In short, the gun community consists of all those who have a strong and public positive interest in firearms. For the scope of this paper, the gun community will hereafter refer primarily to shooting and gun rights organizations, gun enthusiast publications, online communication forums for gun owners and similar groups of people “steeped in the gun culture” but not manufacturers, dealers, show organizers or similar makers and distributors of firearms.

The issue of women in shooting and gun rights organizations has been addressed in a preliminary fashion by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Over the course of the year 1994, the NRA made several public statements with disparate numbers, claiming anywhere from 5% to 16.7% of their membership were female. These wildly variant claims were punctuated by moments of frank admission that the NRA had no real idea of how many women were members of their organization (yet still insisted that the percentage was growing.) (Bassin 1997) Whether those figures are accurate or not, the NRA – the largest gun rights organization in the United States – is simultaneously claiming that it is an organization that is welcoming to women and is showing ever-increasing female membership yet their highest estimate of female membership is still over six percentage points lower than the percentage of gun owners who are female. The NRA has increased outreach to females in recent years, especially to female hunters yet Stange and Oyster (2000, 24) report a “dramatic jump” in female hunters from 3% to 10% of the hunting population - still nowhere near the 23.1% we would expect if gun-owning women were participating in shooting sports as fully as men.

Women are self-segregating when it comes to gun rights organizations, as evidenced by the proliferation of female-oriented organizations such as the Second Amendment Sisters (SAS), Women Against Gun Control (WAGC), Arming Women Against Rape and Endangerment (AWARE), Safety for Women and Responsible Motherhood (SWARM). Similarly, women are greatly underrepresented in most shooting clubs across the country. When the topic of female members of gun clubs was raised recently on several online message forums, individuals from all over the country claimed to have many female members but, upon further questioning, it turned out that no one was willing to claim that one-fifth of their membership was female and most admitted that women almost never showed up at the range other than on ladies’ night, further evidence of the self-segregation of women in the gun community.

While female gun owners are just as likely to read popular magazines such as Guns & Ammo, there is evidence that women are not writing for these publications in representative numbers. For example, an examination of the NRA’s main magazine, American Rifleman, found that for the 36 issues published in 2003 to 2005 inclusive, 205 of the feature articles in the publication were male-written (98%), 3 were female-written (1.4%) and 1 was written by a mixed-gender team (0.4%.) The editorial staff during that time consisted of 11 (91.6%) males and 1 female (8.3%). These figures do not begin to approach the actual gender demographics of American gun owners, nor do they even come close to the NRA’s claims of female representation within the membership of their organization.

Realizing that their main publication wasn’t adequately serving the needs of the female members it sought to enlist, the NRA began offering a new magazine, Woman’s Outlook, to members last year. Woman’s Outlook is too new to judge yet, but another magazine, Women & Guns, has been publishing firearms articles written by women and for women since 1989. The publication began with only 500 subscribers and, as of this writing circulation has grown to 25,000. While this is still small when compared to the huge circulation of general interest gun magazines such as Guns & Ammo with a circulation over 450,000, Women & Guns has achieved significant readership because it addresses issues of significance to female gun enthusiasts.

Executive editor Peggy Tartaro (2006), in discussing the history of the magazine, writes that “exploration of self-image [was] an issue which preoccupied readers in the early days of the magazine.” The October 1991 issue was a bestseller due to exploring this topic in the context of Linda Hamilton’s tough gun-wielding character in the blockbuster movie, Terminator 2: Judgement Day. As female gun owners have become more visible in society, women who own guns have been forced to question societal norms and constraints surrounding issues of femininity and expected female roles.

General interest gun magazines have been traditionally skittish about discussing these topics and so women have self-segregated to female-focused publications, web sites and discussion forums where these ideas can be addressed more freely in a supportive environment. Still, Kelly (2004, 94) notes that “women who already own firearms tend to stay quiet about it” which forces other women interested in firearms to turn to the men in their lives but “if – as is common – she relies on a male friend or relative for advice, she is likely to stumble into a confusing, macho world of half-formed opinions, bluff, and bluster.”

Perhaps the most hostile environments in the gun community are the mixed-gender online discussion forums. While some participants are supportive of others, including those new to firearms, most online forums primarily exhibit communication styles that are argumentative, lecturing, patronizing, condescending, and combative. This state of affairs is typically not constant but is quickly advanced when someone says or does something that steps outside the narrow parameters of accepted belief and behavior. In this, the online gun community merely echoes the general gun community, of which Bogus (2000, 1358) writes, “Those not familiar with the American gun community are generally not aware of how ideologically zealous it is.”

The extreme peer pressure to conform is not directed only at female members of the online gun community; everyone who stands by an unpopular belief will be subjected to various levels of censure as a result. In some cases, the disagreements are civil but in many cases, the discussion quickly degenerates into a “flame war” – a hostile and acrimonious public online dispute typically characterized by insults and/or threats – as the community struggles to force everyone to adhere to the group’s collective view of right and wrong behaviors and beliefs.

For example, the gun community strongly advocates keeping one’s finger off the trigger of one’s gun until one is ready to fire it. At first inspection, this seems a very reasonable safety measure but the community does not stop with reason and safety. Anyone who takes a photo, even one obviously intended to be artistic, that depicts someone with their finger on the trigger is lectured and chastised. Even outside the main gun community, these self-appointed guardians of standards and safety will make it their duty to lecture or humiliate those who do not comply.

On DeviantArt (online message board, September 26, 2005), a photo of a beautiful woman in lingerie holding a handgun is met with a lengthy lecture that ends, “A model with her finger alongside the trigger guard is just as clearly "armed and dangerous" without being in a position where a negligent discharge is possible. Even if that's just a prop gun, it's always a good idea to show guns being handled with respect.” Less kind are reactions on the General Mayhem chat site (online message board, November 17, 2004) where a member posted a photo and later deleted it after receiving comments such as “Finger off the trigger(s) moron.” and “get your finger off the trigger n00b” (“n00b” is a term of insult that insinuates that the person so addressed is inexperienced, uneducated, and incompetent.)

Peggy Tartaro (2006) tells the story of a letter published in the premier issue of Women & Guns in reference to a photo of the magazine’s founder, Sonny Jones, which had appeared in a Gun Week article dedicated to the launching of her new magazine. A man who saw the photo of Jones complained because she had her finger on the trigger of her gun. Jones responded that the man’s true complaint was that she dared to show “attitude.” Attitude is not appreciated in the gun community in general, even less so when that attitude has a female source.

When participating in conversations about gender and firearms in some of the online gun communities, I primarily found two types of replies – challenging and sometimes antagonistic responses from male posters who assured me that any notion of gender under-representation in the gun community was strictly imaginary and an indicator that I was not genuinely part of the gun community myself, and supportive responses from female posters who were quick to agree that there weren’t nearly as many women “out there” as there should be when considering how many women own firearms.

One male participant (online message board, October 13, 2005, LiveJournal Guns Community) claimed that there really weren’t as many female firearms owners as I claimed because “a lot of women come in as straw purchasers for their (assumidly) [sic] boyfriends.” A “straw purchaser” is someone who is able to purchase a firearm legally and chooses to do so in order to then give or sell the firearm to someone else who is not legally allowed to purchase or own it. Because the data discussed earlier is based on surveys rather than point-of-purchase data, I believe the straw purchase claim is inaccurate. As mentioned above, 25% of new firearms purchases are made by females – a percentage that does not appear to clash with the previously calculated assumption that 23.1% of firearms owners are female.

Reasons women participating in the online discussions cited for self-segregation of gun owning women included being “uncomfortable shooting around men” because they sometimes make derisive comments to and about female shooters or approach a woman shooting alone or with other women to giver her uninvited “lessons” on how she should be shooting. One woman told a story of a group of men who were shooting in the bay next to her and another woman. The men made increasingly sexist comments, directed at the two women. At one point, one of the men loudly asked another where his wife was and the response was, “at home, where she belongs.”

Other women, however, responded that gender had always been a non-issue for them in the world of firearms and that they had never been treated in a condescending or disrespectful manner for being a female firearms enthusiast. Some women do not feel the pressure to self-segregate, but it appears that a large number of women in the gun community do feel and respond to such pressures. Why is this?

The three main reasons female firearms enthusiasts choose to self-segregate from the larger gun community are the avoidance of outside stigma from people, particularly other women, who do not own guns; the avoidance of stigma from both within and without the gun community when it comes to seeking a mate; and avoidance of the stress associated with failing to conform to community standards.

Many women who own and use firearms consider arming themselves to be a feminist act. As NRA spokesperson Paxton Quigley has put it, guns are “the last frontier of feminism” and “if you learn how to fight and have a gun, you can be powerful.” (Bassin 1997) But the larger feminist community has traditionally been anti-firearm, putting forth such statements as “guns have become symbolic of violence against women” (Buckner 1994) and “women who view guns as an “equalizer” are victims of the NRA and the gun industry’s marketing campaigns and fear tactics.” (Bassin 1997)

Confronted with the feminist censure often directed towards female firearms enthusiasts, three options present themselves: give up firearms, give up the feminist community, or give up the firearms community. For the empowered woman who has come to firearms of her own free will and choice, giving up a part of her life she feels strongly about is not an option. Similarly, strong women who have found their voice and their power within the feminist community are hesitant to leave that which has nurtured them for so long. The easiest choice is to avoid the public firearms community, keeping quiet about being a gun owner and spending firearms time away from the public community where a woman’s passion for firearms might be exposed to unwanted scrutiny from without the gun community.

As for finding a suitable mate, a woman faces two choices: find a mate from outside the gun community or find one from within. When seeking a mate outside the community, a woman faces the possibility of rejection for her involvement with the community. It is easier for a woman to slowly and selectively reveal her interest in firearms to a man or woman she is considering romantically and active participation in the gun community is likely to take that control out of her hands. Once a potential mate learns of her involvement with the NRA or the local sport shooting association, her membership can be taken as symbolic of that aspect of her life and she risks being judged according to perceptions of all NRA members or all gun owners as presented in movies and the popular media.

Seeking a mate from within the gun community does not alleviate the difficulties, however. As Michael Van Blaricum (2004) writes, his wife’s growing interest in firearms was threatening to him at first, leaving him feeling “insecure and resentful” despite his own deep interest in and love of firearms. When his wife first decided to become an NRA trainer, his reaction was a smug “Oh, isn’t that cute….”, but as her knowledge and proficiency grew, he soon discovered that his “wife’s new found love and knowledge of firearms threatened [his] ego so much so that [he] was blindsided” to such an extent that he purchased a handgun after she suggested it was not a good fit for him, just to “prove to her that being a Man and an Instructor [himself, he] obviously knew more than she did.”

Van Blaricum’s feelings about his wife’s skill with firearms are not unusual. In his case, he learned to accept and then to appreciate his wife’s prowess, but it can be difficult and threatening for men to encounter women in places that have traditionally been male-dominated, doubly so if those women exhibit higher levels of knowledge and proficiency than the surrounding men. Some women, such as Van Blaricum’s wife, are fortunate and end up with men who are able to reconcile themselves to the changing gender profile of the gun community. Some who seek mates from within the gun community are lesbian or bisexual and do not face the same gender-related challenges in seeking romantic relations with a fellow gun enthusiast who is also female. And some women are so firmly committed to their relationship with firearms that they would rather go without a romantic relationship than yield to social pressures surrounding female gun ownership. But a great number of women fall back on their socialization and choose to appear non-threatening and approachable, traits which require them to be less actively involved in the general gun community.

Even when not actively seeking a mate, however, women do experience many social pressures from the “ideologically zealous” gun community. Not all of these pressures are gender-related, but women tend to respond differently than men to social restrictions that both endure. The “finger off the trigger” issue mentioned above is just one example of ways that the gun community struggles to keep itself ideologically pure. Other tenets of the community include the notion that one can have “too many” guns, coupled with the idea that a person only requires one firearm. There is the idea that the shotgun is the optimal weapon for home defense, the maxim that the 1911 is the best handgun ever made (or similar specific gun preferences that do vary from sub-community to sub-community wherein a person is looked down upon if they don’t own a Glock, a Desert Eagle, a Sig, or whatever firearm the community has decided is the correct firearm to own.), and the belief that women should only use revolvers, never automatic pistols (an inherently demeaning belief since the explanation is that the automatic slide mechanism is too complicated for a woman to understand and too difficult for a woman to use – an explanation ironically parroted by many women who purport to teach women about firearms) (Quigley 1989, 167-8, 217).

The research of Sagiv and Schwartz (2000) indicates that people who find themselves in an environment where the shared values are incongruent with their own values, will be ignored or punished by the group for not sharing the communicated group values, leading to a sense of lessened well-being on the part of the individual who is out of sync with community norms. As has been shown, the gun community often exhibits value norms in direct conflict with those values more commonly held by women, be they harmonious interactions, artistic expression or simply firearm preferences based on having smaller hands and bodies than men. Additionally, the research of Bouckenooghe, Buelens, Fontaine, and Vanderheyden (2005) seem to indicate that women are more vulnerable to the stress effects of these conflicts of values than men are, which would explain why men are more likely to remain active in the gun community than women despite both genders reporting experiences of the gun community as being characterized by patronizing, derogatory, argumentative interactions that seem designed to intimidate individuals into agreeing with the consensus opinions.

Thus the gender demographics of the gun community fall far below the gender demographics of firearms owners due to a number of factors, most of which can be summarized as pressures from both the gun community and society at large to conform to pre-assigned roles and women’s reaction to and avoidance of the stress that arises from either accepting pressures to be less than who they are or refusing to conform and thus facing the social consequences.

In discussing her purpose for interviewing American women about firearms, Homsher (2000, 4) states:

I was always curious to see [...] what happened at the intersection between traditionally masculine organizations and their female constituents. As one might expect, local women very often adapted programs to fit their needs, borrowing some sections of a platform while discarding others. Occasionally they were able to join special women's programs designed to accommodate and attract them. But individual women also adapted themselves; they shaped their identities and their visions to accord with national agendas.

What would the firearms community look like if the women who are visible were all women who refuse to let others shape their identities and the women who forge their own identities were all to become more visible? Comprising nearly a quarter of firearms owners, women could be a powerful force for social change within a community far too often set in its ways and aggressively resistant to change. Perhaps increased visibility and participation from the hidden firearms sisterhood could be the key to a welcome sea-change in the general firearms community.

 

References

Bassin, Alana. 1997. “Why Packing a Pistol Perpetuates Patriarchy.” Hasting Women’s Law Journal 8 (Fall): 351-363

Bogus, Carl T. 2000. “Gun Litigation and Societal Values.” Connecticut Law Review 32: 1353 – 1378

Bouckenooghe, Dave, Marc Buelens, and Johnny Fontaine. 2005. “The Prediction of Stress by Values and Value Conflict.” The Journal of Psychology, 139 (4): 369–382.

Buckner, H. Taylor. 1994. “Sex and Guns: Is Gun Control Male Control?” Presented at the American Sociological Association 89th Annual Meeting, Los Angeles. http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Buckner/sex+guns (September 27, 2005).

General Social Surveys, 1972-2002. Chicago, IL: National Opinion Research Center, 2003.

Homsher, Deborah. 2000. Women and Guns: Politics and the Culture of Firearms in America. New York: M.E. Sharpe, New York.

Kelly, Caitlin. 2004. Blown Away: American Women and Guns. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Meyer, Julie “U.S. Census Bureau.” 2001. Age: 2000, Census 2000 Brief, C2KBR/01-12, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC. www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-12.pdf

Quigley, Paxton. 1989. Armed and Female: Twelve Million American Women Own Guns, Should You? New York: E. P. Dutton.

Quigley, Paxton. 1995. Not an Easy Target: Paxton Quigley's Self-Protection for Women. New York: Fireside.

Sagiv, Lilach, and Shalom H. Schwartz. 2000. “Value priorities and subjective well-being: direct relations and congruity effects.” European Journal of Social Psychology. 30: 177-198

Smith, Denise I., and Reneé E. Spraggins “U.S. Census Bureau.” 2001. Gender: 2000, Census 2000 Brief, C2KBR/01-9, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC. www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-9.pdf

Smith, Tom W., and Robert J. Smith. 1995. “Changes in Firearms Ownership Among Women, 1980-1994.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.86 (1): 133-149.

Stange, Mary Zeiss, and Carol K. Oyster. 2000. Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America. New York: New York University Press.

Tartaro, Peggy. 2006. “History of Women Gun Owners.” Women & Guns, January/February, 13-20.

Van Blaricum, Michael. 2004. “Her Right to Keep and Bear Arms (and know more about guns than you).” October 11. http://www.instantknowledgenews.com/herright.htm (January 5, 2006).

 

Appendix

Internet Firearms Communities consulted:

Gunboards Community <http://www.gunboards.com/>;
The High Road Community <http://www.thehighroad.org/>;
LiveJournal armedcitizen Community <http://community.livejournal.com/armedcitizen/profile>;
LiveJournal girlswithguns Community <http://community.livejournal.com/girlswithguns/profile>;
LiveJournal guns Community <http://community.livejournal.com/guns/profile>;
Packing Community <http://www.packing.org/>;
Women Against Gun Control 2A Educational Forum <http://www.network54.com/Forum/33620/>;
Yahoo AmericanGunOwners Community <http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/AmericanGunOwners/>;
Yahoo armedwoman Community <http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/armedwoman/>;
Yahoo FatChicksWithGuns Community <http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/FatChicksWithGuns/>;
Yahoo firearmslovers Community <http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/firearmlovers/>;
Yahoo gunsandammo Community <http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/gunsandammo/>;
Yahoo womenandtheirguns Community <http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/womenandtheirguns/>.