Leave it to gun control groups to suggest that half of the law-abiding population of the United States shouldn’t be considered for gun ownership. And it’s the half of the population that owning a firearm for self-defense benefits the most in time of need.
Sure, in the past, women were not the segment of the population that immediately popped in to mind as being firearm owners. But now in 2025, shouldn’t that be different? Women already have the same rights as men – including the right to keep and bear arms. Firearms are a part of the American culture, enjoyed by everyone of any color, race and nationality. And over the past five years, industry data has shown women are the fastest-growing demographic of gun buyer. It makes sense that firearm industry businesses would pay attention to their customers and cater to their needs.
But that’s not how many gun control activists and gun control groups see it and they are now aghast that lawful firearm manufacturers would cater their advertising and marketing efforts to appeal to women.
Oh, the effrontery!
The Smoking Gun is Shocked!
The Smoking Gun is Everytown for Gun Safety’s media arm that describes itself as “the online resource committed to exposing the gun industry’s” role “in our gun violence epidemic.” Apparently that includes exposing the evils of marketing and advertising in a manner that attracts 50 percent of your possible customer base.
Enter Greg Lickenbrock, who spoke with three marketing and sociology professors from Oregon State University about their observations in advertising towards American women from firearm manufacturers and retailers.
“The fact that we now see women in these ads, and portraying different ‘characters,’ demonstrates the industry’s efforts to increase ownership among women,” Dr. Brett Burkhardt said.
“After a few years of experimenting with sexualized ads that didn’t correlate with increased sales to women, the industry now seems to have landed on an advertising idea that works: showing women as competent and serious gun owners,” added Dr. Michelle Barnhardt.
Dr. Aimee Dinnin Huff offered her thoughts as well. “There isn’t yet an established female American gun owner identity or image that consumers can latch onto. Many ads still rely on gendered assumptions rather than a nuanced understanding of the different types of relationships women have with firearms,” she said.
Dr. Burkhardt added another thought, stating, “These new and more common depictions of women and firearms are examples of how the industry is seeking to naturalize women’s gun ownership.”
The firearm industry knows and understands the history of firearms and knows women are naturally just fine handling, operating and training with firearms.
A History Lesson
Yes, while American women have possessed and used guns throughout the nation’s history, the concept of the armed American woman, as a cultural institution, has not attained the same degree of legitimacy as the armed American man.
It’s no secret that firearm companies typically tailor to men, as overall men own and purchase more firearms than women. But that has changed – dramatically – over the past recent decades, especially over the past five years. With the customer market shifting, there are more women participating in the shooting sports than ever. And as this has happened, it seems gun control groups – who appear to be all for women’s rights – are just not for those rights when firearms are involved. Seeing strong women as responsible firearm owners is empowering to others as well. It’s not just about the men anymore.
For Lickenbrock, Burkhart, Barnhardt and Huff, history paints a very different portrait. Women have been using firearms since before the founding of the country. They were critical to the efforts behind the American Revolution, up through Annie Oakley and Martha “Calamity” Jane Canary, and Rebecca Nicholson, who took over the family firearm manufacturing business in the early 1800s when her husband passed away.
Fast-forward to today and there is no shortage of amazing women in the industry and participating in hunting, recreational shooting sports and even promoting self defense gun ownership.
The late Geneva Soloman, an African American woman and victim of domestic violence, spoke at a 2023 Congressional hearing and explained, demonstrating a common feeling and realization experienced today by millions of women. “My journey from victim to survivor to advocate has led me to this moment today,” Solomon said. An NSSF member and also a member of the National African American Gun Association (NAAGA), Solomon added, “As a Black woman, this is not a matter of imagination. It was my lived experience. I had to become my own first responder.”
Leaders All Around
Women leaders continue to prove their mettle in the firearm industry today. Laurie Aronson is the Chairman and CEO of Lispey’s LLC, a firearm and sporting goods distributor. She’s also on NSSF’s Board of Governors. JoAnn Weisenford, is President of RSR Group, another firearm and sporting goods distributor. Kelly Reisdorf is the current CEO of USA Shooting. Kirstie Pike is the Founder and CEO of Prios Hunting Apparel for Women. They are just a few among the numerous women in leadership roles within the firearm industry and hunting market leading into the 21st Century. That’s not even mentioning the thousands of strong women working in retail, manufacturing, education and yes, marketing in the firearm industry from coast to coast.
In Congress, numerous women are stalwarts when it comes to standing up for the Second Amendment, including U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Ashley Moody (R-Fla.). In the House of Representatives, U.S. Reps. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Julia Letlow (R-La.) and many, many more have been spotlighted by the firearm industry for their leadership and efforts to promote safe, responsible firearm ownership.
In state capitals, Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law Constitutional carry in her state. And former South Dakota Governor and current Secretary of Homeland Defense Kristi Noem, as well as Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, both have unquestionable Second Amendment credentials and the political track record to prove it.
The Customer’s Always Right
Media still widely misrepresents American gun owners as old, white guys but recent trends in firearm purchasing couldn’t put this caricature to rest any better. Over the past five years, the surge of new first-time buyers has made the gun-owning community the most diverse population of gun owners ever. That’s a good thing – as the Second Amendment is for everyone. And that includes women.
Women are featured more prominently today in advertising because more women are buying firearms for any number of reasons – all good ones – and the industry is listening to them. Women’s nights at neighborhood shooting ranges, women-only firearm training classes and even friend groups choosing to go to the range together are all increasingly more popular activities as women choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights in any safe way they choose.
Marketing has changed over the last few decades to follow the customer. For Lickenbrock and others, that means seeing a lot more women with guns. And that’s a good thing.
Paige Pearson is Manager, Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
It’s the same reason Dems treat conservative black or gae* people like they’re the absolute worst. Democrats think it’s a given that certain demographics will always be loyal to them. It enrages them when that doesn’t happen.
Gun control is one of the Dem Party’s go-to lazy policy pushes. It’s always gun control, abortion, fake civil rights fights, or promises of free stuff and punishing the rich. What if people began to notice the empty policies? The rich always get richer (just look at Obama and the Puppet administration’s stats). Abortion is now a state-level political matter. Obamacare made healthcare more expensive, squeezing the middle class. The Puppet never paid for student loans like he promised.
Take away the gun control fight, and what do they have left? “Civil rights” for tranz* kids and illegals? Don’t look now, but the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee just banned all men from competing in women’s sports. Now, what are Democrats left with? Flooding the country with 3 million illegals per year? Begging for more low-wage workers while asking for people to make a living wage? At some point, even ignorant Dem voters will begin to notice how empty their policies are. They can’t risk potential gateway drugs to conservative politics.
The “gun control industry” is far less about supporting gun control than it is about recruiting and maintaining Democrat voters while, until recently, laundering taxpayer money to Democrat politicians.
It just so happens that Democrats are bleeding members of their long-abused base namely women and minorities.
These demos embracing gun ownership will make them even harder to get back onto the plantation meaning either Dems will have to pivot on gun control which will hurt them with the only core demo they have left, elitist coastal blue-haired university professors, or quadruple down on their messaging of fear and victimhood hoping these demos come back.
So many orgs, groups, churches, clubs, etc… are thinly veiled political membership/funding farms that don’t care much at all about their stated reason for being.
Yes. That’s the game.
“It just so happens that Democrats are bleeding members of their long-abused base namely women and minorities.”
To say nothing about how Latino men are flocking to our side in the voting booth.
That *alone* will doom their plan to get a hard lock on the American electorate. For years they have been cheering the old fat white guys dying off, convinced the surging Latino vote will secure their vote.
Surprise! 😉
Dang, that was well said. Libertarian here, but moreover my family has history of selling guns to African Americans when that wasn’t in fashion explicitly so they could fire on KKK. I still carry in my heart the family ideal that no person should be put in bondage and everyone has the right to resist with the most effective equipment available.
Sigh….. can ya get my post out of moderation please? Thanks.
Mine is there too despite trying to avoid naughty words.
The automatic hiding/deleting of comments is beyond stupid at this point and I am no longer expending much effort to provide comments.
So you can spam the thread with over ten comments that have nothing to do with the subject?
The Hucksters of Gun Control.
https://www.ammoland.com/2025/07/the-hucksters-of-gun-control/
Throwing Support Behind Fateh Shows DFL is Going Full Marxist.
https://www.ammoland.com/2025/07/throwing-support-behind-fateh-shows-dfl-is-going-full-marxist/
New bill introduced: Ending Magazine Limits Across America!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqSgCZ5XlUc
Traitor Obama: DNI Tulsi Gabbard drops a nuke – what we knew all these years confirmed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd1JDFN_S3U
New Docs Contradict Top Obama Officials’ Claims Steele Dossier Wasn’t Included In Critical Russiagate Report.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/23/new-docs-contradict-top-obama-officials-claims-steele-dossier-wasnt-included-in-critical-russiagate-report/
New DNI Docs Reveal Washington Post’s Central Role In Russiagate Hoax.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/23/new-dni-docs-reveal-washington-posts-central-role-in-russiagate-hoax/
House Investigators: Obama Officials ‘Ignored’ Intel Contradicting Russia Collusion Narrative.
“At Obama’s direction, CIA Director Brennan put the intelligence community to work to bring Trump down after the 2016 election.
…
A newly released intelligence report sheds more light on the rickety foundation of the Russia collusion hoax that was used to shake confidence in President Donald Trump’s first term.
…”
https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/23/house-investigators-obama-officials-ignored-intel-contradicting-russia-collusion-narrative/
Barack Obama Is in Trouble After Russiagate Receipts Drop.
”
…
On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that her team would be releasing documents that directly contradict Barack Obama’s latest attempt to rewrite the history of the Russia collusion hoax.
…
On Wednesday, she delivered.
The newly declassified evidence reveals the Obama administration deliberately fabricated the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment to falsely claim Russia helped elect Trump. Gabbard accuses them of weaponizing intelligence and conspiring with the media to delegitimize Trump’s presidency in a coordinated, years-long coup attempt to overturn the 2016 election.
…”
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/07/23/gabbard-drops-receipts-on-russian-collusion-hoax-obama-didnt-want-you-to-see-n4942020
Dems are already gloating over presidential immunity. A president cannot be sued for damages for official acts. However, this immunity does *not* extend to criminal actions. What Obama did was very intentional and, I assume, criminal.
Report: Obama Knew Russia Wanted Hillary to Win—and the Reason Why Is HUGE.
”
…
Barack Obama wants you to think he had nothing to do with the Russia collusion hoax, but that lie is unraveling fast. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified a trove of documents that expose how the Obama administration faked the January 2017 intelligence report to falsely accuse Trump of colluding with Russia.
The evidence includes a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report, which confirms that despite no cyber interference from Russia, Obama pushed for a new intelligence community assessment (ICA) in late 2016 to shape a narrative that Putin was helping Trump. It was all part of a desperate attempt to undermine a duly elected president.
As the documents show, Obama and his top officials, in coordination with Hillary’s presidential campaign, worked with their media allies to weaponize the intelligence community and stage a coordinated effort to delegitimize Trump before he even took office.
But it’s actually even worse. The House Intelligence Committee report reveals that while the Obama administration was manipulating intelligence and pushing the narrative that Putin wanted Donald Trump to win the election, there was strong intelligence suggesting the opposite: Putin preferred Hillary Clinton.
This in itself is hardly surprising, but there’s more. The real meat of this story is why Putin wanted Hillary Clinton to win.
The reason, according to Obama’s own intelligence, is that Moscow possessed damaging information on her and saw her as easier to manipulate.
…”
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/07/23/russia-wanted-hillary-to-win-and-the-reason-why-is-huge-n4942023
Anti-Gun Propaganda Reaches Critical Levels With Latest Headline.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/tomknighton/2025/07/23/anti-gun-propaganda-reaches-critical-levels-with-latest-headline-n2660822
The delusions of left wing: Elizabeth Warren goes full socialist and backs NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s plan for government-run grocery stores and says “It’s been tried in other cities around the country and has had some real successes.”
https://x.com/martinwalsh__/status/1946218418975150348
left wing delusions:
Democrat Elizabeth Warren went full socialist and backs NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s plan for government-run grocery stores. She says “”It’s been tried in other cities around the country and has had some real successes.”
… and she pointed out one of these ‘successes’ and here it is
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1948028166359933380
The most expensive DUI in history …. Blitzed Boater Bonks Battleship: Drunk Captain’s Epic Ding on USS Midway.
https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2025/07/23/uss-midway-collision-drunk-boater-n2416087
OK, since my other post about the below went to moderation yesterday and still has not appeared, i’m going to try again worded different even though there were no ‘bad words’ in the original:
The gun control industry uses women as ‘props’ to push their narrative. They get upset when they ‘props’ are taken from them.
As an example I’m going to use Everytown but its the whole gun control industry using women as ‘props’ to push their narrative;
When we look at the Everytown ‘narrative’ concerning women we see this – “Every month, an average of more than 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner. Nearly 6 million women reported having a gun used on them by an intimate partner.”
That’s horrible. And if it was all true, its even more horrible. So although such things are horrible, the Everytown narrative ignores that around 7,000 times daily across the United States (collectively) defenseless women are assaulted or beaten or stabbed or cut or strangled or raped or burned or tortured, sometimes all of those, or sometimes killed outright, by ‘intimate partners’ and there was no gun involved. If Everytown is about saving lives as they claim then why do they not bother to mention these defenseless victims in their narratives? Its because women to them are ‘props’ to use to push their anti-gun narrative.
But lets go a little further into the ‘prop’ use by Everytown and the whole gun control industry. If Everytown and the gun control industry is about saving lives as they claim then why do they not bother to mention (just a few categories listed below):
* 38% of women that are attacked for purposes of rape annually are armed with a firearm and successfully use defensive gun use to save their selves from serious harm and rape. While only ~3% of the women not armed with a firearm that are attacked for purposes of rape annually manage to escape serious harm and rape by fleeing – all the rest not armed with a firearm, even though sometimes ‘armed’ with or have other ‘defense’ (i.e. trying to flee, barricading in the home, knives, club objects, mace/pepper spray, Byrna, hand-feet-hand-to-hand-combat skills, fighting, calling 911, etc….) do not escape serious harm and rape.
* Thousands of people annually who are victims of a violent criminal attack use a firearm to save their lives or the lives of family members or lives of someone else.
*The hundreds of lives saved from a mentally ill mass shooter, by an ordinary law abiding armed citizen using their firearm. Not just once in a while. Although over time there have been hundreds of such incidents where an ordinary law abiding armed citizen stopped an in progress mass-shooting – there have been many more prevented every year before they could meet the anti-gun definition of ‘4 or more’ so you don’t see it listed as a mass shooting and the media leaves it alone and doesn’t report on it, prevented by an ordinary law abiding armed citizen using a firearm. Literally thousands of lives saved.
So the question is … If Everytown and the gun control industry is about saving lives as they claim then why do they not bother to mention these thousands of lives saved by ordinary law abiding armed citizens using their firearm to save lives?
If Everytown and the gun control industry is about saving lives as they claim then why do we not see press releases and social media posts from Everytown and the gun control industry highlighting and celebrating these lives saved ? They will go on and on about a mentally ill mass/school shooter or other criminal, making sure every little detail is show cased and highlighted, and about how many killed or injured by ‘gun violence’, yet ignore the thousands of lives saved by ordinary law abiding armed citizens using their firearm to save lives. Sure doesn’t seem to me that Everytown and the gun control industry is about saving lives as they claim, seems they are more about using people as ‘props’ to push their narrative.
Everytown and the gun control industry have been hiding a simple truth all these years, one they do not want women or others to realize. That simple truth is ‘you are your own first responder’.
So why is the gun control industry so freaked out about more women owning guns? Its because it takes their ‘props’ away from them, and they do not like it when you take their ‘props away from them. Many woman have realized, as have others, that simple truth: you are your own first responder.
Clarification/correction for: “While only ~3% of the women not armed with a firearm that are attacked for purposes of rape annually manage to escape serious harm and rape by fleeing…”
This should have been…
While only ~3% of the women not armed with a firearm that are attacked for purposes of rape annually manage to escape serious harm and rape by fleeing (or using other means of non-firearm defense i.e. barricading in the home, knives, club objects, mace/pepper spray, Byrna, hand-feet-hand-to-hand-combat skills, fighting, calling 911, etc….)
The bottom line is not the euphemism of “gun safety”, but rather a keen eye, a steady hand, and a willing trigger finger, complemented by adequate stopping power! Keep this in mind gun grabbers, anytime I have been pulled over and informed the officer I was armed they said “I don’t care, just don’t go for it!” Learn a lesson: the police are OUR friends and we are THEIR friends! See what help you will get disarming us said the spider to the fly!