Despite Washington State’s Gun Laws, Women Flocking to Gun Stores, Ranges

The stereotype of gun owners being old, white dudes has some basis in reality. There are a lot of us older, white guys who are involved in the gun community.

However, as I saw at the NRA annual meeting and other 2A events, that’s not universally true. The gun community comes from all walks of life, all ethnicities, and is made up of both men and women. I’m proud to call people from all of those groups my friends.

Yet let’s also be real here, there were also a lot of old, white dudes.

In Washington state, which has become very anti-gun in recent years, things seem to be shifting just a bit. It’s not just the guys hitting the range anymore.

Mickey Lane’s tires crunched to a stop in a gravel parking lot in South Hill on a recent Sunday morning. The 42-year-old single mother stepped out of her car at Paul Bunyan Rifle & Sportsman’s Club with her semiautomatic handgun. 

Lane carried her unloaded Glock G43X to the pistol range, where more than a dozen women were gathered for a biweekly meeting of their shooting group, the Puyallup chapter of A Girl & A Gun, a national women’s firearms organization.

No men would enter the shooting bay for the next few hours — the group is for women only. 

While guns remain a polarizing political issue in the United States, demographics of gun ownership are shifting. According to Gallup polling from 2019 through last year, 43% of American men own guns compared with 20% of women — but data indicates that gender gap has shrunk over the last two decades. While gun ownership overall has stayed steady in that time period (around 30% of adults), women are increasingly taking up arms for reasons ranging from safety concerns to sport and camaraderie.

In response, social events catering to women are popping up in the shooting community around Western Washington, as well as discounts and introductory gun safety courses. It’s causing a shift in an arena long dominated by men. 

Serving as the safety officer on that spring morning in South Hill, longtime A Girl & A Gun chapter facilitator Christa Beasley also set the agenda. Her “A team” of assistants stood by to help. The meeting started with introductions and a safety briefing before the women moved to the shooting bench.

A Girl & A Gun is a fantastic organization with a fantastic mission. CEO Robyn Sandoval shared this story on Facebook, which is how it came to my attention, and I’m glad she did.

There are a lot of things to keep in mind with this story. It looks like a look at a local chapter of a national group that would interest local readers. It’s more than that, though.

See, when people see gun ownership as being a thing for a particular demographic, it becomes easy to dismiss it as just for them. That also makes it easier to see our rights winnowed away.

When the demographics expand, not only does it become harder to take away our rights, but the industry has new customers to try and win, which means more goodies for us to buy.

All across the board, it’s pure win.

Robyn, keep up the great work. Ladies in Washington state, you do as well.

Maybe we can get back to the days when owning a gun was just part of being American. If we do that, we won’t have to worry about a whole hell of a lot, now will we?