C. J. Songer

Novelist C. J. Songer gets the nod in October for the CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Month Award.
 A Californian, C. J. Songer worked for several years behind the scenes with the Glendale, California, Police Department, and is married to a former Robbery/Homicide Investigator from the same department.
 Versed in weapons and self-defense, she’s taken courses at Gunsite, “the Harvard of shooting schools,” and with Yavapai Firearms Academy in Arizona, as well as at Thunder Ranch in Texas, G.S.G.I. and FrontSight in California, and a number of other venues.  She’s had training with current and ex-Navy SEALs, and has shot, by invitation, at tactical matches where street survival skills are measured.
 Her first mystery novel was BAIT, published in hardcover by Scribners in 1998 and by Harper in paperback, and features the adventures of Detective Meg Gillis.  The next book in the series is HOOK, also available in both hardcover and paperback.  Both titles are available in Great Britain as well, and BAIT also was published in Germany.
 They are semi-hard-boiled mysteries with a female protagonist who, like C. J. herself, believes strongly in using tactics and armed self-defense.
 She’s at work on another installment of the series, tentatively called LIVE.
 Among the many plaudits the series has received was a 2003 award from Romantic Times, during a recent Book Lovers Convention in Kansas City.
 Songer also is a columnist for THE FIRING LINE, the monthly newsletter of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, where she writes the “View From the Home Front” column.  She recently was named a Contributing Editor to WOMEN & GUNS, the first firearms publication for women, published by the Second Amendment Foundation.
 “C. J. is a great asset to the gun fraternity,” said Peggy Tartaro, Executive Editor of WOMEN & GUNS, Treasure of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and Associate Editor of POINT BLANK.
 “I was pleased to nominate C. J. Songer for a CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Month Award,” said Tartaro.  “Gun owners should know that we have champions in the entertainment industry who can influence with one book literally thousands of people who otherwise might not think positively about us.”
 Tartaro added that, “we couldn’t be happier to have C. J. on board writing regularly for WOMEN & GUNS.  She has more ideas than time, but will be on our pages more often than not.”
 C. J. has been involved in spreading the positive word on guns not just on the page, but on the range as well.  She participated in last year’s National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) program designed for Hollywood Stuntwomen – teaching this group of professionals about real guns.  The name for the group of Hollywood Stuntwomen is SWAMP – the Stunt Women’s Association of Motion Pictures.  The organization has been in existence since 1967. 
 The participants in last year’s NSSF program came away with a new knowledge of, and respect for firearms.  Many also expressed an interest in further exploring competitive shooting.
 C. J. also has been helpful in leading other mystery writers to positive gun experiences, both informally on a peer-to-peer basis, and by assisting the Second Amendment Foundation with its Firearms & Fiction seminars. 
 C. J. and her husband, Red, are gun enthusiasts.  She recently competed in the IRC international revolver matches in California.  They know the positive values of gun ownership and work tirelessly to preserve our gun rights. 
 They’re passing their values along to their two children.  For more information about C. J.’s summer activities with her kids, please see the November/December 2004 issue of WOMEN & GUNS.
 C. J. has her own website, too, www.cjsonger.com, where many of her Firing Line columns, and now her Blue Press columns, are archived.
 In the September/October 2004 issue of WOMEN & GUNS, C. J. writes that, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about public things, about the Second Amendment withering away, about the divisions in the shooting ranks, your type of shooting versus my type of shooting, shooters as a group keeping themselves too invisibly private, that short of issue.”
 She understands that the shooting community now has to adhere to an important internal shooting community policy objective. 
 C. J. realizes that, in order to preserve the individual Second Amendment right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms, it really is important to develop an all for one, one for all attitude.