http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/printer.pat,local/3accafa0.519,.html

More women joining ranks of gun enthusiasts
By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH and MATT SCHOFIELD – The Kansas City Star
Date: 05/19/01 22:15

Lee Totzke likes to shoot handguns. And rifles.

The Lee’s Summit mother of two even took a weeklong course in shooting, in
Columbia. Every Tuesday she and her husband shoot together at Crossfire
Recreational Center in Independence — the couple’s date night.

“It’s like our bowling league,” she said.

But at her PTA meetings, Totzke, 39, doesn’t mention her passion for guns.
Or at church. Or at her job. At least, not very often.

When she tells others that she belongs to the National Rifle Association,
she is not sure how they will react. Often it is with a laundry list of
stereotypes.

“They’ll think I’m a zealot, a conservative, a fundamentalist Christian,
against abortion, vote Republican, a cheerleader for (President) Bush, all
because I like the sport of shooting,” Totzke said. “Even though I do
believe many of those things, I resent being labeled just because I believe
in the Second Amendment.”

As more than 40,000 people pass through Kansas City’s Bartle Hall for the
NRA’s 2001 convention this weekend, many of those in attendance reflect a
trend: More women than ever are interested in shooting.

“It used to be that fathers and grandfathers would take their sons hunting
and teach them to shoot but leave their daughters and granddaughters at
home,” said Stephanie Henson, manager of the NRA’s women’s programs. “Most
women never got the chance to learn, never had any mentors to teach them and
never felt support to do it. Women members in the NRA asked for more classes
for women.

“NRA isn’t doing this to be more politically correct; this is something
happening that the NRA is reacting to.”

Not everyone is convinced America needs more people who love guns. Linda
Spence is appalled by the idea. Spence is the local chairwoman for the
Million Mom March, an anti-gun group.

The women-and-guns trend, Spence thinks, stems more from a simple fact of
business: Women have money.

“The NRA is not stupid,” she said. “They’ve been studying the census data
and seeing the shift toward single-parent households, single moms. They’re
looking to take advantage, create a new market.”

The NRA did not have a breakout on the number of its female members. A 1996
survey by the National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated 47.2 million
women would “definitely or probably” go target shooting — if someone would
just invite them.

Women are learning how to shoot either for defense or for recreation,
learning how to hunt and bonding in a sport traditionally the domain of men,
Henson said.

Since 1998 the NRA has offered shooting programs for women, even providing
grants to gun clubs interested in being host of an event. Women on Target is
a series of classes and events encouraging female gun enthusiasts who want
to gain experience and have fun shooting.

The classes are held in 26 states, including Missouri and Kansas, as daylong
events such as a group hunt, shooting teams that raise money for charities,
and beginning target-shooting courses. Last year, 1,000 women participated
in Women on Target programs.

“The classes are growing,” Henson said. “Since early May, we’ve already
reached a thousand women with more programs scheduled.” The closest program,
offered Aug. 4-5, is at the Ravenwood Lodge Sporting Clays & Hunting Resort
in Topeka.

This afternoon at the convention, the NRA is offering a leadership seminar
titled “Women Calling the Shots,” followed by a women’s reception.

Reaching out to female shooters bothers anti-gun activists such as Spence on
several levels.

First, she points out, new customers, men or women, are bound to be less
familiar with guns, so they are unlikely to understand the safety issues as
well.

“Yet the gun is just as lethal,” Spence said.

Beyond that, she thinks the sales pitch being used on women is dishonest.

“We’ve all seen the ads of a woman, home alone or home with her daughter,
and the intruder is breaking in to come at them. They’re using the fear of
assault, the fear of rape.”

Women Against Gun Violence cites a 1993 study from The New England Journal
of Medicine, which found in part that a gun in the home is 43 times more
likely to be used against a family member or a friend than an intruder and
triples the risk of homicide.

Ann Riess-Lane, founder and chairwoman of the California-based group, added
that gun makers had been focusing on women for a decade.

“They’ve made mauve guns and bras that double as holsters,” she said. “It’s
been a strange marketing campaign, if you ask me.”

And not one that’s been overly successful, she suggested. Riess-Lane noted
that tracking the number of women buying guns is difficult. The sex of a
buyer is not included on most gun-purchase questionnaires. So the numbers –
pure guesswork — indicate that less than 10 percent of gun buyers are
women.

Money, however, appears to be driving some of the interest in female
shooters.

Gun manufacturers are building lighter guns with smaller pistol grips — not
youth-sized, but proportioned for a woman’s more-slender build. Gun pulls
are being designed to require less strength to cock and load. Even clothing
is beginning to appear in catalogs so that women hunters no longer have to
cinch their husband’s gun vests.

Since 1989 the 21,000 circulation magazine Women & Guns has featured
articles and advertising aimed at women: ads for lightweight handguns,
holster purses, books and videos.

Totzke has subscribed for years.

“What so many women don’t realize is that shooting is really fun,” she said.
“I hope I never have to defend myself with a gun, but I could if I needed
to.”

Totzke does not worry about what others think of her so much as she worries
about the children her boys play with who know nothing about guns. Or the
parents who may not be as careful locking away guns from their children.

When she does talk about guns to other women, they always ask her the same
thing: As a mother, don’t guns scare you?

“We taught our children early what to do if they ever saw a gun,” she said.
“We taught them to not touch it and to run and tell an adult.

“As a mother, I believe it’s important to teach our kids about guns to take
the mystery out of them.”

The Million Mom protesters and the women gun enthusiasts are on the same
side when it comes to safety, Totzke insists.

“We both love our kids.”

To reach Lee Hill Kavanaugh, call (816) 234-4420 or send e-mail to
[email protected]

To reach Matthew Schofield, call (816) 234-4303 or send e-mail to
[email protected]