Nah, I just find this entire topic irksome for other reasons, to wit, the idea that recoil is likely to "knock [her] on her ass" or the idea that she needs a DA revolver instead of something so complicated as an auto. Please. The fact remains that "what gun for wifey" is the EXACT same question as "what gun for husband," as eloquently by corneredcat's essay illustrating that. It's just silly to assume or even to guess that a woman can't handle x amount/type of recoil, can't handle x type of controls, etc.
My mom thought she knew how handguns operate.
She just assumed she'd be able to pick up my dad's gun in the nightstand and be able to stop an attacker.
She'd never shot a gun before.
She had a lot of disdain for me taking off down the shootin' lifestyle. All the bambi-ism, moral relativism and such... I've heard it at the family dinner table countless times.
Dad and I finally took her out shooting in the desert about 3 weeks ago. What a trial.
I was really excited to take her out to do this because I really wanted to change her mind, and I finally had a chink in her armor against "guns."
There are some things that new female shooters do with guns that I've yet to see a new male shooter do with guns.
By far the largest trend I see, however is: They lean backwards away from the slide direction of semiautos, holding the gun with overly bent elbows from the center of their body, but with legs forward/backwards. There's some trepidation in regards to that slide.
We went over the 4 Rules on the ride out to the desert, and once again when we actually arrived at our range. Went over manual of arms of the .22 rifle before we started on handguns and had her review the 4 Rules again. She still deliberately swept us after emptying the rifle, and then tried to justify it as "but it's unloaded!"
She did this 2-3 times before we finally beat it into her that all accidents are the result of "unloaded" guns. She saw us being very deliberate with the muzzles and locking bolts back and such with our rifles and finally decided we weren't babying her or something and finally started to behave.
(The above safety stuff is merely anecdotal and I don't mean to imply that it applies to all women... just thought you guys might be interested. Topical portion follows now:)
She shot my dad's Sig. Repeatedly could not operate the gun or interpret what the gun was telling her. It was a mosquito, identical to the P226 in his nightstand except for caliber. DA/SA confused her, the slide mounted safety confused her, and the idea that a rimfire round could fail to ignite and she would have to rack the slide to get a fresh one confused her. She hated it.
She also hated dad's Kimber 9mm 1911. Even as a SA only action, she didn't like having to move a safety and she was put off by the slide coming back at her face. Or the feel of automatic recoil at all. She seemed to like the more solid recoil impulse of a revolver better.
Could she learn it eventually? Certainly. She is a technophobe and still hasn't learned how to fully control the stereo/TV/DVD player setup in the living room, so that could be part of it. I've certainly met women that quickly picked up on more complicated manuals of arms such as Sigs and CZ's.
But I come across a lot more women that have problems with the chain of logical IF...THEN operations involved with DA/SA autos, than men who experience the same problems.
Or, perhaps, men have those problems with guns they buy and they attack the learning curve to become proficient, while women typically have those guns put in their hands by men and say "I don't like it" and move on to a different type of firearm.
I put my S&W M65 revolver in her hands with .38's, explained SA/DA operation of it to her but told her "just pull the trigger with the sights on the target" and she put six holes in our cardboard bad guy.
Dad's bummed as a result of this trip out shooting because mom enjoyed it overall, but doesn't like any guns that dad has. She wants something that is "hers" to occasionally practice with and keep in the nightstand when she's comfortable with doing so, and she wants a DA 6-gun after handling my M65. Dad will probably have to pick up a used K-frame .38 up at J&G next time he drives through there, now.
Any time I take a new female shooter out for a first-time lesson I start with a .22 rifle for safety, and if she is mostly interested in handguns then we go to my .22 revolver, then .38's in the K-frame and then examine other options as she demonstrates interest. I've had girls want to shoot my .44 Redhawks and .45 1911's, and girls that only liked shooting the .22 revolver.
Very few novice female shooters have liked automatics.
Anecdotes from a single guy that takes new female shooters out from time to time. YMMV.
