Tools and Toys and Pretty In Pink.

There's been so much talk of pink guns on various gun blogs lately that it has actually leaked into real life. I was perusing the latest Cosmo in the grocery store checkout line and noticed that their little "Sexy vs. Skanky" column has labeled "Guns in girlie colors like pink" to be skanky. I'll have to defer to the experts at Cosmo on the subject of skank, but I have seen pink guns that kind of put me off, and I've had to think about why.

As much as the hysterics at the Brady Center for Dis-empowering Crime Victims, as well as the "Sgt. Combat" types among our own ranks, would have you believe otherwise, most guns are either not weapons or at least not used as such. A Perazzi trap gun is beautifully made for the purpose of blowing clay pigeons out of the sky, but its single-shot action, 34" barrel, and stratospheric price tag make it suited for little else. It could be pressed into service as a weapon, I suppose, but so could a rolling pin or a cast iron skillet. Likewise, a free pistol from Hammerli or Pardini is built for a narrow purpose; putting .22 holes right in the same place every time to win competitions. Their size and shape and the fact that they are single shot .22's make them singularly unsuited for practical use as a weapon.

Likewise are the countless "plinker" .22 rifles sold in the US, not to mention various guns that are heavily mutated from their original form to meet various competition needs; benchrest rifles, Open Class IPSC race guns and the like. These are guns that you will see done in every color of the rainbow; I have seen benchrest rifles with flame jobs painted on their unwieldy slablike stocks, and if I had a dollar for every pink Ruger 10/22 I've seen, I'd use them to go buy one myself. And that is cool, because these are toys.

It's when I see a gun clearly meant for use as a tool, a weapon, done up in some garish color that I feel a little weird. Like seeing a hammer with a rhinestone-studded handle, or a fur-trimmed power drill, it just throws me a bit off kilter. It's a free country and people can do with their stuff what they want, but I'm not sure I'd want a pink revolver with "The Pink Bitch" laser-etched on the barrel entered as Exhibit A in a civil case following a self-defense shooting; I think of the arguments I could build around that and I shudder, and I don't have post-grad training in making someone look like a deranged psycho in front of a jury.

So, are pink guns skanky? I don't think so. Usually they're kinda kewt, although I think that in some cases they may not be good ideas.