Teamless wrote:if you want to help her out, offer to take her to the range for safety and handling training, then once YOU are sufficiently satisfied she can handle it, then you could loan her the gun, or go with her to the store to buy one.
But i certainly wouldn't just flop one out there for her, with no experience with one.
My only quibble with this is: Even if you take her to the range, and even if she is adept, and even if you are confident that she was able to manage, handle, and use your gun safely and legally,
are you willing to have your gun impounded by the police and maybe never returned if she ever uses it in self-defense?
My answer to that would be, "Unless she is my own daughter, NO." If she makes enough money to live alone and have her own place, then she makes enough money to buy a second hand Glock, or whatever she is comfortable with, and become herself a gun
OWNER, and not just a gun
BORROWER. After all, if you loan her the gun, and she uses it, and it gets confiscated,
she is going to either pay you for it, or replace it, isn't she? If it was a financial burden, and there really was a pressing need, I might be willing to loan her part or all of the purchase price, so long as she understood that this was a loan that was expected to be repaid. This not because it would break me financially to not be repaid. It is because she needs to have
ownership of the process; otherwise she has no real commitment to the thing in which she is engaging, and firearm ownership requires commitment.
I have strong feelings about people who are anti-gun who suddenly get religion when its their
own hides on the line. I totally am on board with taking someone like that to the range, teaching them safety and how to shoot. But just as a newly born-again Christian must walk their
own faith walk—I cannot walk it
for them—a newly minted believer in the RKBA must begin to take responsibility over that part of their own lives, and make the investment in the exercise of
their right to keep and bear arms. Otherwise, they become "summer soldiers" in the cause. It is still too easy for them to change their minds and revert to being anti-gun,
because they have nothing invested in it.
Not too long ago, I posted a thread about whether or not those of us who have prepared with regard to owning weapons have a responsibility to arm our unarmed neighbors if everything goes to heck. The general consensus was "no, not unless that person has shown that they intend to make it the highest priority to remedy the situation,
or, not unless the other person brings some other valuable skill/asset/resource to the table which I cannot provide for myself." Well, the OP's friend's scenario is exactly that in microcosm.
Her world has just gone to hades. Now what is she prepared to do to either remedy the situation, or bring something to the table which makes it worth loaning her the gun?
Through my church, and because of the various ministries I am involved in, I have a number of single female friends. Many of them have expressed an interest in having my wife and me take them out and teach them how to shoot, and to help them decide what gun they might like to purchase for themselves. One at a time, we've been assisting them with that. However, I would be very hesitant to loan
any of them one of my own guns for self-protection, because I don't want the liabilities that may attend if they have to use it. And I would NEVER loan a gun to someone who had not previously expressed an interest. What I
can do is say, "we have an empty guest room in our house; why don't you spend a few nights with us while we get you sorted out on how to use a gun, and then help you to buy one suitable for your needs?" Then they can return to their own apartments, knowing that they now have the ability to defend themselves.
People are UNBELIEVABLE. 
It's like people not wanting to buy insurance until something happens 
