Local women seeing value in gun knowledge
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Susan DeWitt and Dave Feehan (left) gave instruction while Hattie Hughes and Kacie Kay of Farmington (right) took pointers during a basic gun training session for women last month at Chelsea Firearms & Training Company in Redstone Township. Local officials and gun instructors have noticed an uptick in interest in guns among women.
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Instructor and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Dave Feehan gives gun strip-down and cleaning tips to Hattie Hughes and Kacie Kay of Farmington during a basic gun training session for women last month at Chelsea Firearms & Training Company in Redstone Township. Local officials and gun instructors have noticed an uptick in interest in guns among women.
Guns aren’t just for sport.
And they’re not just for men either.
Local officials and gun instructors are noticing an uptick in interest among women in guns.
Fayette County Sheriff James Custer said that the number of county women obtaining Pennsylvania Licenses to Carry Firearms (LTCs) has steadily increased over the past five years, despite the county’s LTC system not allowing him to sort licenses by gender.
Custer said his staff estimates that approximately 40 percent of licenses to carry are issued to women.
There were 25,864 LTCs awarded to both genders in Fayette County from 2013 through 2017 according to Pennsylvania State Police, an average of more than 5,100 per year – far more than the county’s average of just under 3,400 for the previous five-year period.
“It does seem that interest has gone up, and the most stated reason is for self-protection,” Custer said.
Larry Shaw, owner of Chelsea Firearms & Training Academy in Redstone Township, has overseen several “Girls on Guard” introductions to firearms there in recent months.
Shaw noted interest from both mothers wanting themselves or their children to learn how to operate a firearm as well as widows and widowers who don’t want to feel vulnerable.
One of the instructors at Chelsea Firearms, Dave Feehan, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, has enjoyed teaching his 7-year-old daughter Isabella how to shoot.
“It’s easier when they don’t know anything (before) a lot of bad habits are formed,” Feehan said Feb. 24 while walking down to a shooting range near Chelsea Firearms where four women there to receive firearm training were getting ready to fire at targets with Shaw, fellow instructor Bill Gouirand and Chelsea Firearms employee Susan DeWitt at their side for guidance.
One of the trainees, Hattie Hughes of Farmington, reflected afterward on what made basic firearms knowledge valuable to her.
“I feel like as a small girl, that’s the only protection I have,” Hughes said.
In a 2017 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults, 67 percent of gun owners said that protection was a major reason they owned a gun, 29 percent more than hunting, the second-most common reason. Even among rural respondents, more gun owners cited protection as a major reason for ownership than hunting or sport shooting.
Of women who grew up in a gun-owning household, 61 percent never hunted versus just 30 percent of men, while 49 percent never went shooting or to a gun range compared to just 27 percent of men.
The mean age at which men first got their own gun was 19. For women, it was 27.
Larry Williams, a local National Rifle Association and municipal police officer firearms instructor of the Mount Braddock-based Williams & Sons indoor pistol range and Act 235 training academy, said that women interest in guns has “always been there” but has noticed more men buying their wives and girlfriends guns in the past five to six years.
Shaw emphasized repeatedly during his company’s “Girls on Guard” instruction that women often pick up bad gun care and operation habits from the men in their lives, and that it’s better to seek guidance from professional instructors.
Feehan showed the four women who showed up with their own firearms seeking basic gun knowledge how not to muzzle sweep – aiming a gun in someone’s direction without meaning to do so. Shaw showed them proper shooting stance – including bending forward at the hips. And after returning from the shooting range, the women trainees got a tutorial on stripping down and cleaning their guns.
“A lot of local people want to protect themselves and their family,” Shaw said.