|
http://www.chron.com/ ;
Subscribe
 Barbara
Garney fires at a clay target during a fundraising competition for women
shooters at the American Shooting Center in Houston.
SHARÓN STEINMANN: Chronicle
May 31, 2006, 6:26AM
SISTERS IN ARMS
Straight shooters
More women are picking up
guns and joining in on the fun
By TARA DOOLEY
tara.dooley@chron.com
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
As a child growing up in Beaumont, Sue King figured
all women could shoot.
Her mother could. So could her grandmother.
It wasn't until she added dating to a menu of
sports that included hunting and fishing that King realized not everyone
thought a woman's place was taking aim down the barrel of a shotgun.
"I dated men who were shocked, but usually only
once," she said.
For the most part, though, it was men who were her
shooting companions: Her grandfather, her father and eventually her
husband, Jerry King. At gun clubs, shooting ranges, competitions and on
hunts, she was surrounded by men.
"Thirty years ago, I was lucky if there was a
ladies room and if it was clean," said King, now 66. "Now when you go to a
gun club, you are more apt to have to stand in line."
The growth in the number of women in the duck
blind, at the shooting range, or in the ladies room line at the gun club
is a legacy of King's and a small handful of proponents nationally who
have promoted shooting sports among women for at least the past two
decades.
Often these women are nudged into the sport by the
men in their lives. But many are turning to each other for instruction and
camaraderie in a field where men still outnumber women.
"With the ladies, they would clap for you or say,
'Yeah' or 'Wow' or 'What a shot,' that kind of stuff," said Suzanne Mason,
a 54-year-old newcomer to shooting who first picked up a gun to join her
husband's hobby. "I guess you would call it positive reinforcement."
Of 76 board members of the National Rifle
Association of America, King is one of 11 women.
Though the NRA has long had shooting programs for
women, the association officially launched a recreational instructional
shooting clinic program called Women on Target in 2000. From 13 clinics
and 500 participants nationally, the program has grown to more than 200
clinics and 5,600 women in 2005, said Mary Sue Faulkner, director of the
NRA's community service programs division.
"Many people say the young are the future of the
sport and, of course, they are," Faulkner said. "But women are also the
future of the sport in the sense that they are the ones who also can
change the face of the sport."
In Houston, Barbara Garney has spent three years
adding more female faces to the sport.
For Garney, interest in shotguns started in 1988,
when her then soon-to-be husband, Jim Maxey asked whether she would prefer
a shotgun or diamond earrings as a gift.
"I thought, 'I'm marrying a sportsman, so maybe I'd
better take the shotgun,' " Garney said.
A few lessons and a bird hunting experience with
Maxey and his friends left bruises on her shoulder from the recoil of the
gun and no desire to continue. The gun was left to gather dust in a
closet.
About five years later, Garney signed up for a
weekend workshop for women through the Texas Parks and Wildlife
Department. The instructor, a woman, explained that Garney's discomfort
came from using a gun that was not fit properly for a woman's reach — a
common pitfall for women using shotguns given to them by husbands or
boyfriends, Garney said.
"She said 'It's just like a bra — you wouldn't wear
a bra that didn't fit,' " Garney recalled.
"She gave us the ladies' point of view. That made
me think, 'You know what, I bet I can do this.' "
So she did.
She had her gun adjusted to fit her. And she took
lessons and has been "shooting ever since," Garney, 62, said.
Her favorite event is called sporting clays, often
dubbed the golf game of shooting. Now, Garney shoots a 12-gauge shotgun
adorned with purple chokes to match her canvas gun case and, sometimes,
her nail polish.
She likes the concentration required of shooting.
She likes the feeling of success when she breaks the clay targets. And she
likes that she is not killing anything, she said.
For the past three years, Garney has lured women
into the sport by way of a nearly annual Ladies Charity Shoot at the
American Shooting Centers. The event's tradition goes back to 1988 when
King put together the area's first charity shoot for women. The shoot
became known as the "Mothershoot," King said, since it was always held on
Mother's Day weekend and became the pattern for other women's charity
shoots around the country.
At the shoot, held May 13 this year, the main
event for the 42 participants was sporting clays.
For Suzanne Mason, it was her first taste of
competition.
Pushing a green gun cart that resembles a jogging
stroller for a baby, Mason joined 17-year-old Stephanie Croatt and Kitty
Haynes, 55, as they traveled through a series of stations set up on a
course. At each station, they shot at a series of clay targets as they
flew across the sky in varying patterns.
Unlike Mason, Croatt knew her way around. She
participated in the event two years ago and has competed in youth outdoors
competitions through Fort Bend 4-H groups.
Croatt was inspired to join 4-H by an older
brother, she said. She went on to help start the Fort Bend 4-H Field and
Stream Club. Through these associations, Croatt practices firing shotguns
nearly weekly with 10 others. She attends B.F. Terry High School in
Rosenberg, where response to her hobby usually covers a range of surprise.
As a rule, it's the other girls who give her the
hardest time about her hobby, she said.
"The guys are surprised, but they are like, 'cool,
where do you shoot?,' " Croatt said.
By the end of the charity shoot, Croatt had hit 37
of 50 targets.
Though Mason had participated in one of Garney's
clinics leading up to the charity shoot, she only seriously started
practicing in February.
Her goal at the shoot was to "not embarrass"
herself, and as she made her way through the various stations, she did
anything but embarrass herself.
At the final of 10 stations, Mason stepped up to
the lattice wood phone-boothlike box, and congratulated Croatt for hitting
four out of six clay "birds."
As she settled in, Haynes suggested she ask for a
demonstration of how the orange disc-shaped targets fly above the trees.
"What you can do is point your left arm up and
follow the target," Haynes advised.
When ready, Mason called out "pull" and the
trapper, Paul Bernard, hit a hand-held button and an orange disc floated
across the sky from the left. Mason fired her shotgun and Bernard hit the
button and a disc flew from the right.
Mason missed both.
"Awww," she said turning to face her audience.
"Shoot the first one a little bit sooner and the
second one, get under it," Haynes offered.
"Under it," Mason repeated as she turned around and
settled her shotgun up to her shoulder.
"Pull," she called.
She hit both.
"Way to go," Bernard cheered.
On her third try, Mason hit one and missed one.
As she stepped out of the booth, she took a long,
deep breath: Competition over and she hit nearly half of the targets, 24
of 50.
"Now I have the first one under my belt," she said.
tara.dooley@chron.com |
