Rappahannock Women for Guns talks shooting
2020 a record year for ladies firearms enthusiasts
In August, the National Shooting Sports Foundation reported that 5 million Americans had become rsttime gun owners since the beginning of 2020. Retailer surveys conducted between January and April of this year show that of those rst-time buyers, more than 40 percent are women — up an estimated 40 percent from 2019.
Throughout the pandemic, Rappahannock County resident Esther Whorton Critzer has been helping out with concealed carry classes at Freedom Firearms Training in Stevensburg. She is one of the founding members of Rappahannock Women for Guns, a group that gets together once a month for ladies’ shooting practice and training sessions.
Critzer describes herself as a relatively new gun owner. She started last year, when she and her sisters-inlaw decided to take a concealed carry class in Culpeper. “That’s where I met the ladies that I shoot with,” she said. “We learned so much that rst day
and were so intrigued that we were just hooked. We wanted to learn more.”
Though Critzer grew up with a father and brothers who liked to hunt, she said she was always instructed to stay away from their guns.
“They always told me to leave the guns alone, don’t touch the guns, you’re going to hurt somebody, you’re going to hurt yourself. … So I just kind of grew up with the fear that if I ever touched a gun I was going to hurt myself or hurt someone else,” Critzer said.
“Then this class just popped up … and once I did it I fell in love with it. I felt so much more confident afterwards.”
According to the NSSF, most first-time gun buyers purchase semi-automatic handguns, primarily for the purpose of personal protection. And notably, retailers say 25 percent have already taken a firearm safety course, while a little more than 60 percent ask for information regarding firearm safety courses.
“Safety is the most important thing to us,” Critzer said, emphasizing that Freedom Firearms Training focuses on appropriate firearm handling above all else. “[Women] want to know for themselves how guns work. If they were in a situation, say they’re home alone and there’s a gun — if you don’t know how to use it, you have nothing,” she added.
But ladies’ shooting practice isn’t just about self defense, there’s also an element of fun, Critzer said. It’s about “the fun of it, the sport of the game and getting better.”
It is hard to pin down exactly why so many women are deciding now is the time to buy their first firearm. Sales first spiked, according to the NSSF, in March when the pandemic began domestically and remained steady over the summer.
Industry experts say that sales tend to increase during election years but 2020 has already broken the record set in 2016 for most firearms sold in a calendar year. As of Oct. 30, 2020 has seen more than 17 million gun sales compared with 15.7 million four years ago.
No matter the reason for the spike, Critzer said that going to the outdoor gun range is a relatively safe activity during the pandemic when so much of normal life has been turned upside down.
But pandemic or no, Critzer is fully invested in her newfound passion. She said she loves coaching other women and wants to take a course to become a concealed carry instructor. “The self confidence that is gained during the process of learning how to operate your own handgun is amazing,” Critzer said.
“You can … see the women’s facial expressions change immediately after they hear that first PING! They walk a little taller too! … I love to see them feel proud of themselves. A lot of women do not feel that way often, unfortunately. We all get caught up in our everyday lives and forget what fun feels like.”