Surge In Female Gun Ownership From New Freedom In Laws

By MARÁ ROSE WILLIAMS
The Kansas City Star

Six times, she tugged the revolver’s trigger, and six times the
bullets went home, puncturing chest, throat and then the gut,
on paper, of course.

Danielle Hunt smiled as she left her shooting stance, pleased at
the holed human outline target about 20 feet away at the Crossfire
Recreational Center gun range in Independence and the feel
of the revolver was sweet, too.

The Kansas City Police Department employee is used to her semi-automatic,
but the borrowed gun, a wood-grip .38 Taurus revolver, had its appeal.
“Easier to control your shot,” she said. “No recoil.”

A shooter for several years, Hunt was not surprised to hear that more
women are buying handguns, honing accuracy and toting them in
their purses in states like Missouri and Kansas that have conceal
and carry weapon laws.

“I think a lot of women want that level of safety,” said Hunt,
who recently got a conceal and carry license.

This urge for personal arming against the unknown attacker,
however, comes against a seemingly contrarian background:
Violent crime, including rapes and assaults, has been steadily
declining across the nation.

Between 2001 and 2010, “the overall violent victimization rate
decreased by 40.5 percent,” according to a U.S. Bureau of Justice
Statistics report.

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I’m here to report the increase in women gun buyers, but the male
customers — only men were in the store — definitely looked at me
oddly as I stepped into the show room.

Row after row of guns, in all shapes, colors and sizes, are enclosed
in glass cases, just like the precious gems in a jewelry store. Only in
the case of jewelry the lighting is set to bounce off the stones,
sparkle and promote a good feeling. I didn’t get that in the gun
store; it was dim, and people looked pretty serious. The men behind
the counters wore guns in holsters hanging on their hips. — Mará Rose Williams.
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When selling to women, Mike Malone, owner of The Gun Shop in Olathe,
said, “The first thing I ask is what do you want to use it for.”
He usually gets one of two answers: a piece in the purse or on the
night stand while they sleep. Andy Pelosi, executive director of Gun
Free Kids in New York, has heard that more women are buying guns
than ever before, but he doesn’t understand why.
“Maybe there is a fear factor, that they don’t feel safe in their environment.”
While no gender specific gun sales statistics are available, 60 percent
of firearm retailers responding to a National Shooting Sports
Foundation survey reported an increase in female customers in 2011.

American women saying they personally own a firearm is nearly one in four,
according to an October Gallup poll.

That survey indicated the highest gun ownership since the 1990s,
with 43 percent of women reporting at least one in their home and
23 percent saying it’s theirs. (Half of American men own a firearm,
the poll showed.)

These numbers are all significantly higher than found in just April
by the Violence Policy Center, which said: “Female gun ownership
peaked in 1982 at 14.3 percent. In 2010 (it) was 9.9 percent.”
The National Opinion Research Center survey also indicated that
household gun ownership had dropped from more than half of all
American homes to just below one in three.

Gallup offered a caveat that its higher numbers “could reflect a
change in Americans’ comfort with publicly stating that they have
guns as much as it reflects a real uptick in gun ownership.”

Patricia Stoneking, owner of Target Master Shooting Academy and
president of the Kansas affiliate of the National Rifle Association,
said she has seen more women learning to shoot at the Bullet Hole
range in Overland Park.

No hard numbers, she said, but “it’s not an exaggeration that in a
beginner’s class of eight people we might have six women and two men.”
Five years ago, she said, the ratio would have been reversed.
Stoneking said the increase in women arming themselves “is in
direct correlation to the existence of conceal and carry laws.”
Only Illinois and the District of Columbia do not have some level of
conceal and carry laws. It became law in Missouri in 2003 and three
years later in Kansas.

Similarly, she attributes the lowered crime rates to the fact that
more people are packing in public.

“The criminals know that. They know if they try to rob someone
there is the likelihood they may be facing a firearm. They don’t
want to get shot. They just want your wallet, and in the case of rape,”
she said, “well, let’s just say they are not willing to die for it.”

Over the last decade, rapes reported to police have dropped by
50,000, to fewer than 190,000 nationally by 2010. The crime is
under-reported, however, and involves sexual assault by
acquaintances perhaps a third of the time. Date or acquaintance
rape certainly complicates deterrence by a firearm.

Darren Pack, NRA rifle and pistol instructor, thinks the increase in guns
in purses is connected to the decline in the economy.
“People have lost so much recently, they want to protect what they have.
Police can’t be everywhere and people don’t feel safe any more,” Pack said.
At the same time, experts are surprised that in the face of such a
sour economy, crime rates continue downward.
Pack said he finds it “gratifying” when a first-timer leaves his class
qualified to carry a gun after firing at least 70 rounds and putting at
least 30 of them through the target, a requirement for a permit to
carry a concealed firearm.

Other reasons cited by women for blasting away is that for some it
relieves stress or offers an opportunity to share something with a mate
on “man turf.”
For Hunt: “Because it’s a challenging and interesting sport.”


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Surrounded by all that steel and wood and fire power wasn’t as scary
as I thought it would be, but I hadn’t held a firearm yet. By the time
I visited the third gun shop, I really warmed to the idea and before
I knew it I couldn’t take my eyes off of a small, pearly, pink-handled
semi-automatic about the size of my hand.
In my palm, it was much lighter than I had expected, and although
while it was cute, I figured if I were getting a gun it would have to
weigh more than this little thing. The revolver was much heavier.
It felt like a gun and not a toy. — MRW
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Kelly Howe, working the counter at Blue Steel Guns and Ammo in Raytown,
thinks the “gun of the year” for the ladies is the 9mm Ruger.
“Most women do like smaller handguns that fit better in their hand
and that they can control. It is not the size of the gun that’s important,
but whether you can control it.”

Corneredcat.com has advice for guys buying for their gals:
“Oddly enough, women are all individuals. Asking what caliber or
gun is best for a woman is exactly the same thing as asking what
caliber or gun is best for a man and the answer is, ‘It depends...’
“I’ve seen tiny little women with great big grins on their faces as
they hammered away with full-powered ‘manly’ guns. I’ve also seen
sturdy-looking Amazon-woman types wincing from what I consider
to be mild recoil…
“What I’m getting at here is that it doesn’t matter if she weighs 90
pounds soaking wet or if she’s taller than you are and twice as fluffy.
Her hand size will matter when it is time to pick a platform, but the
size of her body isn’t going to tell you much that is useful about her
tolerance for recoil or the caliber she’ll prefer shooting.”


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The Ruger is what I had guessed a traditional — by Hollywood
standards — modern handgun would look like. Black, compact with a
blued alloy steel slide and barrel and a wood-paneled grip loaded
with a magazine to slap in just like the cops do on television.

Turns out the guys selling the guns actually recommend revolvers to
women who are new to firearms. The revolver is easier to maintain,
to check to see if it’s loaded ammo and to control. They said the
heavier the weapon the less recoil there is. — MRW
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Buying a pistol that matches your lipstick is closer than you think.
At Blue Steel, gunsmith Joe William Terry said he’s adhering a bake-on,
pink coating to more handguns than ever.
“There are definitely more women coming in to buy a gun,” Terry said,
and a lot of them “like having their gun personalized. They like pink
or raspberry steel.”
Or you might replace the grip with a color a little sassier.
Back to Corneredcat.com:
“Looks matter,” the writer says. “Oh, one more thing: her fashion sense
is better than yours. If she says a flashy gun is pretty, don’t argue.
It’s not a pimp gun if a woman is wearing it.”
Stoneking said most of the women she trains avoid the candy-color-
coated pieces. “I don’t want my gun to look cute, I want it to be big
and mean looking.”
Agreed, said Marge Kassel, who sat through Darren’s 10-hour conceal
and carry classes and placed every bullet she fired through the range target.
Her family had been after the 72-year-old Lee’s Summit grandmother
to get the permit so that she could carry a firearm “for protection.”
Kassel said she’s not out and about much after the sun goes down, but
when she is she wants that snub-barreled .38 Special Smith & Wesson at hand.
“If I ever need it,” she said, “I want to be able to stop whatever is coming at me.”
[I used to carry a .38 special,
until I found out about STOPPING POWER; a .44 special is more like it. David]



At the gun range, I was surprised that the strong smell of gun powder
hung in the air, like heavy smoke on a Fourth of July night. Loud, too.

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This Long Island, N.Y., girl had never fired a gun of any kind before,
but I wanted to try it. Lloyd Cook, owner at Crossfire gun range, was patient.
He pulled out a Browning .22, popped out the empty magazine and
slapped it on the counter. After a 15-minute lesson in how to hold it,
load it and fire it, I headed back to the range with gun and ammo in
hand and protective ear gear on my head.
In the lane facing the blue, paper target, nerves kicked in. My hands
quivered loading the black steel firearm, and a bullet lodged upright
in the magazine. Cook fixed it.
I extended my arms, gripped with both hands, held my breath and
pulled the trigger. BANG. The gun, more powerful than expected,
jumped up a tad. The bullet barely clipped the top of the target. A Murphy.
A tighter hold, more arm extension, a keener look down the sight,
and …BANG … BANG … BANG… the next 9 rounds marched across the
target from head to torso. — MRW
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“The equation is simple,” said Kristen Rand, legislative director of
the Violence Prevention Center. “More guns lead to more gun death.
Limiting exposure to firearms saves lives.”
To the NRA, the equation is this: the 250 million privately owned guns
in the United States correlates to the 50 percent drop in murders —
of all kinds — since 1991.
More than 8,700 murders in 2010, however, were committed with a firearm
and for every time a gun draws blood in self-defense, the Brady
Center to Prevent Gun Violence contends, 11 guns are used for suicides
and four are involved in unintentional shooting deaths or injuries.
No national statistics on such accidents are kept by the National
Centers for Disease Control’s Injury Center in Atlanta, but it does
offer a 16-state snapshot — not including Missouri or Kansas.
In those states, accidental at-home gun deaths declined from 32 in 2005
to 14 in 2009, the latest available year.

Fearing tragic accidents, many women frown on firearms in the
house — especially handguns — which can seem more like toys than
the larger, heavier long arms. The conceal and carry training they
receive includes how to secure guns safely at home.
With gun ownership comes responsibility, Terry said.
“I ask them if they have the fortitude to shoot and maybe kill someone.
If they don’t, then I tell them maybe they should re-think buying a gun,
and that is the reality.
“If they pull it out and don’t use it, someone will definitely take it
away from them. Then you have a criminal who maybe didn’t have
a gun to start with, who now has one, and you’re the victim.”
[I dispute that; when it happened to me, thay FLED
before I had a chance to use it. David]

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The more I heard about women learning to shoot for protection,
the more I started thinking there might be something to the idea.
In the end, though, I’m torn about whether it’s smarter to have
a weapon and know how to use it, or to avoid them completely.
I don’t think I would have had one in the home when the kids were
young, but now, I don’t know. The thing that hangs in my mind most
is a comment from a gun dealer, who asked that if I were threatened,
“Could you fire until it’s empty?”
I’m pretty sure if it came down to protecting my children, I wouldn’t
have a problem blasting away, but in a robbery or something like that,
I don’t think so. — MRW
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“Guns aren’t for everybody,” Hunt agreed.
Angelica Silvia Polluck of Independence visits Crossfire range “every
once in a while,” to practice with her protection weapon “so I can
be advanced enough with it and feel comfortable enough to carry it
around all the time.”

“I’m not afraid of guns any more,” said Polluck, who got the gun
at the insistence of her husband. While never feeling her life was
threatened, she said, “I would encourage every woman to have
a gun and know how to use it. It made me feel more comfortable.”

Other than a BB gun, Alison Blankenship had never fired a weapon
before taking her concealed carry class.

She hasn’t made her mind up yet to purchase her own gun,
but she enjoys plinking away with the range Browning.

“I was so excited out there that my glasses steamed up,” she said,
searching for a shell casing that had flown up the sleeve of her pink
sweater. “I pray I never have to use a gun, but if ever I have to protect
the life of a member of my family or my own life, I want to be able to
do it and know how.”