You mean we’re not all white dudes?

Apparently, women are shooters as well.  This shouldn’t be a surprise to any of you guys, but I’m always tickled when I see a media outlet talking about women and shooting without devolving into the usual crying and PSH.  Stuff like this following excerpt makes me happy, because it represents good news for the shooting sports.

The Women on Target instructional and shooting clinic at Rose Valley this summer, a National Rifle Association event, was packed. Organizer Nina Neuron of Santa Paula said she had to turn away more than 40 women, adding, “And that’s when I stopped counting.” About a third of the roughly two dozen female participants, Neuron noted, had never fired a gun before.

I guess that kind of shoots holes in the perception that we’re just a bunch of suburban white guys.  I really can’t even begin to express how much I like it when I see women at the range – it helps me realize that our sport is actually growing, and we are successfully making our sport, our hobby accessible to new groups of people.  Near the end of the article is a really big nail in the coffin of another popular anti-gun statement.

Fuller said she never thought she’d enjoy guns. Her father committed suicide with a gun when she was 7, and she subsequently was afraid of them much of her life. But she started shooting about 18 years ago and liked it, especially as a stress reliever.

Now, I want you to take special note of this.  Ms. Fuller had a tragedy in her life that involved a gun; and if anyone has a reason to be biased against firearms, it would be her.  However, she overcame that tragedy and her own personal fears and in so doing has become (unknowingly) a fantastic ambassador for the shooting sports.  Ms. Fuller would stand out as a textbook example of there not being any lost causes; her courage in overcoming her personal fear alone makes her a model gun owner.

8 Comments

  1. Duh

    All those women were there because their husbands told them to go.

    Ahab, sometimes you’re so silly. Don’t you understand that the men got together in one of their big I’m the Boss Of This House meetings and decided that their wives should go so that the NRA would look good for the liberal press?

    I swear, I can’t believe I have to explain everything to you.

    Tomorrow I’ll tell you what Vast Right Wing Conspiracy means.

    *sheesh*

  2. My mom tried out trap shooting at a family day at the local range.

    A couple weeks later, she has her own rifle.

  3. My wife had a trauma involving firearms also, and has not recovered yet. While working as an ER doc in Baltimore, she assisted on a case where a young man found a revolver in a park, took it home, was playing with it, and shot his younger brother. The gunshot victim got his chest and abdomen opened in the ER to stop bleeding – and died weeks later of overwhelming sepsis. Not something anyone would want to watch. She still won’t handle guns although she accepts that I have an interest in them.

    Any suggestions as to how to get her past her dislike of firearms?

  4. Does she have the same fear of automobiles? I’m sure she experienced treating many young victims of automobile accidents, some responsible for their actions, others not. I assume she drives. Perhaps you can compare her responsible use of her automobile to your responsible use of firearms. She didn’t park her car because she had to treat some idiot who chose to drink and drive and ran over a pedestrian.

    Make it about the user, not the tool.There may be another reason she took the incident with the gunshot victim personally. Tread lightly.

  5. Take her paintballing?

    Take her to an outdoor range with a .22?

    Live with the fact that she’s generous enough to accept that you like guns and allows them in a house that she shares with you? I think that’s the mark of a remarkable woman.

    And I’m sure she’s dying to know that I think she’s great…

  6. It is these kinds of things that people like Laura Washington somehow manage to miss when they are digging through the news to find more articles and statistics against the evils of firearm ownership. Funny how that happens.

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