--- description: Lindsay McCrum's new book is a playful yet perturbing visual essay on the statistic that some 20 million women in America own guns. title: Chicks With Guns image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe17168dba484c43/69879a943c16390e284532a8/sarita_wip5_9x12.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/) ## LightBox Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Chicks With Guns by [Howard Chua-Eoan](/author/howard-chua-eoan/) ## Howard Chua-Eoan Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 14, 2011 9:00 AM CUT  Sarita, Armstrong, TX, Parkern 20-gauge side-by-side Sarita, Armstrong, TX, Parkern 20-gauge side-by-sideLindsay McCrum by [Howard Chua-Eoan](/author/howard-chua-eoan/) ## Howard Chua-Eoan Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 14, 2011 9:00 AM CUT The stereotype is as old as the Spartans. Those ancient, dichotomy loving Greeks had gender-specific definitions for heroism: men who fell in battle and women who died in childbirth. Epics sang of arms and the man—not arms and the woman. The roles have been so ingrained century after century that, despite the inclusiveness of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (“…the right of the people to keep and bear arms”), guns are still primarily perceived as a male purview. The photographer Lindsay McCrum plays on this preconception in her recently published collection _Chicks with Guns_, a playful yet perturbing visual essay on the statistic that some 20 million women in America own guns. The subjects of the book, published by The Vendome Press, range from girls to women of a certain age, from hunters to police officers to biathletes to the wheelchair-bound; they are dressed in fatigues, ballgowns, fur, frills, jeans and t-shirts, wielding everything from an antique dueling pistol to Beretta hunting rifles to Glocks to an AR-15 semi-automatic. McCrum has played with the dynamics of similar disjunctions in the past, for example, photographing young girls wearing their favorite dresses chosen from their mother’s wardrobes; but that involved the imagination and fantasy. With _Chicks with Guns_ she deals in realities as tangible as gun barrels, in a tableau that stretches across America—one where the gender-divide itself proves to be imaginary. Chicks with Guns _was recently published by the_ [_The Vendome Press_](http://www.vendomepress.com/chicks-with-guns/ "undefined")_._ _Howard Chua-Eoan is the News Director of_ TIME _and_ [TIME.com](http://www.time.com/time/ "undefined")_. Find him on Twitter at_ [_@hchuaeoan_](http://twitter.com/#!/hchuaeoan "undefined")_._  Rachel, Livingston, MT, Ruger 10/22 carbine Lindsay McCrum  Jenevieve, San Antonio, TX, antique single-shot percussion dueling pistol Lindsay McCrum  Sarita, Armstrong, TX, Parkern 20-gauge side-by-side Lindsay McCrum  Caitlin and Carolyn (from left), Minneapolis, MN, Anschutz Fortner rifle with Czech custom stock Lindsay McCrum  Medina, Three Forks, MT, Bounty Hunter 12-gauge side-by-side coach gun Lindsay McCrum  Jen, Emigrant, MT, Browning .270 with a Leupold scope & handmade sling Lindsay McCrum  Anita, St. Paul, MN, Glock .40-caliber and Remington 11-81 Police Model Lindsay McCrum  Jen, Emigrant, MT, Browning .270 with a Leupold scope Lindsay McCrum  Ruth, Savannah, GA, Winchester Model 12 20-gauge Lindsay McCrum ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3782912/chicks-with-guns/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3782912/chicks-with-guns/"},"headline":"Chicks With Guns","datePublished":"2011-11-14T09:00:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:41:19.110Z","description":"Lindsay McCrum's new book is a playful yet perturbing visual essay on the statistic that some 20 million women in America own guns.","url":"https://time.com/3782912/chicks-with-guns/","keywords":["LightBox","Gun Control","photography","photo essay"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe17168dba484c43/69879a943c16390e284532a8/sarita_wip5_9x12.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Howard Chua-Eoan","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/howard-chua-eoan/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe17168dba484c43/69879a943c16390e284532a8/sarita_wip5_9x12.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Sarita_WIP5_9x12","caption":"Sarita, Armstrong, TX, Parkern 20-gauge side-by-side","creditText":"Lindsay McCrum","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-lightbox/","name":"LightBox"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3782912/chicks-with-guns/","name":"Chicks With Guns"}}]}] ```