Women Shooters - Capabilities and Issues

Women & Guns
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@Steve-G if women were shooters in the same proportions as men, this whole 2A thing would look very different. There’s a mama-bear in most of us, but a lot of women don’t feel comfortable in that space, or they don’t apply it across the whole of their lives. A big chunk of that is the villainizing of guns in general, but I think there are broader power-of-being-a-victim and gender-war issues … but that probably belongs on a thread in the Politics section :wink:

I think if we can get more women and girls involved in shooting, that would be HUGE. The place to start, aside from inviting those around you, is to get a better understanding of why women don’t shoot, and why they don’t continue if they start. My experience is that a lot of it is teaching that doesn’t suit us well. Some of us stick anyway, but many won’t. All-female shooting groups are a very useful thing.

Oh, and clean up the bathrooms and get us some adequately comfortable chairs and a place to lock up our purses at the range, will you? :laughing: :thinking:

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22

I don’t get how people are comfortable being like that. Seems of all places, a gun range would make people bring their better, politer, more helpful selves. Not because everybody is armed, but because we want more people to come learn, and to feel comfortable hanging out with those who they can learn from.

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23

Yeah I was just trying to help people zero their scopes so they could effectively and ethically kill a deer.

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24

I totally agree that women make fantastic shooters. I regularly participate at a Pistol Skill Builder class at a local range, and one of the best shooters is a young lady who is currently in college. She shoots so well that she inspired me to finally get a red dot optic for my SIG P320 X Five! She struggled a little bit at the most recent session, and she was clearly frustrated (she is also quite competitive). I told her that she is an awesome shot and that we all have bad days. As I also get frustrated with my performance at times, I doubt it was much comfort to her in the moment, but that it would help her know later that others see and acknowledge her abilities. Getting back to the actual training part, I have noticed that my female friends really are more cautious and that they like sticking with particular drills for longer times than I would. After one session with a friend, I worried that I was “too boring” with what we worked on. She told me that she learned a lot and enjoyed it. That was a teaching moment for me, as well as making me feel like I did a good job helping a friend. I appreciate your offer for advice! I will definitely reach out to you if I have questions. Thank you!

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25

I think women shooters get a bad wrap. They go to the range, with their man, and shoot HIS guns. The grips are comfortable for him. The shoulder stocks for him. My wife hates my pistols, but loves my 6 inch Ruger revolver. I took her to a gun show and had her hold every gun that she might want. She repeatedly went back to small revolvers. She isn’t comfortable with the idea of carrying a gun herself. The reason, she’s afraid the “mama bear” would come out and she would shoot someone unjustifiably. She is an excellent shot. The only reason she doesn’t shoot as good as me, is, I’ve been around guns all my life. She’s only shown interest in the last 3-4 years. Rest assured, if Little Johnny Gang-Banger breaks in our house, she’ll defend herself without hesitation.

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26

that’s really common in my experience. You can always tell them, “let’s work on this, and you can let me know when you’re feeling confident and ready to try something new.” trust me, we will tell you. and it’ll be a lot longer than you think. For women, mostly we want not to be anxious about what we’re doing. We want to feel completely confident before we move on. it’s definitely a more cautious approach to learning, but highly productive.

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27

^^^ totally a fact! I have a scar in my eyebrow from my first time shooting a rifle. It’s a lovely scope arc from a rifle where the scope was perfect for the gentleman who owned it, but I had to crawl up the stock to see through it. Jumped back and bit me good. Fortunately I was already a shotgun shooter, so no permanent emotional damage done, but it was another 10 years before I got back around to rifles. If I’d been a new shooter, that might have been it for me.

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28

Just as a funny aside, new MALE shooters can screw up with scoped rifles too. I learned the hard way myself about 13 years back. I crawled too far on the stock, and the scope got me. Fortunately, the rifle was a 30-30 (not a heavy recoiling caliber), and the scope housing had a rubber cover, so I didn’t get cut open. I definitely had some sense knocked into me though!

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29

see this is the sort of thing that happens more in women’s heads than in mens, I think. This ^^^ is very important stuff.

Here’s what can happen: Someone offers a woman the chance to shoot a gun and this happens in her head in under 2 seconds: “That’s a gun. Guns are used to shoot people. Guns can go off accidentally. What if accidentally shot someone? What if I shot someone I love? What if I accidentally shot one of my kids? OMG what if I killed my own child? How would I ever live with myself? OMG I’m NEVER touching that thing, I don’t even want to see it!”

:astonished: :flushed: :confounded: The guys are bug-eyed and saying “Well, THAT escalated fast!”

I’ve never seen a man do that, but I’ve seen it or something like it a bunch in women. Perhaps not most of them, but I suspect something similar, if not as extreme, happens in a lot of women. I know it did for me as well, early on when I first started with shotguns, and again when I started with rifles, and again when I started with handguns. by the third round, it wasn’t a surprise to see it and I sorted it out pretty quickly, but I think men don’t even imagine that’s going on. When I’ve asked my male firearms friends if they’ve ever had that experience they just look at me like they can’t even understand what I’m asking.

The problem is, if you don’t know that might be what’s happening you can’t even get a woman to the range, much less get her to pick up a gun and learn to shoot. Or if she goes, and has the powerful reaction that goes with that thinking, you can’t get her to go back.

I think that sense that we can’t trust ourselves with it (your wife’s worry about incorrectly shooting someone) yields well to training and running lots of physical and mental scenarios - we have to learn to trust ourselves and build confidence in not just our skills but our judgement. However, if you, as a coach or teacher or mentor, don’t know that’s what’s happening, you really can’t help us get there.

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30

I meant she believes ( her own words) that she would draw that firearm and shoot someone, when that level of force is not justified. She’s got a little red hair temper mixed in there. She does carry an assisted opening knife, and has signed up for a class on how to properly employ the use of a taser.

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31

Yup. She does fine with a scoped .22 I have, since it has a little less length of pull. My Mossberg 535, not so much. I’m 6’1” and it is just right for me. She is 5’3”. With a youth model gun, she does just fine.

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32

Well, if she’s justified in believing that her temper, in combination with a legitimate threat, would override her good judgement, then it’s probably a wise decision not to carry. But she might just need to work on training her judgement for those sorts of situation so she feels more confident in trusting herself. Believe me, it’s no value for someone to carry if they don’t trust themselves to handle those sorts of situations. It’s a life-and-death responsibility, and we should treat it as such, as I’m sure you both do.

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I have a gentlemen friend who has quite a collection of scope scars - both right and left eye. he gets what he calls “buck fever” and crawls up the first shot every season. The reason he’s got scars on the left is he went to left-shoulder-shooting to give his right eyebrow a break. :laughing:

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34

Zee, something I find with women shooters that’s almost a constant issue that I do t see as much with men is the “Felt Concussion of the shots”. Its that feeling that they get in their chest when firing, I’ve even had a few women start to feel like they were going to pass out. I try to keep a bottle of orange juice with me when o go to the range with a newbie.

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35

That’s an interesting thing… I’m not sure that I’ve had that feeling myself, and it hasn’t come up in my teaching. I will watch for it. Having juice in the kit is a great idea

36

@Zee, I mentioned this in another post, but I noticed what felt like a puff of air in my face every time I would shoot the first few times at the range. It was very distracting. It made it difficult to keep my eyes open through the shot and I really had to concentrate on not closing them. I didn’t feel it in my chest, but I’m guessing it was basically the same concussive force of the shot. I do wonder if it’s worse in an indoor range. I haven’t had an opportunity to shoot outside yet, but I’m getting anxious to do that and see what the difference is.

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37

@JKetchem I will have to remember the over hand trick since my wife has trouble with her Ruger LC9 when she goes to chamber a round. She has had it stove pipe on her a few times and is always scared that something bad is going to happen and it takes a while to get her calmed down and able to shoot again only after watching me put a few rounds through her gun.

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Trmptr64, it is worse indoors, it will happen outdoors too if there are any walls around you, at our club the rifle pit has a back wall and a walk-in one side and a roof, that concussion bounces off of those walls and roof. This happens to my honey, that’s why I know. She is fine if someone’s shooting a .22, but if I have my 6.5 out there or my 7mm rem mag, it really has an effect on her. I’m not sure what to do to get past this besides wearing heavy clothing, I know it helps if I give her some gum to chew, maybe it’s the distraction, I’m just not sure.

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39

@Trmptr64 @Steve-G I’m going to pay attention to this the next time I’m at the range and see if I can detect this… I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it. For the air-in-the-face thing it might depend on which firearm you’re using and what the gas exit path is on your ejection port.

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40

@Damon a couple things you said make me think she may be feeling pretty insecure with that firearm. Here’s some things to think about.

You might set up some stovepipe clearance practice for her - this is what my trainer does:

  1. Clear the firearm

  2. Lock the slide back

  3. Hold an already-fired (empty) brass or snap-cap in the stovepipe position against the front of the ejection port (mind your fingers aren’t inside the port)

  4. Release the slide lock. The slide will snap forward and trap the brass or snap-cap in the port like a stovepipe.

  5. Load a snap-cap loaded magazine.

Now she’s got the exact setup to practice clearing, and since it’s empty brass and snap-caps, there’s nothing that can go wrong, no possibility of an accidental discharge. If she’s feeling some anxiety about how to handle clearing it, this exercise makes practicing the clearance drill less stressful.

When we’re drilling, my trainer will call out “slap / rack-roll / grip / sight / bang” sequence for the clearance drill (he abbreviates that sequence as we practice the drill and get more speed.)

You might find that having her do this a couple dozen times and over multiple sessions will greatly improve her confidence in handling the situation - and better confidence means less anxiety. Using the overhand grip will definitely help her feel in control of this exercise as well, just make sure she’s keeping the muzzle pointed down range when she does it (easier in weaver than in isosceles stance).

The other question is why is she getting stovepipes? Very likely it means she’s not gripping in a way that controls the recoil, and the excess muzzle rise is dissipating the energy that should get the shell ejected. So to get to root cause, it means figuring out why she’s not controlling the recoil. Could be a variety of reasons, but here are a few things you can look for:

  1. Her grip is lined up so that her wrist is cocked back (“broken”) - this means the recoil is lined up in a weak position of the wrist, rather than lined up with the bones of her arm and will result in the muzzle flipping up or right or both.

  • This can sometimes be caused by a grip that doesn’t fit our hands (too big or too small) resulting in the backstrap of the grip lining up against the joint of the thumb or too close to the base of the index finger instead of in the web between thumb and index finger, where it should be well lined up with the forearm.

  • This can sometimes be caused by a cross-dominant shooter in isosceles position trying to line up strong-side grip with weak-side eye, and can make the wrist cock back to change the angle of the sight alignment. Switching to a weaver stance and turning the head to align the cross-dominant eye can help with this.

  1. She’s not controlling the firearm with both hands - having her push forward with her strong hand into her supporting hand and pull back with her supporting hand (so they are working against each other) creates a more stable recoil-resistant grip.

  2. She’s flinching away from the bang - this might mean blinking, dropping or turning her head away, and will sometimes cause us to pull in our extended arms and weaken our stable shooting position and grip. Often the shooter doesn’t even know they do this.

  3. The firearm doesn’t fit her well, or is delivering too much recoil for her current skill level. Starting with a smaller caliber may help her develop skills without the anxiety that accompanies feeling unsafe and not in control, before moving back to this firearm.

  4. If everything else is good, and you are also getting some stovepipes, the rounds you are using may be under-powered for cycling her firearm.

Anyway, if you can give her some practice correcting stovepipes, so it doesn’t feel like something has gone scarily wrong, and can get to the root cause of the stovepipes and correct that, things should work much better.

BTW, the wrist-cocked-back is something I sometimes see men do without a problem. My hubby, who has big hand and wrists like tree trunks, shoots this way with smaller grip firearms - but he’s fired hundreds of thousands of rounds out of all sorts of firearms and has trained for that awesomely stable grip. Most women, certainly ones who don’t shoot often, don’t have the grip and forearm strength to do this without getting a lot of uncontrolled muzzle flip.

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