Although violent crime continues to decline in most parts of this region, experts and store owners said more women are choosing to pack heat because it is becoming more culturally acceptable, and they are worried also about their safety.
“We are seeing more women and that’s a good thing because they are the ones who need it,” said John Thyne, principal owner of Peabody Sports.
But gun-control advocates say the trend also could be linked to irrational fears of losing gun rights and more women may mistakenly buy into the gun-lobby rhetoric that gun ownership improves their personal safety.
The FBI performed 16.45 million background checks for firearm sales in 2011, shattering the previous year’s record of 14.41 million checks, according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Background checks do not necessarily lead to gun purchases, but most do, and the record checks and sales are being fueled in part by the growing number of women who are buying firearms, experts said.
About 23 percent of adult women last fall said they personally own a gun, which is up from 13 percent in 2005, according to Gallup polls.
Although men are twice as likely to own a gun — 46 percent do — their numbers have dipped slightly from 47 percent in 2005, according to polls.
The story is the same here.
The overall number of concealed-carry licenses issued in Butler and Warren counties were down last year from previous years, but the number of women permit holders continues to climb.
Concealed-carry permits are not public records, but this newspaper was able to obtain data about the permits. Warren County issued about 349 active concealed- carry licenses to women in 2011, up from 328 in 2009, according to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. In 2011, about one in four concealed-carry permit applications in Butler County were from women.
Dana Tacket said between 25 to 30 percent of participants in his company’s concealed-carry classes are women, and the vast majority of women purchase handguns, which are usually used for self-defense.
“About 80 percent of our shooters are handgun shooters, and of that, if you ask them why they are shooting, 90 percent will tell you it’s for protection, self-defense and recreation,” Tackett said. “It sucks to be a victim.”
Violent crime is down across the country, but about 49 percent of the victims of violent crime are women, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey.
Nancy Newbauer, 64, said she obtained her concealed-carry permit in 2009. She said carrying a gun appealed to her because there is not a police officer on every corner, and women today are more independent and cannot rely on other people to defend them.
“I just don’t want to become another statistic,” she said. “I feel a greater sense of security since I got my concealed-carry — I feel informed, I feel safer and I feel I can defend myself.”
Newbauer said economic and political uncertainty is also likely contributing to the surge in gun sales among both genders.
Like Newbauer, many women feel vulnerable to crime because they are built differently than men and feel physically outmatched by them, said Linda Walker, Central Ohio Chair of the Buckeye Firearms Association.
But Walker said possessing a gun changes the situation and gives women an advantage.
“I think women are becoming awakened to the fact that their own self-defense is in their own hands, and they can’t wait for a husband, boyfriend or police officer to protect them,” Walker said. “Women know that when seconds matter, police are minutes away.”
Women today also are more comfortable with firearms, and cultural shifts make it more acceptable for women to possess guns, develop shooting skills and join gun clubs, said Art Jipson, the director of the Criminal Justice Studies program at the University of Dayton.
More television shows, movies and other forms of popular entertainment depict female protagonists as strong and capable of protecting themselves, and life in some degree is imitating art and vice versa.
“The message we are tending to see in the culture is one of empowerment, and you not need depend upon a family or a male in your life, whomever he is, and that you can be just as powerful,” Jipson said.
But Toby Hoover, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, said gun sales are linked to fear, and the gun lobby is very good at making people afraid.
Hoover said she questions whether many of the women who obtain conceal carry licenses do so simply at the behest of their husbands and partners who own guns. She said gun ownership do not usually make people safer.
“It’s very disheartening that even women are falling into this category of thinking they are carrying around something with them all the time that they are ready to use to take someone else’s life,” Hoover said. “But the threats on your life are not usually coming from strangers.”
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