Two years in the past, a pregnant Florida girl, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, gunned down one of two house invaders who had damaged into her Tampa house.
The girl, who had a concealed weapons license, stated the males had been pistol whipping her husband when she grabbed her legally possessed firearm and fired one spherical.
The girl, who asked her id be withheld, is one of the 2.5 million individuals who have a concealed weapons license in Florida, consistent with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. As of Feb. 28, one-third of the license holders had been women.
Gun protection professionals in Gainesville and neighboring communities say they have got spotted a vital building up in the ultimate 4 months in the quantity of women who want to download a concealed weapons license.
Katelyn Perndoj is a 23-year-old bartender at Miller’s Ale House. She stated she desires to make a dwelling, however extra importantly, she desires to stick secure.
Guns & Range the place she’s going to quickly take the concealed weapons license route.
(Sarah Hower/WUFT News)
“I’m pretty small, so if someone wanted to snatch me it wouldn’t be hard,” she stated. “I could try and fight as much as I wanted to, but I just don’t want to be put in a situation where I don’t have a fighting chance.”
Perndoj stated she has registered to take the concealed weapons route at Harry Beckwith Guns & Range in past due April. The route is all she’s going to want to download her concealed weapons license.
“I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” she stated. “It’s a peace of mind kinda thing.”
During the route, which is 5 hours lengthy, the teacher is going over the regulations, the very best techniques to hide elevate and the best way to shoot.
“We want you shooting well enough that we can trust you with a handgun at anytime, anywhere,” stated Henry Keys, a 24-year-old self-defense and firearms teacher at Harry Beckwith Guns & Range in Micanopy.
Keys stated he considers women the fastest-growing demographic in the gun global.
“When I first started working at Harry Beckwith in early 2022, the courses I taught were 7% or 8% women,” he stated. “Now, women make up well over 25%.”
He attributes this building up to a rise in crime and a normal feeling of discontent with the economic system.
Keys stated kind of 75% of the women who check in to take the route are 20-29 and African American or Asian. These women cite self-defense as their reason why for short of to possess a gun, and the majority know little about firearms.
“They just feel that they are in danger,” he stated. “It is important to me that I am able to help them.”
Hunter Thomas, a 23-year-old gun salesman at Bass Pro Shops, concurs.
“I welcome any woman of any race, age or ethnicity to practice their Second Amendment rights,” he stated.
Although Bass Pro Shops now not gives a concealed weapons route, Thomas stated he believes the quantity of women changing into gun homeowners and obtaining a concealed weapons license has multiplied since he set to work for the corporate two years in the past.
“Even as someone with a liberal political perspective, I think that since guns are so widely spread, it’s better for any law-abiding citizen to have a gun,” he stated.
Lt. Jimmy Williams has been with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office for 23 years. He encourages women to procure a concealed weapons license and be told the fundamentals of the use of a firearm.
“Women need something to equalize their self-defense mechanism,” he stated. “Men are typically larger and almost always stronger. I have three daughters and three granddaughters. I don’t ever want any of them, or any woman, to be in a dangerous situation with no way out.”
An estimated 736 million women in the global, nearly 1 in 3, were subjected to bodily and/or sexual violence, consistent with USA Facts. Seventeen % of homicide sufferers in the United States had been killed by means of an intimate spouse. Women account for two-thirds of those sufferers.
Dany Castro went from fearing weapons to taking into consideration himself a “gun fanatic” in lower than two years.
Castro moved from her youth house in Tampa to her first condo in Gainesville when she was once admitted to the University of Florida in fall of 2020. After three hundred and sixty five days of repeatedly feeling unsafe, the 21-year-old sophomore stated she made up our minds to use for her concealed weapons license.
“Before I left for college, I was completely unfamiliar with guns,” she stated. “I didn’t grow up in a family with guns. My family didn’t hunt. I knew absolutely nothing about them. Being on my own made me realize how weak and vulnerable I was.”
Castro stated acquiring her license has given her a higher recognize for firearms. Although she stated she prays she by no means has to make use of one, she is thankful for the choice.
Harley Yost, a 24-year-old University of Florida alumni, stated she does no longer imagine a gun would make her really feel secure.
“I would opt for a less life-threatening deterrent,” she stated. “I’m not saying no women should own a gun, but I don’t think it is your best option.”
Keys stated he believes the quantity of women short of to procure a concealed weapons license will keep growing if extra restrictions are created.
“The more restrictions, the more demand,” he stated. “Every time there is a new restriction put in place, gun sales and license sales skyrocket. In the circle we are in right now, nobody wants to be the last person with the gun.”