March 7, 2007
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[stunned] Mercy Maud!
I went to eBay to search for a purse, and it turns out there features available that had never even crossed my mind.
Why, look! It's a concealed weapon pocket!
There are several purses sporting this handy feature, AAMOF.
We are a long, long way from ladies with their reticules, that's for sure.
Comments (4)
That's because the ladies with the reticules had something called "footmen" to carry the gun.
Not saying it's a feature I'd look for in a purse, but there you.
One, I don't think footmen were necessarily armed as a matter of course as they escorted their employers to various friends' houses or shopping establishments, and two, there's a fairly long interval between those days and now, when ladies' purses were designed to hold many things, but firearms were not among them.
Sign of the times, that's what it is.
And a sad one it is, too.
I suppose it depended where you lived, but footmen existed mostly to protect the person they were escorting. A little later they may have become mostly "decorative" or to help a lady across the street, but they came about because life was not safe. Maybe they weren't always armed, but they were there because people did not travel even short distances without "backup."
Definitely our society is rougher than it was 50 years ago, but honestly, until within the last couple of centuries, the reason women didn't carry guns in their purses is because they were generally accompanied by someone who could at least theoretically protect them -- either by weapon or by brawn -- most of the time. I'm not saying go back to those days, but the change isn't so much in the perceived need for protection, as in the ways in which protection was and is provided.
I think the ideal handgun for a lady to carry is not a dull, discreet black one like the one pictured, but a nice bright, shiny chrome one - one that can be seen quite easily by any bad guy who might be facing the business end of the weapon.
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