Women & Guns

From The Editor...

By Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor

Fourteenth Anniversary Edition

This issue marks the start of the fourteenth anniversary of Women & Guns and I was going to muse about anniversaries and birthdays in general and what it means to be a teenage magazine in today's world.

But then I started looking through the issue as it gets prepared to go to press (a process which while not exactly resembling sausage making can sometimes make the chef a little queasy).

What struck me most was that there are a lot of women in Women & Guns!

Our pages this month, as they are most months, are represented by women from a variety of age groups, backgrounds, marital and maternal status, regions and professions.

I doubt if there are many other "women's" magazines on the newsstands today that can boast writers, historians, actresses, firearms instructors, models, lawyers, political activists and, yes, even magazine editors, all in one issue.

The longer I am lucky enough to be editor of Women & Guns the more grateful I am for all these women-and the women who fill the pages of each issue.

Some, like our contributing editors and Maria Heil of the Second Amendment Sisters, have become friends. Most days I can count on one or two emails from this group which have absolutely nothing to do with the magazine or its business-an attachment of a picture of someone dressed as "The Queen of Everything" (and aren't you lucky, missy, that I decided not to stick that image in the middle of this column!), a report on the weather and gardening conditions in the Pacific Northwest, an account of the longhorn steer that ramble like really, really big dogs in Wimberley, TX, happenings in the Carolinas and Metro Boston.

To say that those kinds of things are the perks of my job is a gross understatement. They make the job possible as every single day I am reminded that the reason the magazine is named Women (plural) and Guns is that there are a lot of women out there who find the sub ject interesting.

Some are interested in the mechanics of firearms, fascinated with their design and the changes-both dramatic and subtle-that put history into action.

Others are interested in firearms as used in sports, from Cowboy Action Shooting to backyard plinking to formal national matches in a variety of disciplines.

Politics concern others, even as many who use this magazine roll their eyes at the very mention of the word. "Politics" means different things to different people. The word is synonymous with the sort of smarmy and corrupt practices of Foghorn Leghorn, sniffing that participation in politics just encourages the rascals.

Still others think of politics as a sort of thrilling game in which "players" are measured against each other and outcomes reported in tones that echo sport as well-the hushed reverence of golf and the screaming, painted-faced exuberance of football fans.

I might not be the best person to determine which view of politics is orrect. I confess, I watch C-SPAN for fun. But "politics" is definitely not a spectator sport-it's a sometimes rough and tumble contact sport that requires a stoked mindset and a steady nerve.

Politics is not just a couple of parties, each representing competing views, scrumming for position. Politics can, and daily does, include social attitudes, community feeling and affects everything from where you can legally turn left on a weekday morning to whether or not you can own a gun in your community.

Finally, Women & Guns has always been about personal protection and the protection of our loved ones. In the past two years, many Americans, including those who are not gunowners, have come to see a distant view of gun ownership in clearer terms: "loved ones" includes your fellow countrymen as well.

The heavy emphasis on self-de fense in these pages is a reflection of not just Sonny Jones' original idea for the publication. It is not solely a reflection of editorial meetings (sample editorial meeting: "Could you finish that ballistic Imaging piece in time for me to include in this issue? Please?").

First and foremost the emphasis is given by the readership. Yes, many of you compete in shooting sports. Yes, many of you became interested in the politics of gun rights (with that interest waxing and waning as it naturally should). And, yes, many of you are excited and interested to see the latest firearms, to have us test them for you and to take a look at much of the related gear-from books to hosters that make up the firearms world.

But of all of those things cobine to make your stated goal-personal protection-more complete.

It's a continuing privilege to be just one of many "Women & Guns."