Lauren Hartnett wants to protect herself.
At 19 years old, she went through an abusive relationship. It was then, she says, when she began thinking about how owning a gun might make her safer.
“This is the ultimate form of feminism,” Hartnett tells NationSwell. In the era of #MeToo, she says, taking self-defense classes have never seemed so important or, for that matter, topical. “Nobody is in control of you but yourself.”
Hartnett, now 28 and a paramedic in New York City, has never had to use a gun to defend herself, but she continues to practice and attend meetups at her local shooting range. What started as a means to defend herself has now blossomed into a hobby.
Hartnett’s not alone; she’s one of a growing number of women who have turned to firearms not just for protection, but as a way to foster stronger community bonds.
Filling the gaps in an activity that heavily skews male are the pistol-packing women who believe, despite all the controversy surrounding guns, that sharing and enjoying the sport with other women makes it a worthwhile pursuit. For these unlikely female gun enthusiasts, coming together despite the judgments of many of their urban-dwelling neighbors isn’t as important as carving out a supportive, safe space in New York, a city where they are vastly outnumbered.
Hartnett takes pride in being one of the few female firearms instructors in New York City. This summer, she hopes to expand the number of women interested in shooting when she launches the NYC chapter of A Girl and a Gun, a shooting club exclusively for women with locations across the U.S.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” says Hartnett of the more than 150 responses she received after putting out a call on Facebook to join the chapter.
Among those who support Hartnett are women like Tina Wilson-Cohen, who has marksmanship experience as a former Secret Service agent but couldn’t find an avenue to share it. Or Lauren Silberman, who was intrigued by guns and wanted to satisfy her curiosity. Or Javondlynn Dunagan, who says that living in the notoriously dangerous neighborhood of South Chicago had given her anxiety over guns. Now, though, she’s a firearms teacher and leading the way for other women in her community.
For the women who frequent shooting galleries — in Manhattan, there’s just one, the Westside Rifle & Pistol Range in Chelsea — their reasons for being there are just as diverse and nuanced as the women themselves: Some love the camaraderie and the chance to build new relationships, others enjoy the simple joy of practicing the sport, while still more are there to sharpen their self-defense skills.
Although a recent analysis of FBI and National Crime Victimization data suggests that women rarely use guns for defense, gun-range members interviewed believe that women are a fast-growing segment of the gun-owning population.
As it stands, it’s unclear if women are, in fact, racing to get strapped. White men are still the most likely to own a firearm, according to a 2017 Pew study. Women as a whole only make up about 22 percent of all gun owners, with non-white women accounting for just over 15 percent. Still, the gender gap has narrowed since the 1980s, but that’s usually credited to the decline in firearm ownership among men.
During the day, Silberman flies under the radar as a professor of Renaissance English literature at Baruch College in New York City. But outside of office hours, she can be found at Westside loading up a firearm and picking off targets.
The professor tries to shoot once a week — it’s good practice for hand-eye coordination, she says — and she’s a proud member of the New York Women’s Shooting Sports League (WSSL).
“The last thing in the world on your mind is anything unpleasant,” says Silberman, who believes that women-only shooting clubs demystifies guns. “I like the camaraderie; I like hanging out with different people.”
WSSL stresses its nonpartisan appeal, and its members believe that shooting isn’t only for conservatives or men. In its 18-year history, WSSL has introduced several hundred women to the art of marksmanship.
“Most have come and gone, and that’s OK because they had a good time,” says Barry Cohen, one of three male instructors for the women’s group. “They learn that you can do something sporting with a firearm.”
Valeri Jean-Pierre found out about the club via Meetup. The first time she met the group, at Westside in February, she was late. And nervous. She had never held a .22 long rifle before.
It took a while for Jean-Pierre to get a handle on loading, aiming and shooting the rifle. She later joked about not being able to put “all of those things together.” But then — with ease — she loaded the magazine, leaned her head onto the stock, leveled her right eye with the barrel and shot.
“If you have some type of issues that you want to let out, this is a good recreational activity to do so,” says Jean-Pierre, who plans to come back to the range.
For $75, Westside visitors who don’t have a gun permit can check out a .22-caliber rifle and one box of ammunition. All first-time shooters, in addition to a background check, must also undergo 15 minutes of safety instruction. After certified teachers cover the nuts and bolts of how rifles work, gun enthusiasts can choose one of the 16 shooting points — some with targets 50 feet away — and begin firing.
Most of the women who come to shoot at Westside say they’re nonpartisan, driven less by political ideology than their desire for a good time.
“Your political views don’t matter here, because we’re all equals,” says Darren Leung, Westside’s owner. (He’s being tongue-in-cheek: Prominently displayed in the range is Michael J. Knowles’ Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide, which is 260 pages of blank paper.)
Wilson-Cohen, the former Secret Service agent who coaches women interested in military or law enforcement careers, says that keeping politics out of the range is important to her group, “She Can Shoot,” a league with several chapters and more than 3,000 members across the country. She’s proud of the way the club’s members come together to lend a hand to beginners, no matter their backgrounds.
Most of the women interviewed acknowledge that guns can be problematic, especially in the wake of high-profile mass shootings and increased international scrutiny over America’s lax gun regulations.
“At what point do we arm everybody and then we stick the gun in the wrong hands?” asks Wilson-Cohen, adding that she keeps an eye open for potential red flags, like if a shooter is unwilling to explain why she wants to join the club.
How much traction newly proposed gun-control measures gain remains to be seen, but for these women, that largely misses the point: Yes, guns are weapons that can take people down, but they’re also tools that can build communities up.
Tag: gun safety
Bicyclists Get a Safe Space to Learn Traffic Laws, Fixing a Broken Ballot System and More
White Center Bike Park pleases many ‘spokes people,’ West Seattle Herald
It’s practically an American tradition: Dad takes his child to an empty parking lot to learn to drive a car. Why don’t we have the same for biking? In cyclist-friendly Seattle, a new “traffic garden” — a car-free model of real road, complete with stop signs, roundabouts and one-way streets — in a local park is giving kids a risk-free space to learn traffic laws.
Designing a Better Ballot, The Atlantic
In a country already mired by low voter turnout (two-thirds of citizens didn’t bother to vote in the last midterm election), ballots that go uncounted because they are left blank, unsigned or marked improperly is an even bigger civic concern. In Florida, home of the notorious hanging chad, and other jurisdictions, elections officials are simplifying language and adding design elements to ensure ballots are properly cast — and counted.
This Machine Could Prevent Gun Violence — If Only Cops Used It, The Marshall Project
When it comes to creating a national gun registry, law-abiding firearms owners often feel their Second Amendment rights are in the crosshairs. But if there’s one issue they should be able to agree on, it’s this: reforming an underutilized database that targets only criminal shooters. The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) helps police track the unique markings imprinted on shell casings and flag matches at other crime scenes, implicating only the perpetrators.
Giving Mickey Mouse an Energy Boost Helps the Environment, How One Neighborhood Transformed Itself from the Country’s Worst and More
Want Power? Fire Up the Tomatoes and Potatoes, National Geographic
In Florida, scientists discovered that the tomato can be transformed from a lycopene storehouse into an electrical powerhouse. Considering that the annual surplus in South Florida could power Disney World for three months, is a new type of utility — one that’s fueled by food waste — in the state’s future?
How Cincinnati Salvaged the Nation’s Most Dangerous Neighborhood, Politico
Simply put, in 2009, Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood was the nation’s worst. When city government couldn’t provide a lifeline to the downtrodden area, a nonprofit private development company stepped in. Now, in just seven short years, the community is experiencing a blossoming transformation.
New California Law Could Keep Guns Away from People Like Omar Mateen, Reveal
After a mass shooting tragedy in 2014, the Golden State proved that it’s possible to pass sensible gun legislation. Its gun violence restraining order can prevent someone from purchasing or possessing a firearm for 21 days if law enforcement or a family member is worried they’ll turn violent.
MORE: The Surprising Second Life of Urine
This Lifelong Hunter Aims to Make Guns Safer — By Making Them Smarter
As a resident of Weston, Conn., about two towns over from Newtown and the father of a first-grader, Don Kendall, Jr., was deeply affected by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But rather than signing petitions or making calls to legislators, he teamed up with more than 40 investors, including venture capitalist Ron Conway and serial entrepreneur Jim Pitkow to launch the Smart Tech Foundation, which funds smart gun technologies.
In advance of a NationSwell Council event on gun violence solutions, Kendall spoke about the need for readily available, safer guns.
What led you to look beyond changing laws as the best way to reduce gun violence?
Until [Newtown], my work was really focused on education and social entrepreneurship; gun violence is not an area that I was schooled in. But I took the time to get to know the space well and met all the organizations I could to understand their theories of change and the key issues. Pretty quickly, I became convinced that traditional political advocacy to change this issue was a dead end. The business model of Washington is to take money from people on either side of this issue: you might not like guns so I give money to the National Rifle Association (NRA) to stop people like you, and you give money to the Democratic Party to stop people like me. It was promoting an us versus them. It was gridlock, and I didn’t want to contribute to that.
I took my bedrock beliefs in technology, innovation, capitalism, the rule of free markets and the feeling that business can solve big social problems, and I went looking for other ways to get involved. I came at the issue from the standpoint of believing I could play a bridging role because I am a gun-owner and a lifelong hunter, but I also saw what was happening to 30,000 people dying every year in thousands of accidents and thousands of suicides. I thought that could be stopped, but it would take somebody saying, “I’m one of you, and we can make a difference on this.” That was the impetus, the genesis of Smart Tech.
How does Smart Tech identify a promising smart gun technologies to invest in?
This industry is in its infancy. These projects are literally two guys in a garage kind of stuff. The amount of money that is flowing right now is miniscule. We take the classic venture approach: You look for a mix of different approaches, whether it’s some folks working on actual firearms, other products like gun locks and safes, and then the technology that needed to be baked into everything like user-recognition, biometrics and RFID (radio-frequency identification). We wanted to have a mix of things that we were fostering. Again, as a nonprofit, the goal is to stimulate innovation and bring attention to the whole space and not focus on any one effort.
What innovations in your field are you most excited about right now?
In the context of gun violence, you’re talking about building an entire ecosystem that didn’t exist and hopefully making people rich at the same time that they’re reducing the number of people that are killed every year, right? There’s an opportunity to do both. The analog that we researched for Smart Tech was the number of people killed and injured by automobiles. The story of automobile fatalities over the last four decades is one of constantly chipping away at the problem. It’s through government regulation mandating airbags, two-point safety belts and different rules for signage and how roads are constructed, but manufacturers also stepped in. Safer cars are ones you can charge a premium for. Thousands of different businesses have been started because of that, and a lot of wealth has been created. At the same time, the number of people killed or injured by cars has gone down and down and down. That, to me, is what’s exciting about doing the same thing in the gun space — if we can just get markets working the way that they should work and breaking some of these market failures that are blocking innovation right now.
What do you wish someone had told you when you started this job?
I transitioned from being a for-profit entrepreneur to being a “philanthropist,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, at age 42. I had started a bunch of companies, a few had done very well, so suddenly I literally woke up with enough money in the bank for me and my family. It was sort of like, “Okay, well what am I gonna do now?” Looking back, it took me about six years to answer that question. The key insight for me (and this is maybe not everybody) was realizing that I could still be the person that I am, namely a serial entrepreneur who loves startups, frontier spaces and uncertainty, at the same time that I’m a philanthropist. When that lightbulb went off for me, it changed everything.
With so much gridlock stopping solutions to gun violence in Washington, D.C., and statehouses nationwide, what inspires you to tackle this problem?
It’s my first experience in a market where there’s a huge headwind, and that is extremely frustrating. I’m not going to say that it’s been fun, but I believe very strongly that I have some role to play in solving this social problem. If we can just get the markets working the way that they’re supposed to work, we can start making headway and saving lives. The stakes are pretty high. The stance of the NRA and the gun manufacturers lobby is wrong from a historical standpoint. They’ve chosen a stance on this issue that is against the arc of history, and I think they’ll ultimately be proven wrong. I believe that there’s white space in this industry for a successful company or a whole cluster of successful companies that can disrupt this industry, because the stance taken by the leaders is just wrong. It’s ripe for that disruption.
What don’t most people know about you that they should?
In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, I did grow up with a lot of privileges. Yes, I started a bunch of companies, and some are successful. But my dad was chairman and CEO of PepsiCo. He was a legendary business leader. I grew up in a wealthy setting, and it also meant that he wanted to help me. He was willing to pick up the phone. That was a huge advantage. I was acquainted with privilege, but I also had a real strong desire to stand on my own two feet and be a success on my own terms. That’s an aspect to my bio and my background, that if I’m being authentic and transparent like I’m trying to be, that needs to be factored in.
To learn more about the NationSwell Council, click here.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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For The People: This New Service Lets You Hire A Lobbyist
As Change.org, Kickstarter and other online crowdfunding platforms and petitions have shown us, rallying together on an issue can make a difference. But we’ve also learned that it can sometimes falls short when it comes to the notorious muscle power — aka: lobbyists — working on Capitol Hill.
But a new San Francisco-based startup is making lobbying a little more accessible to the general public. Billed as a “crowdsourced social activism platform,” Amplifyd is a site that invites users to hire their own lobbyist for a mere $4.95. Whether your issue is student debt or saving the forest, you can hire someone to call an elected official and gripe about why they should care.
The site has only been live for a few days but is already working on 11 different political issues including net neutrality, gun control, fracking in California, protecting wolves and the type of milk Starbucks offers.
Like Kickstarter, each campaign has a page explaining the issue and who you need to call, in case you want to take matters into your own hands. You can add the number of phone calls ($4.95 each) you’d like a lobbyist to make. The page also explains where your money is going and what to expect to happen next.
For example, the campaign “Enough! All Gun Sales Should Be Subject to Background Checks!” implores you to ask elected officials to support legislation for background checks on gun sales. The page explains that most of the money donated will go towards Everytown For Gun Safety, an organization funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. After the phone call is made, Amplifyd will send you a recording of the conversation.
While political lobbyists are bound to have more influence than Amplifyd’s hired hand, it’s refreshing to see a startup take on an industry that’s reserved for the political elite and make it available to the greater public. Perhaps if we all had lobbyists, we’d feel like we could truly make a difference when it comes to the issues we are passionate about.
https://vimeo.com/89070470