On Target

Laura Vivanco

Jackie C. Horne has just put up a post at Romance Novels for Feminists  in which she takes a close look at what Linda Howard and Linda Jones's Running Wild has to say about guns and gun control. She concludes that,

In order for gun advocates to successfully deploy the figure of the woman in their rhetoric, they must balance between two apparently opposing visions of femininity. Women must be constructed as in danger, subject at any time and for no apparent reason to the violent behavior of marauding male criminals such as Brad. Yet they must also be shown as believing that gun ownership will empower them, will allow them to protect themselves and others from any such depredations. Howard and Jones demonstrate how conflating romance and gun ownership might just make this ideological tightrope that much easier for gun rights activists to walk.

I'd encourage you to read the whole of "Guns, Love, and Ideology in Romantic Suspense."