Say Anything Blog

Not your typical women’s magazine story…

Being a woman with a gun gave me power and strength in a throwback environment where females were viewed, defiantly, as the weaker sex. The most memorable Valentine’s Day gift I ever received was a black nylon fanny pack designed to hold a gun. For my live-in, gun-nut boyfriend, it was a grand romantic gesture and an encore, of sorts, to his Christmas present, a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. I had hoped for the new “lady friendly” hammerless Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, but the fanny pack would have to do.

Being a woman with a gun gave me power and strength in a throwback environment where females were viewed, defiantly, as the weaker sex. The most memorable Valentine’s Day gift I ever received was a black nylon fanny pack designed to hold a gun. For my live-in, gun-nut boyfriend, it was a grand romantic gesture and an encore, of sorts, to his Christmas present, a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. I had hoped for the new “lady friendly” hammerless Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, but the fanny pack would have to do.

It definitely topped his gifts from years past: a can of pepper spray and a tactical pocketknife. And the timing was perfect. I had just qualified for a concealed-handgun permit under a recently passed state law — the state, of course, being Texas.

Every time I jogged in our neighborhood, a safe place by most standards, my boyfriend checked to make sure I had my gun with me. The fanny pack had a special Velcro strap inside so the firearm wouldn’t jostle or go off as I ran, although sometimes it bruised my hip. And yes, I occasionally wondered if it was necessary to pack heat for an afternoon run. But I continued to do so — and even began carrying it in my purse. I was pretty sure I’d have the guts to use it if I had to. When I worked as a club doorgirl, I once maced a guy because he was banging my boss’s head on the sidewalk. It was that very night, in fact, that my boyfriend first asked me out.
On one of our first dates, we tried out his brand-new AK-47, outfitted with a rapid-fire mechanism and a 30 round drum. Clad in a 1960s leopard coat and knee-high boots, I squeezed the trigger and heard the rat-tat-tat sound of bullets spraying out, pelting the sides of the rock canyon and echoing back at us. Our other dates included shooting cardboard human-form targets at indoor gun ranges and attending gun shows after Sunday brunch.