Shoot Like a Girl targets the female market
More women now hunting and target shooting, data show
“Holy cow!” exclaimed Cynthia Kelly when she heard the hammering sound of her arrow hitting the archery target at the Shoot Like a Girl mobile range parked outside a Cabela’s store in League City on Saturday.
Kelly and her boyfriend, Adrian Blakey, drove for over an hour to attend the trailer’s firstever stop in the Houston area. She didn’t want to miss having the experience of shooting in a military-grade firearms simulator.
She said it felt good and was fun but that it didn’t compare to her experiences as an enthusiastic hunter who, among many adventures, has a bear kill under her belt. The sound of the arrow is not the same, and every detail matters for skilled hunters.
“You are right there with the animal,” she said, “It’s a one-onone personal experience with the animal, the bear could smell me or hear any noise because I was only 15 yards from him when I shoot him.”
Kelly is among the roughly 1 in 4 frequent shooters who attend the Shoot Like a Girl experience. The majority shoot infrequently or have never done it before. Yet, females are the fastest growing demographic in shooting sports, partly because of this National Rifle Association-backed simulator.
“We cater to women, and the trend is that the female market is the fastest growing demographic” in the industry, said Cristy Crawford, the chief operations manager of the company. Between 2001 to 2013, the number of female hunters grew from 1.8 million to 3.3 million, and female target shooters jumped from 3.3 million to 5.4 million in that span, according to a report from the Firearms Industry Trade Association.
Crawford is an expert bow shooter herself who used to compete in several events before becoming a mother of a now 10year-old girl who likes to help in the mobile shooting range.
Women 16 and older can fire at the mobile range for free under the guidance of an NRA-certified, female instructor. Last year, the mobile range toured more than 20 cities and attended hunting shows and events such as the NRA annual meeting.
They say they serviced more than 3,000 women and interacted with 13,000 during the year. Their activities drove revenues of over $17.3 million last year by promoting sales of firearms, archery and hunting products, while serving as guides at guns and outfitters stores, according to their annual report. Changing stereotypes
Crawford said that “the stereotype that people tend to have in their mind when they think about hunters or gun owners is changing.”
Nowadays they see people from all walks of life, she said, and the reasons they come to like shooting sports vary from hunting to target shooting, or for safety reasons.
Crawford added that they usually have lines of girls waiting to get into the trail . That wasn’t the case in League City this Saturday, where spring break and the Rodeo slowed the crowd to handfuls.
Crystalyn Bettice, a 20-yearold studying at the University of Texas A&M in Galveston, tried shooting Saturday.
Bettice comes from Adkins, near San Antonio, and had hunted before with her parents. But she wants to meet shooting enthusiasts and explore her own avenues now that she is out on her own.
After trying a bow in the SLG range, she said she would like try hunting. However, her primary motivation for owning a firearm is safety.
In the context of a heated debate about controversial gun regulations after the massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people died, Bettice said her position is “definitely pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment.” Responsible ownership
She isn’t pro-regulation but is a strong supporter of responsible gun ownership, which is part of the reason why she is informing herself and looking for courses and certifications.
“For some people, they are super excited about drinking when they are 21, but for me, it’s about my conceal carry (license),” said Bettice. “I hope that I never have to use it to defend myself, but in today’s (world), I would like to have something accessible to me if I need it.”
Not everyone who comes to SLG wants to own a gun. Their annual report says that 7 percent of their clients don’t want to buy a firearm and 25 percent in a survey of more than 2,000 said that they “plan to buy.”
Two girls shopping at the Cabela’s store were oblivious to the SLG trailer. One of them, eighthgrader Cassidy Niz, said that she would like to try target shooting “sometime just to try it.”
However, she had been following the news about the Florida school shooting and thinks that semi-automatic weapons shouldn’t be allowed for civilians.
“I feel that it should be for military use, or for people like cops. They shouldn’t be allowed in homes, and we don’t feel that schools are safe” anymore, she said.
Her friend, Anabel Forlano, said she wouldn’t ever like to hunt because she hates the idea of killing animals. “I love them,” she said.
Her father, Kurk Nielsen, who brought the girls for shopping, said he owns rifles from when he was a kid and hunted with his family in the Rio Grande Valley area, where he comes from. “But as an adult, I am not interested in that anymore,” he said. He respects the right to own firearms but doesn’t buy the argument that people need guns to protect themselves.
“In my 50 years of life, I haven’t ever needed to use a gun for defense, which tells you a lot. I think that is probably the case” for the majority of people, he said.
Kelly, the archer, believes most hunters are responsible gun owners. For her, the main problem is mental health. “Not the guns, not the hunters, it’s mental health,” she said. “The guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”