My wife, at 75 now, is the only female in her family that has firearms and shoots them. Actually, both of us own them. Pretty much the same goes for my family, that I know of. The other females in my wife's family have absolutely no interest in firearms at all. The last range we went to, there were just four ladies, that we seen/met, that were members and shot firearms. My wife was one of the four. One of the ladies was very close to my wife's age and a former (years ago) Army Officer. We seen her, with her husband shooting. Which, really makes me wonder what the percentage of older Senior females there are that own firearms and shoot.
My wife owns firearms but neither of us shoot that much any more. In fact, time to start selling stuff off. I got rid of a hard to move item first, Calico M900, 50 and 100 round magazine, crank magazine loader, Calico branded laser sight. I had to sell it on consignment through a local FFL since they are specifically banned by make and model in Maryland so now can’t be bought, sold or transferred with the state (except to an FFL of course). If I had property, I think I would probably plink quite a bit but my experience as RSO has made me very uncomfortable around other folks when they’re handling firearms.
Thomas, we still shoot. In fact, my wife wants to shoot more. It costs us $30 (total) to use a lane for an hour at local indoor range. It's like our powerboat, that we still use. Not as much as we use to, because lots more people here have boats today. However, when we moved back to Colorado, we ended up selling both our Remington Express Shotgun and our Winchester Lever-Action 30-30. It cost quite a bit to shoot at an outdoor range here.
well...being an old hillbilly... a granny get yer' gun sort...don't take no practice...just up and pull the trigger
Still wondering about other ladies on this forum. I know young ladies go to a range and shoot, but I begun to think that it's not an older ladies thing. Sort of like fishing. More of a "man/male" thing?
During my time as an RSO, I can’t say that it was a common thing to see older females shooting, plenty of older males of course. The only older woman I saw that came in regularly always came in with her husband to help him out. He had a bad stroke, lot of paralysis on his left side. He had to do everything with one hand pretty much, leaned on the right side of the booth armor to stand steady but, given all that, actually did better than many. She would occasionally shoot and she was a decent shot.
Well, to make sure any usable gun is still functional, it should be shot at a range as well as decently cleaned at home. A malfunctioning gun can be, or is, very dangerous. I learned how to disassemble our 9mm and .22 pistols and boy did they need cleaning inside. I was only cleaning them on the outside, in the barrel and the bullet chamber, but had never taken off the slide/breach. The .22 was misfiring quite a bit, so, hopefully cleaning the entire handgun will help. But, as the old saying goes: "To each their own".
Actually, I taught my wife how to shoot. IOW, how to hold a rifle as well as a handgun. I also taught her not to hold a handgun, or even a rifle, too long before shooting. We aren't young anymore and our arms can get mighty tired. She is learning! Lately, we've been looking at 380 ACP handguns and I think we have one picked out. We should've probably got my wife a 380 ACP instead of a 9mm. We are looking at a Sig Sauer 380 ACP that is very high rated.
Like most rural kids, I was raised around guns and taught how to respect and use them. I had my own bolt-action 22 rifle at 12 years old. Currently I own a 38 revolver that my father gave to me when I was divorced and lived alone, plus we have several rifles, shotguns, and my husband's handguns in the house. Last year I gave my old bolt-action rifle to my son to pass on to my little granddaughter someday (she is only 8). I have zero interest in going to a shooting range. Too loud and not a lot of fun IMO. Four of our 5 children and my husband have concealed carry permits and took gun handling classes before buying handguns. (I did not.) Simply holds no interest for me at all.
My step-dad had a pellet gun and an Over and Under combo .22 and shotgun. Never seen him shoot the pellet, but the shotgun part of the Over and Under he used to kill bats that were flying around the barn during the summer. Because a bat got into my step-mom's hair once, and he got it out and killed it, he always had a total dislike for bats. I got a Daisy Pump Action BB Gun when I was in high school. Step-dad told me I could kill all of the sparrows I could see/find. Why? They would crap all over our farm equipment. My gun training came in the Navy, at sea onboard ship. After the Navy, I couldn't afford to buy any gun. When I met my wife, I was extremely surprised at how much interest she had. So, her first one was the Ruger 10/22 Rifle. My SIL (wife's older sister) pretty much went nuts when she visited us and I showed her the Smith & Wesson 9mm. She told me "put that thing away! I don't want to see it!" So I did. But, I didn't think showing her a 9mm bullet would freak her out, but it sure did. It's sort of weird just how different my wife and her sister are.
Funny, a week ago, thru Instant Messaging, I told my SIL (wife's older sister) that I was cleaning ours and using a Boresight to align the laser (our handguns have one each) with the Boresight that is put into the barrel. I completely forgot how much she dislikes, borderline "hates", firearms of any kind or even ammo. She never replied back to me. We found a very nice indoor range here and my wife is looking very forward to shooting again.