In considering smaller guns, the ladies need particular consideration. While I am not a fan of automatically assuming that a small gun is an appropriate lady's gun (many ladies have been done quite a disservice through this thinking), they do face significantly more difficult concealment hurdles than men. Additionally, they will typically be more fashion conscious, wear more revealing or form fitting clothing, will hug and touch each other more frequently than men, have a wider variety of curvier shapes than men, and will be more conscious of what Claude Werner calls the "social NPE" - or a place where they are legally allowed to carry a gun, but choose not to do so for fear of being ostracized if the gun is discovered.
For many women (Claude has stated 999 out of 1,000), dressing around a gun is simply not an option. They would not only refuse to do it themselves, but they hate the way men dress when we dress around a gun. My wife doesn't mind my untucked shirts on the weekend, but she definitely prefers the way I look with a tucked in shirt.
Adding to these concealment difficulties, a typical women has about 2/3 of the strength of a typical man. This breaks down into about 80% of the typical lower body strength, and 405 of the typical upper body strength. Their elbows are not perfectly straight when they straighten their arms, leading to a greater propensity for elbow discomfort while shooting. In my experience, about 40% of the women I have either taken shooting for the first time, or worked with on the shooting portion of an NRA Basic Pistol class, will have difficulty with a trigger pull weight of 9 lb. or more, something to consider with all of the recent discussion of striker fired verses traditional double action.
As larger calibers are made to work in smaller guns, recoil also becomes an issue. While I will not go as far as to say that accuracy is the only component of stopping power, I will call it the single most significant factor. I would rather see someone carry a lower caliber gun that they can shoot well than a pocket rocket that they are afraid to shoot and don't practice with.
The difficulties faced by women has resulted in some ridiculous holster solutions which often fail to provide the needed access to the gun under pressure testing.
Purse carry actually does surprisingly well under pressure testing. However, we have all read about incidents of a child gaining access to the gun when the purse owner's back was turned for "just a minute." Adding the weight of a substantial gun to an already substantial purse can be uncomfortable. Purses are of course the obvious target of a robbery attempt.
Of course I would prefer the women in my life carrying a Glock 19 or 26 as often as possible. I would also much rather see them carrying a G42, Ruger LCP, Kel-Tec P3AT, or Kel-Tec P-32 than nothing. I have seen some really nice shooting from a femalw shooter who had previous handgun experience, but was shooting a G42 for the first time. Even so, she was beginning to fatigue towards the end of 50 rounds.
These additional difficulties should be given due consideration before any lady is called lazy for carrying a smaller gun.
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Originally Posted by Nephrology
