Book review: Chicks with Guns
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Chicks with Guns
by Lindsay McCrum
Despite the fun title, this is actually a serious book of photographic portraiture. McCrum features women and their favorite firearms accompanied by interviews about their relationship with weapons. Some examples are quite inspirational and open up new avenues to think about gun ownership. Here’s an example from Stacie, a competitive shootist::
Shooting has given me amazing opportunities both personally and professionally. Not only do I enjoy shooting, but I even enjoy watching novice shooters experience the sport. Through my travels, I have grown my extended shooting family and friends, and even expanded my linguistic abilities and fondness for many different kinds of cuisine…. I’ve learned both how to lose and how to cherish a win. A combination of practice and discipline in mind and body has helped me achieve my goals…. The simple fact is, I shoot for myself; it has nothing to do with anyone else. When you shoot for yourself and just enjoy it, then everything comes together.
Other of the subjects’ pathologies are laughably obvious, but this salt and pepper mix of empowerment and absurdity gives the book its flavor. Is that mean of me to say? I know I love this book. Some interesting patterns emerge. Upper class women from Connecticut prefer Beretta 20-guage over-and-unders.
Chicks with Guns is great companion piece to Neal Stephenson’s spy-thriller epic Reamde, an adventure that has a lot of chicks with guns who know how to use them. Or, for the more literary taste, Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon a River, wherein lead character Margo Crane turns on, tunes in, and drops out Annie Oakley style.
- Bryan
Themocracy