showin’ the goods

Apart from the whole “wanting to see a burly guy beat anything” bit, JayG and I are in complete agreement:

There are plenty of female shooters, gunnies, and gun bloggers. Any one of them would make a better model than some 22 year old bimbette who’s never held a gun before in her life. Saying “we’d rather hire some model than a less-perfect physical specimen who knows her way around a gun cabinet” is insulting to female gunnies and to the shooting community in general. We’re better than that. We know what it’s like to be marginalized, ignored, and/or looked down upon. We should demand better from those that seek to earn our business.

I am a male, and once upon a time, I was a teenager – I get that sex sells, and for things like lingerie, perfumes, and other nonsensical stuff like that, it makes sense. However, using silicone-sculpted, integral-life-preserver-equipped, clueless bimbos to sell or publicize firearms and firearm-related equipment or services simply is not doing anyone in the pro-Second-Amendment community any good at all.
This is not to say that good-looking women do not exist in our community – they are not exactly few or far between, by any stretch of anyone’s imagination – but those women also know how to handle a firearm without looking like they were paid to hold a prop and are only vaguely sure that the bullets come out… uh… that end.
If you are doing the boobs-and-bullets schtick just for the gos-se and giggles of it, then more power to you – Lord knows this world needs more beauty, and, as the saying (almost) goes, there is little more beautiful than a beautiful woman holding a beautiful gun. But at least try to find models who look like they have a clue, instead of models who make it very hard to argue that the community of firearm owners is comprised of anything other than middle-age, overweight, sexually-deprived males. However, if you are using breastesses… er… hostesses to actually sell your firearms… well, do I really need to point out the problems with your apparent belief that your equipment cannot stand on its own merits, and instead requires the… ahem… support of underwires and such? Or should I instead dwell on the apparently low opinion you hold of your customers, given that you think a good rack (not on the gun) will be sufficient to convince those customers (who would obviously be swayed by such things) to buy your products over someone else’s? Put up the facts and figures, along with a solid shooting-and-stress test, and your equipment will sell itself. If it does not, something tells me that you have problems that cannot easily be solved by the application of knockers.
As a free service to the industry, if any photographers, advertising agents, or firearm companies need any assistance in arranging pictures, models, and firearms in a way that puts across an actual understanding of the equipment in question, I would be more than willing to offer my services. Hell, I might even bring a camera, if you need it…