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Wives/girlfriends and guns - that has the potential of being a separate, long-running thread of it’s own!

It’s somewhat of a standing joke around my law firm. Whenever we have a new female employee or temp. at the office (sometimes even clients or visitors), everyone starts betting how long I’ll wait before asking whether they have a gun and, if not, “do you want one and when can you come to class?�

Yeah, I’m a huge supporter of women having guns for self-defense and secondarily for sporting purposes. But I have to say that I know of very few wives who are active in shooting; i.e. shoot in competition or on a regular basis. Steve is very lucky that Donna is an avid shooter. (She won her Class/Division in this year’s Texas State IDPA Championship.) There are a few others with wives or girlfriends that shoot regularly, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

My wife and I met when we were 12 years old and I’ve been crazy about her ever since. We’ve been married for over 32 years and she’s carried various pistols every day of our married life. She goes to Thunder Ranch with me at least once a year and she’s very serious about training when she’s there. She’s even been to TR without me! However, she is not an avid shooter at all. She goes to the range only reluctantly and solely because she knows she needs to practice, if she’s going to carry a gun and expect to be able to defend herself with it, if the need arises.

For years, I made the mistake of pushing her to start shooting in competition with me, so we could enjoy the sport together. It never worked, not once. The only time she’s been at the range during a match or one of our State Championships was to bring us food. (She made a lot of friends doing that!) She has no desire to compete in a match. For her, a gun is a tool with which she must maintain a certain level of competency for it to be useful to her - nothing more. Over the years, God has blessed me with some moderate level of wisdom and I have learned to be content with Martha’s position on guns. She’s level-headed, very competent with firearms (including AR’s), well trained in tactical shooting and that gives me a great deal of comfort.

So, what’s the moral of my rambling story? Only this; don’t try to make the ladies in your life avid, competitive shooters who won’t let you go to the range by yourself. If it works out that way, great; just don’t push it. Let her know that her owning, training, and carrying a gun for self-defense is not a prelude to you brow-beating her into making weekly visits to the range or shooting in competition. It is far more productive for the ladies to truly understand we want them armed and competent in self-defense skills for their safety, as opposed to a pretext to get them to the range more often. Some percentage of women who approach gun ownership for defensive purposes will enjoy shooting to the point they make it a sport and that’s great. I envy you guys who have wives that do. But when the ladies in your life tell you, as Martha has told me on several occasions, “I’m glad you convinced me to carry this thing for self-defense, but don’t think I’m going to the range every time you do[;]� don’t be offended or feel like you’ve failed. Our duty is to protect our wives and daughters and to teach and equip them to protect themselves when we are not around. (I know that’s a chauvinistic statement, but I’m old enough to have lived at a time when that attitude was appreciated, and I don’t care!) We can take pride in meeting that duty; beyond that, it’s all gravy.

(I may post this in the Ladies Forum as well, so as not to hijack this thread.)

Regards,
Chas.