm always 

reading about.

I determined, several weeks ago, that this year would be different, that I 

would reflect on the year (and years) past. I even got the first paragraph 

finished. Then reality entered and the column sat around (with computers 

"out of sight, out of mind" is the operative principle, and it's difficult to 

remember that just because something has a file name, it doesn't mean it is 

completed).

I don't have children of my own, but am blessed with a variety of them in 

the form of friends and relatives. Seven seems like a nice age to me, 

although those of you with kids that age may be shaking your heads while 

wearing one of those little "mother knows best" smiles. But at seven, 

children seem fairly well engaged with the world; they can manage games 

more challenging than Candy Cane Lane; they like stories, even ones that 

are about the past (if you don't lay the "I walked 40 miles to school in 

holey sneakers in a blizzard" stuff on too thickly); they ask penetrating 

questions; they have developed a sense of what they like and don't like, 

sometimes emphatically so; and they get jokes if you don't stray too far 

beyond the knock-knock variety.

My youngest nephew, at that age, was wont to remark to his mother, 

"Remember when I was in your belly?" To which my sister-in-law would, 

accompanied by some eye-rolling, reply, "Oddly enough, Joe, I do 

remember that."

Although the arrival of W&G was somewhat less traumatic, it, too, is well 

remembered: 24 pages, black and white, very little advertising, and almost 

entirely written by its "mother," Sonny Jones. The magazine stayed that 

way for a year or so, in its infant stages. The discerning relative could see 

the changes happening, some month's, right before our very eyes: a little 

better paper stock, a few more graphics, the introduction of more writers, 

etc.

In the fall of 1991, W&G took it's first really big leap—to the newsstand, 

all dressed up in a color cover featuring media icons Thelma & Louise 

(this was followed by an October 1991 cover with Linda Hamilton buffed 

up for Terminator 2 and a December 1991 cover with Anne Pauliard as 

the French assassin, La Femme Nikita—there must have been something 

in the mineral water in Hollywood that year, it was a very good one for 

strong, gun-handling women).

By our third birthday we had begun to feel comfortable, confident, as if 

we had truly arrived. That year's cover featured actress Sharon Farrell. 

Our contributing editors included by then, Karen MacNutt, Sheila Link 

and Lyn Bates, all of whom have hung around as fairy godmothers to this 

publication, its readers, and especially its editors. We tested the Glock .45 

(a particular favorite of Sonny's), the Remington 1187 and delved into a 

brand new debate brought forth by a law review article tiled "Regulating 

Handgun Advertising Directed at Women." We assembled a team of 

experts to dissect the thesis, which boiled down to a basic premise 

positing that women were just too dumb to be trusted with guns. It's a 

series of articles I've had occasion to refer to over the succeeding years 

because so much of the anti-gun attitude toward women gunowners has 

sprung from it. Our expert panel, Nancy Bittle, Sherry Collins, Fran Haga 

and Sandy Froman continue as friends and colleagues.

Our fourth birthday was another of monumental change. I assumed 

editorship of the publication as Sonny left to take charge of the National 

Rifle Association's Refuse to be a Victim Program. Sonny is still at NRA, 

but, perhaps because once a writer, always a writer, is now regional editor 

of the Association's two monthly publications.

The February 1993 issue contained the first of what has now been 

established as an annual February tradition: the handgun roundup. That 

year it was .380s, just beginning to be seen as a viable defense round. The 

five guns were written up by Gila May, who had begun writing for us the 

year before. Now she's Gila May-Hayes, but she's still the same 

thoughtful, thorough writer, as her monumental paean to the .45 in this 

issue makes clear. Very soon now, she and I will have our one face-to-face 

meeting each year, at the SHOT Show. Gila will have a list (in duplicate) 

of what she wants to work on, plus what she's seen new at the show so far 

and I will be the one with the run in my stocking, with a crumpled handful 

of paper, looking dazed and confused.

Our fifth birthday issue featured a chocolate cake on the cover surrounded 

by six semi-autos in .40 S&W. I take full credit for the pastry on the 

cover, which to date has been our best -selling newsstand issue. I had read 

in some trade magazine that one of the women's magazines always put a 

chocolate cake on the cover whenever they wanted to boost newsstand 

sales, and figured it might work for us as well. That issue also announced 

that issues were now "16% larger" and our contributing editors list had 

swelled with the additions of Roger Lanny, Marge Pepiot and Carolee 

Boyles-Sprenkel, all of whom continue to grace our pages frequently.

Last year's birthday was relatively peaceful, no big changes, no upheavals; 

it seemed we were finally getting the hang of things. In fact all of 1995 

was like that, although both publisher Julianne Versnel Gottlieb and I took 

on rather more travel than either of us felt was strictly necessary. While 

they may be naming a sandwich after her at San Francisco airport, I'm 

pretty sure there's a diet soda with my name on it at Pittsburgh airport on 

any given Sunday night. The upside of travel is getting to see Julie more 

often, even if we have to sometimes remind each other of where we 

actually are. It's also a great opportunity to meet the people who are at the 

heart of Women & Guns: the readers. This issue's letters section 

notwithstanding, the past year brought little complaint, and some months, 

very little comment at all. I tell myself that that means we are doing 

everything exactly to every single one of your liking, even as I hold my 

breath, knowing when something really pleases/vexes/annoys you, you 

will write. Still, consider me your old Auntie Peggy, and drop me a line 

sometime, we really do want to know what you think!

Before we get to this year's celebration, it seems proper to take a moment 

to thank some other folks. Behind every great woman (and great women's 

magazine) are some pretty good guys. My father, Joseph Tartaro, 

encouraged Sonny to pursue her dream of starting W&G at a Gun Rights 

Policy Conference in Dallas in 1988. When it became too big a project for 

her to handle solo, he knew it was something that mustn't be allowed to 

vanish, and brought it under the Second Amendment Foundation's wing. 

Both he and Alan Gottlieb have been steadfast in their commitment to this 

project, devoting considerable Foundation resources to it, as both have 

long been articulate advocates of the "Big Tent" theory of gun rights. It is 

comforting to have both of them to turn to for advise, counsel and 

occasional proofreading.

The other big patrons of this publication have been its advertisers. It is all 

too often easy to forget that the fine folks who run ads in our pages are 

doing more than just trying to get you to buy something–they are truly 

supporting this publication. Without them and their commitment to a 

magazine for women gunowners it would not be possible to bring you 

Women & Guns in the form you see it. Although it took about a year to 

engage the industry's interest, in the main they have since been steadfast 

in their support. We are not a "big" publication, so we can't offer them the 

kinds of numbers their accountants love to crunch, but we can, and do, 

extend our thanks on behalf of not just our readers, but all women 

gunowners.

Our masterhead on Page 4 now contains another name among our 

contributing editors: Judy Woolley. I was very happy to have her come 

aboard, and in just a few short months Judy has made—as the title implies, 

significant contributions, helping to broaden the scope of topics covered 

in these pages.

All of our contributing editors take their work seriously, and all have, at 

one time or another, come up with subject matter for these pages that has 

made my job a lot easier, and these pages a lot more significant. For those 

of you who are curious, none of our editors work out of our Buffalo office, 

they are scattered about the country. We communicate mostly by phone 

and fax, and, increasingly, computer. But it is always nice to see them "in 

person" when the fates allow.

I hope that you enjoy our first-ever illustrated cover, where artist Sara 

Gilbert has a little fun with our notion of  "True Romance." 

So as we turn seven together, I am glad to have been able to look back at 

how it was, even as I strain, like any normal seven-year-old, to see ahead.

Peggy Tartaro,

Executive Editor