Posted on 05/07/2023 5:16:12 PM PDT by Libloather
UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. – Jessica McCoy wiped rain droplets off her safety goggles before sitting down at the firing line. She picked up the Daniel Defense AR-15 and spent a minute navigating the scope before finally pulling the trigger, releasing a burst of sound that reverberated across the rifle range.
"Did I even hit the target?" she asked instructor Jane Milhans, who replied, "We'll go see later."
McCoy had never fired a semiautomatic rifle before that drizzly morning at an all-female firearm training just outside Tacoma, Washington. But like many women, she has decided to get more comfortable using a gun for personal protection.
"Women are the fastest-growing group of gun owners in America," Milhans told Fox News.
In 2016, 15% of women reported owning a gun, according to Gallup. That figure swelled to 22% last year, the highest level since Gallup started tracking American firearm ownership annually in 2007. Men are still more likely to own a firearm than women, but their rates of gun ownership have remained stagnant - around 40% - over the last decade and a half.
Milhans, who serves on the board of the Washington State Rifle and Pistol Association, donates about 100 hours each year specifically training other women to use firearms.
"This class is a very beginners safety class," she said. "It's ideal for the person who's afraid to shoot."
Students spend a couple hours in the classroom going over firearm safety and asking questions, then head out to the range to practice shooting rifles and pistols.
"Quite honestly, [guns] make me nervous," McCoy told Fox News. "You always hear about the accidents, of course little kids getting shot at. It's, to me, very intimidating. And so I want to be more comfortable handling them."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I’ve got a gun they can get anywhere.
Everybody Run!
The homecoming queen has got a gun
LOL! Julie Brown classic. She was a hottie.
And their guns have sights on the top of the gun!
Good for her.
I have several and always carry.
I wonder, does the gooberment think it will be easy to take firearms away from women?
When I applied for my license to carry 12 years ago, twenty people were in line ahead of me, all of them women. I made 21. As crime rates rise in our city, even in the nicest neighborhoods, we need to enlist the neighbors to have our own neighborhood watch program. Armed and dangerous, preferably.
You betcha!
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