We did go to the gun store and she did handle and feel several guns. The LCP is the one she wanted and thought felt best in her hand. In retrospect, I should have had her run through all the controls on each gun and try to rack each slide. It honestly never occurred to me that someone wouldn't be able to rack the slide on one of these.
We were lucky enough to have a frend with sveral autos plus what I own. We had her load and shoot everything we could get our hands on. She couldn't rack the slide easily on anything but our 22's even the Kel Tec P3AT was a chore for her. That is when we decided she might be better off with a revolver and that is what we went looking for. I was prepaired to buy her a $500+ Smith but she fell in love with the Beretta.