NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
If you’re a woman, and you’re licensed to shoot, then your skills are in hot demand.
The market for female gun instructors is booming as more women want to learn to shoot — both for self defense and for sport, said Tina Wilson-Cohen, who owns She Can Shoot, an all-women firearm and self-defense training business in Fairfax, Va.
“When I started training women in 2007, there weren’t many female instructors,” she said. “Now you’re not the only name in town.”
The National Rifle Association, noting the burgeoning market opportunity, is trying to boost its ranks of 8,000 NRA-certified female instructors, said spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.
In 2009, the NRA organized 280 “Women On Target” training clinics nationwide, and 8,000 women signed up. In 2013, the group held 450 clinics for 12,000 women.
While Arulanandam said self protection is still the primary reason women take up gun training, he said they’re increasingly realizing “that they’d like to pursue it for activities like target shooting or skeet shooting.”
Alecs Dean offers several NRA-certified courses at his range in Fort Myers, Fla. In the last two years, two-thirds of his clients have been women compared to just a third five years ago.
Since 2012, Dean has offered a 50% discount to women who enroll in his instructor training course.
“We need more women instructors,” said Dean. “They bring a perspective that men don’t have when it comes to their self defense. It could be something simple like knowing which side a woman typically carries her purse.”
And the perspective is appreciated by his male students as well — many even prefer a female instructor.
But many of the female-oriented shooting groups use a women-training-women model.
“There’s no ego involved,” said Deb Ferns, a co-founder of Babes with Bullets. “Women instructors demystify the language, they’re more patient and more nurturing.”
The company, which offers training camps across the country, was started in 2004, but its popularity has recently exploded, said Ferns.
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