1. I know Kathy Jackson and with her sister from another mother, Gail Pepin, both have been pounding hard and deservedly against Gun Culture 1.0 (I disagree with J. Kb. on the ordinal) and the “Here little lady, a pink revolver for you” mentality that is still going on.

   To say that advances are not being made to bring women into mainstream Gun Culture is BS. That the advances could be faster, yes,but we are fighting decades of both institutional inertia within the gun community and outright cultural propaganda from the opposition and the Old School Feminists.

   The solution is neither simple nor fast: Female Instructors to teach women. We males need to create the atmosphere in which women can feel good getting training or at least not getting in the way. We dress differently, we have different bodies, different biochemistry and even how we look at life…and we members of the XY clan cannot even begin to figure out how to address how that affects teaching and learning. Female instructors will.

   I always return to one story that Kathy Jackson told in the Pro-Arms podcast of a male instructor assisting one of her classes and being dumbfound when somebody asked how to reload magazines without destroying the manicure. He did not have an answer and could not figure one out. And if you are stupid enough to laugh and dismiss the question as female silliness, you are part of the problem and I am going to be a prick not explaining why.

2. I appreciate the time and thought you put into responding to my provocation. I don’t believe that Gun Culture 2.0 hates women. To the contrary, it loves women. It loves the idea of women shooting as a way of telling its enemies to F-off, it loves the vast untapped market for gun and accessory sales that women represent, and it genuinely loves the idea that women can use firearms for enjoyment and protection.

   I think your thoughts on the militarization of gun culture and women are extremely insightful.

   At the same time, there is a residual sense, that you express well, that guns are “a guy thing.” Like cigars, motor sports, Augusta National, and the presidency, and the best women can hope for is that guys will “be sensitive to women in our midst.”

   I think it will be unfortunate if guns remain a subset of male culture as opposed to a culture in and of itself with its own beliefs, values, and ways of doing things. One of the great potentials of GC2.0 over 1.0 is that it has the potential to be inclusive of men and women under the rubric of personal protection – which everyone needs equally. To the extent that men are seen as the primary protectors and women as their auxiliaries, GC2.0 will have failed to realize its potential.

   Whatever our differences and the sources of them, I appreciate the opportunity to learn from you and share our respective views. I especially liked learning about Hanlon’s Razor and its corollary that we should “never attribute to racism/sexism/discrimination what can adequately be explained with by somebody being an asshole.” It helps explain why there are so many a-holes in the STEM fields. Apologies to all my friends who are engineers and surgeons, but you know you are!

   1. “At the same time, there is a residual sense, that you express well, that guns are “a guy thing.” Like cigars, motor sports, Augusta National, and the presidency, and the best women can hope for is that guys will “be sensitive to women in our midst.””

      That is totally disingenuous. Augusta National was gender segregated by bylaws as a private club.

      The Presidency has no restrictions other than natural born citizen over 35, so though it has never been held by a woman, there is no legal means to deny a woman from running for, winning, and taking the oath of President.

      I have never seen a gun range refuse to let a woman shoot. I have never seen a gun store not sell a gun to a woman. I have never heard of such a thing. To conflate what I said about interest with active discrimination is intellectually dishonest.

      I stated out right that it is a matter of interest. Simply and straight forward. Personal choice. I hear constant griping about the lack of women in STEM. It only seems to apply to fields like aerospace engineering, software, or cardiac surgery. Because chemistry, biomedical engineering, all fields of biology, psychology, psychiatry, obstetrics, pediatrics, and general practice range from near 50% to over 70% women.

      Women make up about 15% of the military, all branches combined, despite every effort to recruit more women.

      WHY!?!

      Is it because, perhaps, little boys like to blow shit up more than girls do?

      Is it because men play the overwhelming majority of first person shooters while women prefer puzzle games and RPGs?

      Across the board, women are about 20% of engineers. Despite all the efforts into recruiting more women into STEM.

      I don’t believe it is because dads everywhere tell their daughters that it’s not lady like to build a turbine.

      I have never witnessed in STEM or shooting open discrimination against women.

      But what started all of this is that I am tired of being beat over the head with the notion that anytime something attracts more men then women it is inherently bad and inherently caused by discrimination.

      Women shoot. They do, at every range I’ve been to. There have been women in every CCW class I’ve taken and every shooting match I’ve been to.

      I’ve never been asked “how do you load mags with a manicure.” The response is “It’s called a Maglula, they are about $30, and they are great if you have to load a bunch of mags and don’t want to wear out your thumbs.” Why is that so damn hard. Why does that have to be a THING.

      But it feels like accepting women is not what you want. I want to go to the range and blow shit up. It’s my fun. I’ll accept anybody who wants to come and blow shit up with me. I’ll do my best not to say anything offensive, and that should be good enough. You seem to want obsequiousness.

      1. I’m not sure why you think my comparison to thinking of guns as a “guy thing” to other things that have historically been considered “guy things” is disingenuous. There are clear and strong historic precedents for setting up areas of society in which extremely important things get done (like business at Augusta National or politics in the White House) and designating them as men’s areas. Whether that is done by law or by social norms. When Hilary Clinton ran for president last time, there were people who actually questioned whether you would want her, a woman, to be the one answering the red phone at certain times of the month. So, seeing gun culture as a guy thing and just expecting the guys to be polite seems problematic to me in a parallel fashion.

         Now, are things as bad as they used to be? No, of course not. According to the Constitution, as you note, the Presidency has no restrictions other than being a natural born citizen over 35. But that does not mean the ability of a woman to run for president was not restricted in other ways. Recall the 19th amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, was not ratified until 1920. So, we’ve come a long way baby. And not just because of the individual decisions people made to resist inequality, though those are important as well.

         Could things be better? I think so. And in terms of gun culture, people like Kathy Jackson think so also. To want people in gun culture think and talk about the ways things could be better is not wanting obsequiousness from you. Really, no one is asking you to be servile, ingratiating, sycophantic, fawning, unctuous, oily, oleaginous, groveling, cringing, subservient, submissive, slavish (I had to look up the definition of obsequiousness, sorry). As much as you criticize the social justice warriors for their victim mentality and sacralizing of personal experience, you exhibit many of those same traits.

         In the end, you and I have a fundamental difference in how we see the world, and that’s OK. You see everything in terms of personal choice. I want to understand how people make choices under certain conditions not of their own choosing. That doesn’t mean people don’t have agency, but it does mean certain decisions become much easier or harder because of those conditions. If a woman is making a decision to get involved in gun culture, I want to make that decision as easy as possible. Seems to me that is what Kathy Jackson, Gail Pepin, and others are saying.

      2. “who in Gun Culture 2.0 wants to buy an AR or a 1911 from some fat engineer who sits behind a desk with gigabytes of test data to show how good his gun is?”

         Had I the budget, I would have a laundry list of custom guns I could request of you.

         “To conflate what I said about interest with active discrimination is intellectually dishonest.”

         “Intellectually dishonest” adequately describes everything I’ve seen davidyamane post on this blog. As far as I can tell, he’s a feminist apologist who decided to poke his nose in here and rile up those racist, sexist right-wingers.

         Funny thing, the biggest misogynists I’ve ever seen are male feminists. (Lookin’ at you, Joss)

         But his antics are met with confusion, because contrary to what the Left would have people believe, no conservative is racist or sexist. We get accused of it because we don’t give special treatment to blacks and women, but then, we also insist that giving someone a college scholarship or a job purely because of the color of his skin is racist, regardless of what that color may be. Not hitting someone with jail time because they killed a man and had sex with a little boy just because she was born with ovaries is sexist. Objecting to hiring practices designed to ensure a 50/50 male/female split, including passing over a perfectly qualified individual just because he doesn’t have breasts? That’s not sexist.

         Every “boys’ club” community I’ve ever seen, whether it be gamers, engineers, shooters, or car enthusiasts, has been universally accepting and encouraging of women. If any chauvanist got caught making light of a woman in the group just for being a woman in my social circles, he’d have been tossed out so fast he’d get whiplash. But if we’re going to consider you “one of the guys,” you’re going to be held to the same standards as “one of the guys.” We won’t make fun of you for being a woman in a stereotypically male field, but we also won’t give you a free pass for it either.

         And frankly I’ve seen more women try to get into boys’ clubs based purely on their merits of having boobs than I have men who try to make women feel anything but unwelcome.

         1. clockworkgremlin – unlike you who posts under the veil of anonymity, I post here and write elsewhere under my own name. So your comment “as far as I can tell,” like your name-calling in place of argument, only reveals your own intellectual laziness. Which is fine. I don’t judge you for that. You wear it well.

            1. Yeah, I’ve seen what feminists do to someone they don’t like if they can dox them. I don’t need that in my life.

               Nice job trying to get me to doxx myself. Your self-righteous holier-than-thou attitude doesn’t look good on anyone, though.

         2. Well one day I hope you have the budget. My biggest fear in going out on my own as a gun maker is that I don’t have some flashy tactical hook.

            I want, for example, a commander size 1911 in 10mm that won’t shoot itself to death. I believe it can be done by selecting the right materials, heat treats, and manufacturing technologies. I want to bring automotive 6 sigma practice to guns, which would give hand fit accuracy and finish at Glock pricing – think about how cheap but reliable a Toyota sedan is.

            This come from years of experience in engineering and manufacturing, and is cool to me. But how do I make that cool to Captain Mall Ninja McTacticalpants?

3. Part of me feels a slight “thou doth protest too much , J kb”.

   There’s some straw men being raised by J Kb. After reading David Yamane’s post, I did not get the impression Kathy Jackson was implying that “gun culture hates women.” Kathy Jackson’s post was very specific in that she felt that women were treated as guests but not family. That’s far from hate, and it acknowledges that she knows gun folks are doing their best to try to make women feel welcome at the range and in classes (insomuch as being guests, though). You even began the post this way in acknowledging you understood Jackson’s post to that extent — so I don’t understand the need to go with the “hate” hyperbole!

   Look, I get your point too J. Kb. We as guys are trying our best, but you know, sometimes we let little things slip like those bikini-girl calendars and stuff. It doesn’t mean we’re sexist or misogynist. But that wasn’t what Mrs Jackson was saying either.

   I feel we should welcome Mrs Jackson’s critiques with an open mind and open heart. Instead of having a knee-jerk reaction saying “hey gals, stop complaining about us guys!”, try to step back and think for a moment “ok, does what she say have merit?” If it has merit, then what can we as a gun community do better so that women don’t just buy their first firearm, but continue to train and have a passion for the second amendment? Remember, Mrs Jackson’s critiques about gun culture was about making women feel as part of a family and not just guests.

   We can ignore her advice at our own peril, especially at a time when more women are getting their foot in the doorway when it comes to guns.

   1. I want Ms. Jackson to be part of the family.

      But when I got married, I didn’t get rid of all my stuff my wife didn’t approve of. She moved in her stuff, some of it I didn’t like.

      I want women to bring in their stuff. I want ladies to have kydex parities in their homes and drink wine and swap holsters, or build ARs from parts kits, or do whatever else they want to do.

      There is room for more under the umbrella.

      1. This has been a great discussion, thanks guys but I think you need to hear a little bit from the distaff side. It’s already been pointed out that nobody said that “Gun Culture 2.0 hates women” so I won’t go there but I believe what Kathy was trying to say about Impostor Syndrome and feeling like a guest in the gun culture are very real concerns for women. It rankles me when our concerns are poo-pooed, minimized and compared to “micro-agressions.

         Let me preface all this, since I don’t know you, J.JB, that I am even older than Kathy Jackson. Holy crap, I have children older than you. I guess I am not really Gun Culture 2.0 by a long shot but I have only been actively shooting for the last 20 or so years. I’m not the kind of girly-girl who has a pretty manicure and feel more comfortable hanging out with the guys most of the time.

         Most all of the men I know in the shooting world are wonderful friends and I think the world of them.

         But…I have had quite a few experiences that make me feel like a “guest” in your boy’s club. (I have been a “guest” in boys clubs and I do know how it feels but that’s not important right now)

         I would like to give you a few examples:

         1. My sig-other and I travel around the country most of the year. In these travels we stop at new and exciting gun stores. I like to try a little experiment when we go to a new shop. I will go in first and start looking around, he will wait outside while he smokes a cigarette and then comes in. I like to see the actions of the store staff, sometimes they ask if they can help me, sometimes they will ignore me and when he walks in they ask if they can help him, sometimes they will ignore us both.

         2. At the NRA annual meeting I went to the booth of a well known holster company, I have some of their holsters and wanted to buy one for a gift for a new shooter. I stood at the front of the booth looking at holsters, picking them up and trying to make eye contact with the guys in the booth but to no avail. A man walked up and immediately one of the booth dudes engaged him in conversation.

         3. Last summer I gave a range command to a male student on the firing line, I told him to wait for the command before he reloaded, now this is a class I help teach almost every weekend. He then motioned over to the man who was hosting the class and told him what I had instructed him to do and asked the host if this was really what he was supposed to do.

         4. At the end of the class there is a live fire qualification test, first the staff shoot the qual, to show the students how it’s done and then the students shoot the qual. I beat a male staff member on the staff run and he made a point in not only telling me that he had a better group and would have beat my target in his practice run but he went through the trouble of digging up that target to show it to me.

         So yeah, some of these guys are just dicks, like the ones who ignore both of us in the first example, but the others are the ones who make us feels like “Impostors” or “Guests.”

         1. And that was Ms. Gail Pepin who you never want to tick off while she is holding an edged weapon…

         2. Well #4 is an idiot for sure. Biophysiologically, shooting sports favor women over men, because womens’ bodies are better tuned for fine motor control and precision, vs. mens’ bodies which are tuned more for raw brute strength.

            You don’t need a lot of brute strength to shoot a gun.

4. There’s a thing I’ve seen on the interwebs when someone ask what gun they should get for the little lady. Inevitably someone will assert that wimmin are too dumb and weak to operate semi-autos.

   1. Don’t assume the trolls speak for everyone. They aim to make the group look bad, even if they don’t actually believe any of the things they’re saying.

      In fact, I would wager most trolls don’t believe the things they’re saying. Most trolls don’t really believe in anything. And unlike your typical egotist, that includes themselves.

      Otherwise they wouldn’t be seeking validation by tearing down strangers from the safety of a keyboard.

      1. That bit of well meaning advice is less “Troll” and more general guncounter derp.

         And don’t get me started on the idiots who thing that a gal’s best, first intro to shooting is a .500 S&W or similar beast.

         1. I actually addressed that this past weekend when my family gave one of my sister’s friends her first shooting experience.

            My dad thought it would be OK to start her on his .380 pistol. I was fairly insistent that it should be a .22lr rifle.

            She had a great time.

5. […] Miguel’s Gun Free Zone. We either missed, skimmed, or just plain didn’t react to this 2016 post on Gun Culture 2.0, which itself is a bit of a reaction by Miguel to David Yamane’s thesis that we’ve […]

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