Oh yeah, there were guns...

"BEST OF SHOW
The only really new rifle at SHOT was the Marlin XL-7, and it is truly worth becoming priapic about (excuse the sentence ending on a preposition). You can get the specs in my earlier blog. I got a chance to shoot one when I got home from SHOT, and with ammunition it liked it grouped well under an inch. There was a time not too long ago when you couldn’t get that kind of accuracy from the very best custom rifles, and here it is in an untweaked economy rifle. What a world we live in. 203-239-5621; marlinfirearms.com"

Petzal's Picks:  The Most Interesting Rifles at the 2008 SHOT Show

Photo by Tim Romano

Pink guns gain popularity with target audience
HENRI BRICKEY
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
November 25, 2007

This ain't your grandpa's pistol.

It's little. It's pink. And stores are selling out of them.

Two months after opening its Lubbock store, Gander Mountain is having a hard time keeping the pink 9 mm Taurus pistol on the shelves.

"It has been really popular," said HT Crenshaw, who works at Gander Mountain's hunting and firearms department in Lubbock. "We don't even have any more in the store right now."

Don't worry. There are other pink pistols in stock. There's even a pink rifle. And a pink shotgun.

And Gander Mountain isn't the only place selling the colorful firearms.

Academy Sports and Outdoors on 19th Street in Lubbock also carries pink handguns.

But not everyone is flocking to the pink.

"They either love them or hate them," Crenshaw said.

Ashley Mathews, director of Becoming an Outdoors Woman - a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department program designed to familiarize women with outdoor sports - admits she wasn't a fan of the pink guns at first.

"Initially, my reaction was a bit negative," Mathews said.

But the more she thought about it, the more her attitude toward the pink guns changed.

"There are a lot of women who don't get into shooting sports because they don't want to be perceived as being unfeminine," Mathews said. "If it helps young women or girls eliminate their hesitation to get involved in shooting sports, then that's a wonderful thing."

In recent years, Mathews said, she has noticed a growing number of female shooting enthusiasts "girl it up" when attending shooting events.

"They're putting on makeup, jewelry - things you never saw before at a shooting range," Mathews said.

It's a trend that at least one gun manufacturer has caught on to.

Remington, the manufacturer of the pink shotgun and rifle, is one of the first gun makers to jump on the girl-gun bandwagon.

On the butt of each pink Remington rifle reads, "Shoot like a girl - if you can."