Me too. Interestingly, all but one of my Basic Handgun Safety students have been women. I've tried never to be condescending toward them as female shooters, but I confess that I've had trouble hiding my disdain for poor-quality weapons. The thing is, I've always tried to couch it in terms of advice to upgrade as soon as possible; but it has never occurred to me that maybe this HiPoint/Jennings/Bryco/Jimenez is all the gun the person could afford.Charles L. Cotton wrote:That's an excellent article! I just sent an email to Greg asking for permission to reprint it on http://www.TexasShooting.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.TexasFirearmsCoalition.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I'm ashamed to admit that I too have done exactly what he has admitted -- looked at someone's lower quality gun and/or poor gun-handling skills and inwardly shook my head. Never again, never again.
Chas.
Back when I was involved in motorcycle-related retail sales, I used to face this dilemma with helmet sales. People would come in and look at the array of available helmets. At the time, a cheap full-face helmet from Ghibli with the minimal DOT-mandated rating was maybe about $59.95, and you could get a pretty good racing quality helmet from Shoei, Arai, or Bell in the $150-$200 range (how times have changed, n'est pas?). Of course, I always tried to steer the customer to the more expensive helmets — NOT because I was trying to make a buck.....I received no commission.....but because I genuinely felt like the human brain was worth spending the extra money to protect. (I should point out that this was my 2nd, part-time job....my first and primary job was working in the ER.) And if the customer patently refused to spend the extra money, I might say something like "Ok..... It's your brain......"
I confess that I always saw it as the other person "cheaping out" and being irresponsible, and never actually thought that maybe, this was truly all they could afford. That was wrong of me.
I guess that gun sales are kind of the same way. I've always been blessed with enough money to be able to buy the gun I wanted, instead of settling for the cheapest gun I could find.
I do know this..... if a young single mom whom I already knew were to ask me to help her pick out a gun, and all she had was the price of a brand new HiPoint in her pocket, and there was a used Glock 19 (or something similar) for $50-$100 more in the display case, I would give her the difference as a gift and steer her toward the better gun. I can replace the money. I can't replace friends.