An All-Women Training Camp That Sells Guns as Empowerment
- Master Nerd
- Apr 28, 2022
- 8 min read
Hundreds of American women gathered in Texas for the A Girl and a Gun conference to learn how to defend themselves, protect their children, and fire machine guns from a helicopter.
Women gathered at a shooting range in Burnet, Texas, where they try to defend their children while gunning down an assailant.
There are eleven of them, and they rotate between firing five bullets and acting as each other's children. With their left hands, the shooters seize the wrists of their "children" and hold them tightly to their left hips. Due to the fact that these aren't youngsters, older ladies are obliged to crouch down near the dirty red earth. The shooters draw their firearms from their holsters with their right hands, take aim, and fire at targets that resemble Mr. Clean.
"Two to the chest, one to the head," says Melody Lauer, the NRA-certified instructor who is presenting the "Armed Parent" class.
The training is one of numerous self-defense classes offered during the A Girl and a Gun conference, which takes place in mid-April on the expansive 1,300-acre Reveille Peak Ranch. Over 400 women from across the country attend the week-long event for specialized weapons training and to socialize with other Second Amendment supporters. It has the ambiance of a summer camp, replete with a traditional Texas BBQ, if you tune out the steady shower of gunfire in the background.
In America, there are an estimated 12 to 17 million female gun owners, accounting for about 4% to 5% of the overall population, with the majority of them carrying for self-defense. Because the government doesn't maintain track, the figures are all over the place. In Canada, there are just 275,695 women with firearms licenses, accounting for less than 1% of the population.
Many attended the conference to learn more about these women and why they believe they must always be armed.
"I'm armed every day," Vicki Kawelmacher, who runs a women's shooting school out of Reno, adds. But I don't always have a gun with me. "I have a knife, a kubotan, a taser, a shock gun... you name it," she said.
Many American women believe it is their responsibility to protect themselves and their families by carrying a firearm. But, precisely, what are they terrified of? I wondered: Are additional firearms the solution or do they compound the problem in a society already plagued by deadly shootings, where women are 16 times more likely to be murdered by a gun than in any other modern country? There is no dispute among the women in The Armed Parent class.
"The only way to divert violence is
for us to become more aggressive."
"A vicious criminal," Lauer begins, "will shoot through the child if they are shooting you." If they're attacking you, they'll stab the child as well. They will beat you if they are beating you. 'Through. The. Child,' says the narrator. And the only way to divert violence is for us to become more aggressive."
Except for a vibrant pink holster strapped around her waist, the 33-year-old mother of three is dressed mostly in black. Despite being only five feet three inches tall and having a little physique, she has a dominating presence. She tells the women at the start of class that pointing their guns at their classmates or handling their guns without permission will result in them being booted out.
She also gives them instructions on how to keep their guns away from children. "Guns should not belong in luggage if you are going to be among youngsters." I'm sick of hearing about kids injuring themselves." (According to a study published in Pediatrics, 82 American children die each year from unintentional gunshot wounds, while more than 1,200 are injured.)
Lauer, who lives in Iowa with her husband and children, travels the country teaching parents how to use defensive handguns. Many of Lauer's YouTube videos have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, including ones about carrying a gun and a baby at the same time.
We have learned, Women in her class are frequently concerned about house invasions, active shooter scenarios, and even "Walmart shopping."
Violent crime in the United States has been declining for decades, but gun deaths and purchases have reached historic highs. In Burnet, a tiny city of little over 6,000 people where even the owner of a café where I stop for lunch has two weapons on hand, the latter statement is undoubtedly true.
According to a survey conducted by Harvard and Northeastern universities, while the number of American men who claim to possess weapons has decreased over the last two decades, female gun ownership climbed somewhat between 1994 and 2014. Female gun owners are more likely than male gun owners to just own a pistol, and concealed carry permits for women increased by 270 percent between 2007 and 2015, according to a recent survey.
According to studies, more American women believe that weapons will help them defend themselves. The NRA, which spends millions of dollars especially marketing to women and selling firearms as a kind of female empowerment, repeats this message over and over.
In a 2017 NRA commercial, controversial spokesperson Dana Loesch tells the story of a woman who was murdered in her driveway by her ex-boyfriend while waiting for her concealed carry permit. "More armed and trained women means fewer rape victims, assault victims, and soft targets," Loesch claims.
On International Women's Day, she made a similar statement, blaming feminist groups of telling women they're "too foolish, too weak, and too simple-minded" to carry a gun.
"If you're out and about, if you're going to get gas, if you're going to the store, if you're heading to your car in a dark parking garage," Loesch continues, characterizing the NRA as true feminists for supporting the Second Amendment. The ad concludes with a donation request. Multiple requests for comment from the NRA for this story were turned down.
Similar messages are promoted by pro-gun women's groups, with some even coaching women on how to stroll through a parking lot or unload groceries to reduce the risk of being attacked by a stranger. These organizations are frequently sponsored by gun and weapon accessory companies, and they sell goods (mostly pink and purple) on their websites and during their events. A Girl and A Gun has a booth covered in "Gun Goddess" baseball caps, and there are vendors offering concealed carry purses.
Women like Liz Lazarus, who was a victim of a house invasion in the spring of 1990, are central to pro-gun marketing campaigns. Lazarus, who speaks at A Girl and a Gun and has written a novel called Free of Malice based on her story, now does videos for the NRA and other gun rights organizations about the significance of being armed at home.
She keeps a 9mm Ruger in her nightstand and carries a Sig Sauer handgun "half the time" she's out of the house. Six months ago, she received her concealed carry permit.
She says, "You never know when you're going to need your gun." "If you don't take it, you're playing Russian roulette."
After several days of conversations, however, not a single woman I meet at A Girl and a Gun claims to have ever used a firearm in self-defense. Furthermore, data does not support the notion that more guns make American women safer.
Only 127 (less than 1%) of 14,000 crimes involving the victim featured self-defensive gun use, according to a Harvard study, and the gun did not make them less vulnerable to injury or property loss.
Susan Sorenson, a public health professor at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Ortner Center on Family Violence, says that "I think that [owning] a gun, for women, is being pitched as a way to increase equality," but "the reality is that the circumstances in which a man might use a gun... is not the kind of violence that women encounter."
"Women are far more likely to encounter domestic violence from a male intimate partner."
"A man with a gun is bracing himself for a confrontation with a stranger in public.... Women are far more likely to be subjected to domestic violence by a male intimate partner."
Every month, on average, 50 American women are fatally shot by their partners.
Seven out of 10 rapes, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network [RAINN], are committed by someone the victim knows. According to the Harvard study, women never use firearms to defend themselves against sexual assault.
According to Sorenson's research on guns in intimate relationships, American women are more than twice as likely to be fatally shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, strangled, or murdered in any other way by someone they don't know than they are to be fatally shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, strangled, or murdered in any other manner by someone they don't know. According to the survey, an estimated 4.5 million women in the United States have been threatened by a gun held by an intimate partner, with 900,000 of them being shot or shot at.
When men used weapons against female partners in non-fatal cases, the article discovered that they were most typically used to intimidate or instill terror.
"It creates an environment of intimidation and dread," Sorenson explains, "so she'll do what he wants or at the very least back down."
There have been instances where women have used their firearms to defend themselves against strangers. A 25-year-old guy was shot in the neck by a woman in Goochland, Virginia, after he allegedly tried to break into her home by throwing a brick through the glass door. When they found him, he was armed with pepper spray, duct tape, and a hunting knife, according to authorities.
While Sorenson acknowledges that weapons can be empowering for some women, "the information that we have so far indicates that if a woman gets a gun, she is more likely to become a victim of homicide and to commit suicide."
As the week at A Girl and a Gun draws to a conclusion, they attend a class where a group of primarily middle-aged women learns how to bandage gunshot wounds with a tourniquet. The teacher, who distributes a model of simulated flesh with gunshot holes, instructs everyone in attendance to keep medical supplies on available at all times—even attached to their bodies while at the gym.
They also attend a lecture given by a self-described mental health professional, in which he discusses the reasons why people kill one another. Being in a love triangle, safeguarding children, tribalism (he offers the example of wearing the wrong sports shirt) and road rage are among the explanations given.
He tells of a psychopath who hung a lady upside down, "filled her vaginal vault with lighter fluid, and burned her from the inside out," in one especially gruesome account.
I can't help but think about the expense of being prepared at all times, both financially (weapons and medical supplies aren't cheap) and mentally as the participants eagerly write down notes, appearing scared. It seems as if these gurus, the majority of whom run self-defense enterprises, can't promote empowerment without also selling dread. When does being "situationally aware"—a phrase I hear a lot from women who carry—become paranoia?
Many of the female gun owners I talk with express their dread of unknown guys in parking lots or while driving through dodgy neighborhoods. I understand being concerned while coming home alone at night, but it's not something that comes to mind in Toronto—raccoons are considerably more of a concern. On the other hand, I don't live in a country where everyone carries a pistol. If I did, statistics notwithstanding, it's extremely likely that being armed would make me feel safer.
Several raffles are held at the conclusion of the conference. One of them is to collect money for the daughters of an A Girl and A Gun member who was allegedly shot to death by her husband, according to organizer Robyn Sandoval.
"Because she was a female with a gun, it really devastated our neighborhood," Sandoval adds.
A pistol with a silencer is up for grabs in this raffle.
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