Provocative YouTuber “Bunny Hunter” has attracted the attention of her local news station:

A young woman who calls herself ‘Bunny Hunter’ may be Tampa’s answer to Duck Dynasty. She has her own YouTube channel where she shoots guns, handles knives, hunts wild boar, and packs pistols beneath evening gowns, miniskirts, and Daisy Dukes.

“Maybe I can get girls interested and aware that you can wear this dress and still protect yourself, and no one will be wiser to the fact that you’re packing some serious heat,” she explained.

…

…Bunny Hunter says the once-manly pursuits of guns, fishing rods, and the great outdoors is becoming more appealing to women. Although she dresses provocatively in many of her videos, she says men aren’t her only views on YouTube.

“The demographic is 80 percent male, 20 percent female,” she said. “But in the beginning it was 90 percent male, so that shows improvement.”

While the video report was surprisingly neutral in tone, it could afford to be; the clips they chose to use show Bunny Hunter in skimpy attire, allowing many to write her off as nothing more than a fluffed up “gun bunny” who has sex appeal to sell as her main “product,” with her knowledge of weapons getting second billing.

Is that a fair criticism?

I’ll put it this way: when I see someone come to the range for a class wearing shirts without sleeves or scoop necks, I ask if they have a change of clothes, because it is a truly a safety issue. When hot brass is ejected and lands on bare skin, the instinctive human reaction is to flinch, roll, grab, twist, etc, and since that happens on a hot firing line, that means the person affected will want to flinch, roll, grab, twist, etc. with a loaded firearm in their hands, endangering my firing line. That’s unacceptable.

I understand the need to show different types of apparel when demonstrating concealed carry options for women (failiaphotography does this well), but if Bunny Hunter truly has firearms knowledge to impart, she can easily do so wearing range-appropriate or hunting appropriate clothing when on the firing line.

Anette Wachter, Tam, Shelley Rae, Nikki Turpeaux, my friend Adena Sherman-Adams and any number of other female shooters have actual, valuable knowledge to share, and they don’t .

I wish Bunny Hunter success, but if she wants to be taken seriously, she needs to dress like a shooting professional… or at least like someone who’s been to the range more than once.