Stocking the guns women buy for self-defense

Shooting Industry, March, 2004 by Massad Ayoob

It's no secret that women are a growing segment of the firearm self-defense market. The challenge is stocking the guns they're most likely to buy.

The Hawaii Rifle Association, a firearm owners' rights group in Honolulu, publishes an excellent and pithy newsletter called The Hawaii Rifleman. In its November 2003 edition, the newsletter published an item from the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

"The Justice Department, at the request of Women and Guns magazine, audited National Instant Check System purchases during an 80-day period earlier this year to ascertain how many potential firearm purchases were made by women. (The results were published in the magazine's September/October 2003 issue.)

"If the sampling done in the test period is typical, then roughly 12 percent of gun buyers are women, meaning females will directly purchase about one million of the estimated eight million long guns and handguns expected to be sold in 2003. That number comes directly from the question about the sex of the buyer on Form 4473 and does not reflect the firearms men buy as gifts for the women in their lives or for the use of the family in general."

The data makes it clear--women are buying a significant number of guns. While female interest in hunting seems to be increasing, the lion's share (or is it the lioness' share?) of the firearms are purchased for self-defense. Let's look at the guns women are actually buying. The following is a summary of input from gun dealers around the country, as well as observations of 30-some years as a firearm instructor--a lot of my students have been women.

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