Just recently a 78 year old Father was at the range with his 40ish Daughter. Dad wanted to teach Daughter how to shoot. She was slim, about 5' 6". Dad let her fire his 22LR H&R M992 revolver, a revolver Dad had purchased new in around 1953. The woman was not intimidated by the 22 LR. Dad carried in his pocket a 380 pocket pistol, similar to the S&W Model M&P BODYGUARD or the Kel-Tec P-3AT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kel-Tec_P-3AT. His daughter was unable to rack the slide and barely had the finger strength to pull through the trigger. This pistol was inappropriate for her to use as a self defense weapon.
They also had an aluminum frame P-38 which the Daughter fired. She was intimated by the thing, claimed it hurt her hand, and the manual at arms was beyond her understanding. It was hard for her to rack the slide. They were going to the gun store to trade the P-38 off for something simpler. Maybe they did, or maybe it will show up for Craigslist.
Used guns can be a bargain if you closely examine them. I purchased a very old five screw Smith and Wesson in 32S&W Long that had been in the family before WW2 and had been in a leather holster about as long, for the holster removed some of the bluing from the side of the barrel. After I cleaned out the dried crud that had jammed the lockworks and the barrel, I found a perfectly timed revolver with perfect rifling. I doubt the thing had been fired for sixty to seventy years.
The 32 S&W Long was a good price, the mixed parts P-38 the seller also had was not. He had gone to a Gun Store for an estimate and they were not interested in the gummed up S&W and they told him a price for the WW2 era P-38 that would have been correct if the thing was matching parts. It was not. I was not interested in a mix master at a known high price and an unknown functionality.
Few people shoot their weapons, the greatest problem is rust as these neophytes don't clean their firearms and the things rust. That was something I was explaining to the Father/Daughter combination. Their P-38 was an old military pistol from Interarms, had not been cleaned or oiled in a long time, they had just fired it, and I told them that they needed to wipe off the powder fouling or it will rust. Who knows if they cleaned it or not. Also take a cleaning rod and bristles, and if you can't easily get to a bright, pristine barrel, pass on the thing.
I did not do that for this Stevens M43
I did not have a cleaning rod, assumed what I saw in the barrel was lead fouling, and it was not. The barrel is a sewer pipe. The pistol will go bang and that is about all it is good for.