Teaching Your Wife to Shoot

By:  Vicki Farnam

 

Note:  Vicki Farnam is an accomplisher author and firearms trainer who has been teaching men and women to shoot for almost 20 years.  She has pioneered teaching techniques and developed solutions to the unique problems that women have in becoming competent shooters.  Vicki’s recently published book, “Teaching Women to Shoot: A Law Enforcement Instructor’s Guide” sets the standard for enhancing an instructor’s teaching skills.  

    

 

“How can I get my wife (please read as sister, daughter, girlfriend, mother, friend) to go to the range and go shooting with me?  How can I get my wife get a concealed carry permit to carry when she driving alone late at night?”  These and variations of these questions are ones which I am asked repeatedly.  If I only had the answers!  The answer is as individual as the woman about whom the question is asked.  What I am attempting with the following article is a general answer with bits and pieces which may be of some help to you. 

 

Teaching your wife to shoot and then expecting her to carry a gun for self protection is a little like providing her with the answer to a question she never asked.  Her response to you might well be, “Why would I want to do that?”  Meaning, why would I want to do either let alone both.

 

The decision has to be hers.  Not yours for her.  She needs to be convinced in her own mind that these are steps she should take. 

 

You have already asked yourself the question, “what am I going to do to protect myself and/or my family in a world filled with danger?”  You have also found the answer that works for you. Your wife may have asked the question in her own mind and found the answer is “you!”  Or, she may have avoided asking the question altogether.   Until your wife is the victim of or a witness to a terrifying incident, in all likelihood she doesn’t want to think about how she would or could protect herself.

 

If she has already made the decision that she is the answer to her own protection, your question has been answered and she is out there at the range practicing with you.

 

Learning to shoot a gun and then deciding to use it as a tool for self defense are two different decisions and two different processes.  It may not have been that way for you, but it is most likely the way most women will make the decision, especially if they have never been the victim of a violent attack or at the least been scared enough to want to learn to protect themselves. It is very easy for us women to ignore, deny, shut out the possibility of danger waiting for us out in the world.  Until it happens to us, it won’t happen to us!

 

 We women don’t like risk!  For some women, learning to shoot a gun is equal to taking a risk because guns are unfamiliar.  It is a demanding skill with no room for error.  Some may not want to learn to shoot unless they are sure they can be very good at it and the risk is that of being only moderately skillful.  There is also the risk of not pleasing you or living up to what they think your expectation is. Some may have fear of guns because they don’t know very much about them.  There was once a time when few women learned to drive.  They saw no need, they had no desire to acquire the skill. They were content to let someone else drive them. You probably have known a woman who never learned how to drive. Not every woman wants to learn certain skills which may involve what they view as risk. I’m not asking you to understand why or to agree with why this is true, just to recognize it.