Number of Women Shooters and Hunters On the Rise

So many reports are announcing it, and maybe you’ve even seen it with your own eyes at the range and afield, but the number of women hunters, target shooters and gun owners has dramatically increased!  This month the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s infographic breaks down this change on the range, and it goes much further than number variations by year: why more women are owning guns, the most popular firearms purchased by women, and their presence in gun stores and at shooting classes. Women are proving to be an important and integral part of the shooting community.

This infographic tells the tale that all these new gun-owning women mean business. The most important reason women wanted to own a gun was for self and home defense. Of those women, 73 percent had taken at least one firearms training class, and 43 percent go target shooting once or more a month. Additionally, the shotgun was the third most popular firearm purchased by women, which is one of the best guns for home defense. The most popular firearm purchased was the semi-auto pistol, perfect for concealed carry, followed by the revolver, a reliable home defense gun.

Learning how to hunt was the second most important reason women are becoming more familiar with firearms. What wonderful news—it seems like more and more women are choosing the sustainable and organic way to procure their meat. In 2001 there were 1.8 million registered female hunters in the U.S., but by 2013 that number almost doubled to 3.3 million. That’s an 85 percent increase in the number of female hunters nationwide.

It looks like the fastest-growing segments of the shooting sports are not going anywhere any time soon.

Communities for gun-owning women:

NRA Family
NRA Women
The WON: Women’s Outdoor News
The Well Armed Woman
A Girl & A Gun

Infographic and statistics courtesy of National Shooting Sports Foundation.