Despite living in a state with some fairly onerous gun laws, legal firearms sales in Baltimore are on the rise. One big contributing factor is the increased number of women who are choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights. And in a very encouraging sign, gun safety training classes geared specifically toward women are becoming more common this year. (CBS Baltimore)

More women are pulling the trigger and buying guns. A Maryland company, Practical Training Professionals (PTP), is having special classes that focus specifically on females and firearms. On Sunday, it was a packed house in Timonium for a training that could mean life or death. “The two causes of firearm accidents is ignorance, and negligence,” says Ryan Gass, owner of PTP. “What we are doing today is trying to break through that ignorance.” Lanette Myers and her daughter came from Gaithersburg to attend the class. “I feel it’s very important just to know the basic things to be able to protect myself regardless of the situation,” Myers says.

These reports appear to be strictly anecdotal but it’s a hopeful sign of a positive trend. Some of the women interviewed for the article were primarily concerned about safety in terms of avoiding accidents and, perhaps even more so, specifically keeping firearms out of the hands of children. But what these courses are also doing is removing some of the anxiety for women who might not feel as comfortable going into a class composed mostly of men.

“I think knowledge is power and if you are going to take something seriously, like buying a gun, then I think you should know how to be safe with it,” says Janice Tuzcan of Rosedale. “There’s no intimidation,” says Myers. “It’s very comfortable here, there’s no intimidating. There’s no wondering ‘Should I ask this, should I not ask this, should I feel stupid, should I not?’”

One other interesting fact from this report is a statistic from a 2017 Pew study which shows that for the first time, women are more likely than men to pursue gun ownership for reasons of personal protection as opposed to recreation. That’s a concern most anywhere you go these days, but it’s particularly true in Baltimore. Their city has a murder rate so far off the end of the bell curve that many of these women must be concerned about leaving the house. Even worse, given the home invasion numbers in certain parts of Charm City, they’re really not all that safe staying in either. Small wonder that increasing numbers of them are deciding to arm themselves, and do so safely.

Now if we can only get word of this news out on the streets and among all the gang members. You might be less likely to try grabbing a purse or attempting something worse with a random female if the odds are increasing that you’ll wind up with some new perforations in your gut for your trouble.