By Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor

Twenty years is a long time in the life of a magazine. Sure, there are many that have survived far longer, adapting to changes in technology, the marketplace and more, but there are also a number of titles-some of them quite worthy-that don't make it to the two decade marker.

So to celebrate our 20th anniversary, we decided to take a look back at the evolution of Women & Guns.

1989: The Beginning In October of 1989, Sonny Jones, an Arkansas resident with a varied resume and an interest in firearms, particularly for self-defense, attended the third Gun Rights Policy Conference, held in Dallas. She was covering the event-a gathering of gun rights activists from around the country sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms-for Machine Gun News, which was based in her hometown. The idea for the magazine had been percolating for a while, and Sonny decided to go ahead with it. The first issue was 16 pages, black and white and included no advertising. The publication was by subscription-only. Sonny wrote almost the entire issue herself, although only her editorial was signed. The first feature was on concealed carry options for women and featured some of the then-very new holster purses, and another made brief mention of the also very-new LadySmith line from Smith & Wesson

1990: A New Home By late 1990 Sonny realized that while she had a very good idea, she didn't have the wherewithal to continue publication by herself. She sold W&G to the Second Amendment Foundation. Julianne Versnel Gottlieb was named publisher and I became Associate Editor. Production of the magazine, now 2-color, was split between Arkansas and New York. The magazine continued to explore firearms from a woman's perspective and self-defense maintained its place as the center of the magazine. By now, the firearms industry had taken notice of W&G and advertising was trickling in-among the first were Beretta, Colt and a handful of holtsre/purse makers. Sonny's own writing was augmented by others, including Sheila Link who started her Gear & Gadgets column.

1991: Another Beginning In September of 1991, a decision was made to take Women & Guns to newsstand to reach a wider audience. By this time Sonny had moved to Bellevue, WA, where SAF is headquartered, while physical production of the magazine remained in Buffalo. Coincidence-or perhaps serendipity-led Sonny to chose a now-iconic image from the film "Thelma & Louise" for the newsstand debut cover, and the cover hit the newsstand just as the film was making waves in the zeitgeist. The next issue had Linda Hamilton from "Terminator 2" on the cover, although most covers before and since have been of real women with real guns. The newsstand debut also meant a fair amount of general media publicity about the magazine and about women gunowners generally. We fielded dozens of media calls-from television, newspapers, other magazines and radio, and have continued to be a resource for the general media.

1992: Famous and Feisty By 1992 the magazine was humming along, and we were still doing interviews about it and about women gunowners, a subject that was still fascinating/revolting/surprising to the general media. It was the headline of the newspaper feature (almost always in the "Lifestyle" section): "Annie Got Her Gun, or some twisty variant ("Granny Get Your Gun"). The magazine was doing fine, with more advertising (Taurus USA being one of the first to have a color schedule, and Glock paying to have a special booklet bound into an issue), more color pages inside, more rounded field testing and reporting. Lyn Bates was "Special Projects Editor," and doing a lot of work on concealed carry for women. But we knew we'd really arrived when academia started picking on us! The tagline on our February issue read "Are You Too STUPID to Read This Magazine?" and covered a law review article by Debra Dobray and Arthur Waldrop that proposed a novel legal theory: the Federal Trade Commission should sue gun manufacturers-specifically handgun manufacturerss-who marketed to women, because the authors asserted, women didn't understand the claims made by the manufacturers in their ads, and were being endangered by them. We had serious fun picking the article apart. Nancy Bittle, then-president of AWARE, attorney and National Rifle Association board member (later president) Sandra Froman, then-marketing director of S&W Sherry Collins and social scientist Fran Haga, joined me in the fray. The theory was bruited about for about a year more, but then the anti-gunners turned their sights to more general litigation issues, going after the firearms industry from a victim's standpoint.

1993: Changes and Adjustments Settling into our fourth year, W&G continued to explore self-defense from a woman's perspective. We were finding more and more men (especially those involved in firearms and tactical training) were fans because they enjoyed our "no nonsense" style of reviewing. By this time, Sonny had left W&G to pursue other interests, primarily in the training arena and I was "Executive Editor"-a title that has always made me want to dress like Rosalind Russell in "His Gal Friday." My editorial comments had moved up front and Julie's "Dear Self-Reliant Reader" was a popular feature of our back page. In addition to Sheila and Lyn, Gila May-Hayes and Karen MacNutt were now comfortably ensconced on the masthead as Contributing Editors.

1994: All About You In 1994 nearly every cover of W&G featured a "famous" gun woman-of course fame is relative, but many of them were well-known figures in the shooting sports and in training circles, and in the case of our June issue, politics. That issue featured Tanya Metaksa, newly appointed to head the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. Metaksa, who had worked for NRA, and later as a board member, stewarded their Refuse to be a Victim program for women, was a strong advocate of grassroots involvement, inspiring many women who are still active in the firearms civil rights fight. Some of the other women featured that year were handgunner Kimbrel Edington, IPSC champion Laurie Kraynick and trainer Heidi Smith. Our February cover, however, was a bit of a departure-it featured a birthday cake surrounded by six guns chambered for the .40 S&W round. Gila did the story and I conceptualized the cover after reading a trade journal that said women's magazines with cakes on them sold well. This issue was no exception.

1995: New, New, New By the time W&G was five it had grown considerably. In addition to our continued focus on self-defense and our commitment to introducing readers to like-minded women around the country, we, like most firearms magazines, were keeping up with changes in firearms and accessories design. We also detoured occasionally to the shooting sports, including the very new Cowboy Action Shooting game. We were also still exploring self-defense techniques, with a number of our contributing editors taking-and reporting on-classes at well-know schools like Lethal Force Institute and Gunsite. That year we also did our first feature on pregnancy and shooting, likely the first of its kind anywhere.

1996: New Technology Like a lot of other people, we were starting to get the hang of the Internet in 1996. In the Summer, I published my email address (and despite several IP changes, have been deleting spam ever since). It did provide another way for readers to communicate with us, as did several Reader's Surveys published over the years. It was also a year of a cosmetic change or two, as out "banner"-the cover title-underwent its third makeover. By this time, a number of our contributing editors were doing columns, often in addition to regular feature work. Lyn Bates' Defensive Strategies and Gila Hayes' Personal Trainer, were both integral parts of the magazine. The former offered (and still offers) Lyn's precise, thoughtful outlook on a number of different aspects of "personal defense," often including first-hand accounts from women who had survived critical incidents. These are notoriously difficult journalistic "gets," and Lyn always managed to do them extremely well. Personal Trainer was Gila's way of exploring-in her equally thoughtful and precise way-a number of technical aspects of self-defense, from dry firing to a survey of women's concealed carry methods.

1997: Survivors and Adapters In 1997 we expanded our format somewhat, with additional pages in each issue. In addition to keeping up with all of the latest handguns, we were also giving quite a bit of coverage to long guns, for both sport and home defense. Women gunowners were more and more apart of the political mix. Lead by Suzanna Gratia-Hupp of Texas, their compelling first hand stories helped change hearts and minds in state legislatures across the country. It was part of the serious battle for concealed carry, or right to carry, laws around the country. In addition to continuing to bring readers first-hand stories of women's self-defense triumphs, we also focused on products and skills, including schools and matches, designed to enhance women's survival rates.

1998: Contractions and Compacts With the start of the new year, our format was once again changing. The realities of publishing had made it necessary for the magazine to become bi-monthly, but the change also meant longer issues. Smaller handguns, with the burgeoning concealed carry market in mind, were making more and more appearances on dealers' shelves. Part of the reason was technological advances within the industry itself, but a big component in the development and popularity of guns like North American Arms' tiny Guardian and Kahr Arms' Compact 9mm, was political. President Bill Clinton and like-minded folks in Congress pushed for importation bans and other laws that limited the capacity of firearms and made demands for other cosmetic changes as well. A whole class of guns, dubbed "The Clinton Compacts," came into existence.

1999: 10 and Growing Like many years, our 10th anniversary began with a cover featuring the shooting sports. Nancy Tompkins-Gallagher and her daughter, Michelle, made sports history the previous summer by winning high power rifle crowns at Camp Perry. We asked, both sadly and rhetorically, "Why Aren't These Women Famous?" on the cover and the women were profiled inside. Both are still active competitors, and both are still taking titles. Julia Watson, then an active duty Marine, was another cover subject, and another winner at Camp Perry. Setting a record was actress Leslie Easterbrook, she graced her third W&G cover in September. December saw another actress on the cover, Carole Reed, a cowboy action shooter who also makes appearances as an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike. Like everyone else, we were wondering what would happen in the new millennium, but unlike a lot of other people, W&G was thinking things through, with a feature on "what ifs" and which gun would be best for them in our July-August issue.