There were pink assault rifles, pink Tasers, leopard-print rifle slings, peach pleather concealment handbags and the Bosom Buddy, a handgun holster that attaches to a bra.

There was plenty for us chicks at the Nation’s Gun Show in Chantilly, Virginia, this past weekend.

The gun industry’s numbers are saying we’re the hottest thing going in the weapons world.

“About 50 or 60 percent of (gun safety) classes are women now,” said David Stillwell, a dealer from North Carolina who is a gun range instructor and also the seller of the Bosom Buddy, which was displayed on a particularly well-endowed mannequin at his booth. “It’s all about personal safety.”

Nearly 75 percent of gun dealers had more female buyers in recent years, and gun ownership by women went from 13 percent in 2005 to 23 percent last year, according to a report by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

“The women’s market is a force in our industry, and manufacturers, retailers and shooting ranges are making changes to their products and services to satisfy women’s tastes and needs,” said Jim Curcuruto, director of industry research and analysis for the foundation.

Naturally, the dealers at this show tried to target us with an arsenal of Pepto-Bismol-colored products.

I saw only a few women at the show, mostly moms chasing amped-up kids. The guy selling a rainbow of concealed-carry handbags — the kind the woman in Idaho was carrying when her 2-year-old reached in, fired the gun and killed her at a Wal-Mart right after Christmas last year — looked bored. Even Bosom Buddy Man said the ladies were nowhere. His mannequin was about as female as things got around his booth.

I wasn’t looking for new purses or a pink gun. I went to the show with an old friend, an NRA gun safety instructor who’s got a few dozen weapons in his fridge-size gun safe at home.

And my husband went, too. I guess that happens when you tell him you’re going to a gun show with a guy who has lots of guns. The husband is not a gun guy, but he’s a sailor, and I’m a camper. So, somewhere in a Venn diagram, interests intersected in a common place: gear. Lots of really, really cool gear.

Husband found an ammo bandolier that will fit all his spools of sail thread, and he got some royal blue pliers with a retractable marlinspike.

I found paracord and belt webbing. And among the Satan’s Daggers of Death that must’ve been designed by the Dark Lord himself, we found some good, solid fishing knives for the boys.

Gun Guy got a scope and a case of MREs.

“Hurricane season,” he explained.

He’s the guy who goes to work when disaster strikes. Not a Zombie Outbreak Response Team-type. But those guys were there, too.

As were the guys — hundreds and hundreds of mostly white men — browsing the assault rifles, handguns, hunting rifles, bayonets, key chains that can stab, and crates and crates of ammo.

It was, in parts, a killing emporium. Lots and lots of ways to kill fellow humans.

Not everyone knows what they’re doing with these weapons. That’s what bothers Bill Wysong the most.

He sells stun guns. Sold 11 that day.

“It’s what my wife carries,” he said. “Like when she’s walking across the parking lot of Wal-Mart, she’s safe with this.”

Because those Wal-Mart parking lots really are the jungle.

But he’s a 55-year-old cop, and cops are paranoid like that. How can they not be?

He’s also, like most of the good cops I know, not into fetishizing guns or making them a political statement.

“It’s like a wrench,” he said. “A tool. It shouldn’t be anything else.”

And the worst customer of the day — Wysong gets ’em at every show — was the guy who bought a bristling, elephantine, gargantuan warlord gun at another booth but was too embarrassed to admit he didn’t know how to use it.

“They come over and ask me: ‘Can you show me where to put the bullets?’ ” Because Wysong seems like a friendly guy. And his dog’s at the booth with him.

“There has been an explosion in concealed-carry purchases,” he said. “And so much of what’s happening in the firearms industry is fear-driven.”

But there’s one thing that drives him absolutely crazy.

“The humanity in me is bothered by this: I’ve seen a sharp increase in the number of people buying a firearm because of a specific incident,” he says.

I asked him what that “specific incident” is.

“Divorce. An ex. Stuff like that,” he said.

Which is the same reasons Bosom Buddy Guy said he hears from his bra customers.

Yup. Guess there is a market for more pink guns.