The Lady of the Gun

She looks like she could have been my mother, or perhaps yours, if your parents were of “The Greatest Generation.” In one sepia photo, she drapes a dark coat across her arm. In the other she’s wearing it. She stands by the side of a house, or perhaps a garage, looking off in one picture, toward the camera in another, appearing first, serious, and then — is that a smile?

She was young. She was pretty. Who was she? Somebody’s sweetheart? Somebody’s wife? Is she still alive? Did she end up having children, grandchildren …?

And whose gun were the Plexiglas-covered photos on the grip of the 1911 Army .45 affixed to?

"The Lady of the Gun" is my Rights Watch column for the December 2008 issue of GUNS Magazine.

The original Star-Telegram story on which much of this is based has disappeared from their site. Fortunately, A Keyboard and a .45 posted a picture of the grips back when this story first appeared.