THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411030073
SECTION: HAMPTON ROADS WOMAN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 179 lines
VERY LATE on a hot, still night this past summer, Liz Scott's small dog leaped onto her bed and started scratching frantically on her arm. Scott could hear what had alerted the dog as soon as she awoke.
``Somebody was jimmying my door,'' she said. ``Whoever it was shook the den door so hard it caused something to fall off the wall, and I heard it.''
So the 64-year-old grandmother reached toward the nightstand next to her bed, rolled onto the floor on her stomach and firmly planted a .38-caliber revolver smack in the palm of her right hand.
Her husband, Ken, made a call to the police and then joined her on the floor with his own handgun. They thought the intruder was in the house. Later, they learned the person had never made it that far.
But if the intruder had come in, Scott said, with a determined glint in her eye, ``He would have been hamburger before he hit the floor.''
That's the only time that Scott can recall she's ever come close to using a gun for self-defense. But when that time came, she said, she was glad she had it, and she was glad she knew how to use it.
``I don't believe buying a gun is the whole answer,'' Scott said. ``There are an awful lot of things you can do before you buy a gun. If you get in a situation where you have to stop in traffic in a seedy place, stop traveling that route.
``If you see someone approaching your car when you're stopping, go through the traffic light. I'd rather get a ticket for running a red light than shoot someone. And if you find yourself in places where you don't feel safe, don't go to those places. Use common sense first.''
But if all else fails, and you decide you need to be able to protect yourself when the situation arises by buying a gun, Scott said, learn to use it.
``I say to every woman who comes into the personal protection program I help with not to treat a gun like one of those Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs you buy to hang on your porch to drive off evil spirits,'' Scott said. ``Learn to use it; learn to be comfortable with it. Otherwise - don't bother.''
Scott has been comfortable around guns for as long as she can remember. She grew up hunting with her father. In fact, she's been comfortable around a lot of things that have typically been considered nontraditional for women.
``I was never raised to feel for a moment that I was any different from a man except for my gender,'' she said. ``As a boy-crazy teenager, I loved taking cars apart, making them better, and putting them back. I found it was a great way to meet boys.''
Later, she learned welding. That's how she met her husband.
``Ken fell in love with my welding before he fell in love with me,'' she said, laughing.
When the Scotts lived in New York, hunting was one of their favorite ways to spend time together. But a short while before Ken Scott was transferred by his company from New York to Virginia, Liz Scott said that she found that trudging through swamps and woods had gotten to be too much for arthritic knees.
Once they settled in Virginia, the Scotts joined a shooting club at the Norfolk County Rifle Range. Liz Scott said it was a way to meet new friends and a way to continue enjoying a kind of competition she'd always reveled in.
``Shooting sports are the only sport where women and men are together in open competition, without any changes in the rules,'' she said. ``In shooting sports, we have the same playing field. We're competing on an even keel. It's wonderful for a woman 64 years old to beat a young Marine standing next to me. I love it!''
It's also a good competitive sport for older women, she said, because you don't have to run or jump.
``All you have to do is stand still, focus all of your energies and concentrate.''
Rob Miller, who taught Scott the art of target pistol shooting about 3 1/2 years ago, said that more and more women are learning to shoot, for protection as well as for the sport of it.
``Shooting is a sport of fine motor control,'' said Miller, a computer systems engineer for the city of Virginia Beach. ``Women learn faster than men. They don't have the upper body strength that men have, which can be a disadvantage. But women listen to what you tell them, and they do it.''
When Scott first started going to the shooting range off Military Highway, she said, she saw only an occasional woman other than herself there. Within the past two years, that has changed.
``People like Liz have been instrumental in making it a welcoming environment for other women,'' Miller said.
Often, now, there are more women shooters at the range than men. When 14 club members went to the preliminary tryouts for the U.S. Olympics Shooting team last month, eight of them were women.
Some of them have been attracted to the club to learn how to protect themselves with firearms, Scott said, but they are soon taken over by the companionship and competition.
``One of our computer operators at the city says she comes to do something for herself,'' Miller said. ``We usually have eight relays in two nights. It's not unusual to find only one man shooting while the rest are women.''
Chris Strong, an author of historic romances who writes under the name of Christina Cordaire, was raised around guns and hunting. Her family owned farms in Acredale, and although she never liked the idea of killing animals, she enjoyed competitive shooting.
She took it up again recently, she said, when she met a friend who was a member of the club. About the same time her latest book, ``Forgiving Hearts'' made Walden Books best-seller list, she competed in the Olympic tryouts.
``Shooting is a very cerebral game,'' said Strong, of Chesapeake. ``I like the target shooting because I'm in competition with myself. I can go in looking like a million dollars and come out looking like a drowned rat, like I've cleaned the entire house. The concentration makes it a mental game.''
Women from every occupation, of every age, are beginning to recognize that shooting is more than learning to handle a gun for self-protection, said Scott, who now coaches at the local range and assists in self-protection courses at Virginia Beach Sports.
``There are a lot of women buying guns,'' she said. ``They have begun to realize the self-esteem it can give them, the empowerment.''
Scott, who lives in Isle of Wight County, said she feels the entertainment media has done a lot to warp the public's concept of what shooting sports are all about.
``The public concept is, if you have a gun, you're going to go shoot somebody,'' she said. ``That's the same as saying if you take first aid or a CPR course, you're going to go around trying to incur massive bleeding or bring on heart attacks.
``At the turn of the century, we could control the environment of our towns and cities. Today, people from all over can fly through Isle of Wight, Chesapeake or wherever and be carrying concealed weapons. We don't want to be victims.''
In instructing women's sports pistols, Scott tells her students to pick up the gun by the barrel with their nonshooting hand, barrel pointed away from their body.
``Place the grip in the web of your shooting hand between the thumb and the palm,'' she says. ``Find a comfortable but firm grip.''
Only after the gun is fully loaded and the shell is in the chamber do you put your finger on the trigger.
``All of your disciplines have to come together in three seconds flat,'' she says. ``Just pull on the trigger very lightly. Remember, shooting is a mental game. Look through the back site, get the front site directly in the middle and pretend to pull the front site through the back.''
Scott does not advocate that all women buy guns for self-protection.
Some women would be in more danger with them than they would without.
But if a woman decides she wants to buy a gun, she said, she should learn to use it, learn to clean it and maintain it. A lock that can be removed in less than a half-second can be purchased for as little as $7 if there is concern about having a gun in the house, she said.
But there could come a time when any woman would be glad to have a gun handy, like the night that an intruder tried to enter Scott's home.
``If I had not done women's sports pistols, I would not have been able to hold my aim,'' she said. ``Would I have shot that human on the other side of the door if I'd had to?
``You bet.'' ILLUSTRATION: BILL TIERNAN/Staff color photos
Romance novel author Chris Strong of Chesapeake hangs a target to
prepare for a shooting session at the Norfolk County Range in
Chesapeake.
Strong, who competed in the recent Olympic tryouts, says shooting
``is a very cerebral game...The concentration makes it a mental
game.''
FAR LEFT: Liz Scott of Isle of Wight strikes a pose as she does in
women's sports pistol competitions.
LEFT: A .22-caliber pistol with a gun lock, which can be removed in
about a half-second, Scott says.
Graphic
JUST THE FACTS
Seventy-five percent of women will face criminal attack in
their lifetime. Justice Department statistics tell a grim tale:
Almost half of all women have ``not very much'' or ``no confidence''
in the ability of the police to protect them from violent crime.
Nearly three-quarters lack confidence in the courts to commit and
properly sentence criminals.
Finding themselves increasingly responsible for their own and
their children's safety, more and more women have chosen to own a
firearm.
From 1983 to 1986, the number of female gun owners rose 53
percent, and the number of those considering buying a firearm
increased fourfold.
Between 12 million and 20 million women own firearms.
-National Rifle Association
by CNB