American Notes Weapons

What is the perfect gift for a high-caliber woman? Perhaps a subscription to Women & Guns, a new publication put out by the nonprofit Second Amendment Foundation in Bellevue, Wash. Says Sonny Jones, editor of the female-staffed monthly: "I don't want to encourage women to buy guns but to promote training and education for those who already have them."

There would seem to be a large potential audience. According to a 1988 Gallup poll, 15.6 million American women own a rifle, shotgun or handgun. The latest issue includes feature stories on fashionable holster bags and how to choose a .38 Special revolver. Gun-control advocates, meanwhile, have gone ballistic about the new magazine. Says Susan Witmore of Handgun Control Inc. in Washington: "It is published by a gun lobby and designed to prey on the legitimate fears of women, saying, in effect, that their only protection is a gun."