PROVO — For Clachelle Jensen, preparing to leave the house with her two children goes something like this: Baby wipes? Check. Extra diapers? Check. Glock pistol? Check.

"I just feel safer when I have my gun on my hip," said Jensen, 28, who lives in Santaquin. "There's so many lunatics and crazies out there, you never know when something's going to happen."

The petite brunette's not shy about showing off her weapon, either. The Glock has a semipermanent home on her belt.

Jensen packed her pistol to the Red Robin in Provo Saturday, where she met up with about a dozen other unabashedly armed Utahns.

They looked imposing, walking in together, loaded pistols at their sides. The somber spell was broken though, when Jensen's baby started fussing and someone's cell phone went off.

"We're not gangsters," said Brian Nelson, 27, a soft-spoken man from Layton. "We are normal people. We just happen to carry guns."

A couple of the men work in gun-related businesses; the rest ranged in occupation from computer software engineer to political lobbyist. The youngest was a fresh-faced 18-year-old, the eldest had nearly-grown children. The group first met in an online chat room, Opencarry.org where they discuss their decision not to conceal their weaponsIt's a whole lifestyle change," Nelson said.

He said he feels responsible for the safety of those around him when he has a gun on his hip. He always assesses the situation and looks for the exits when he walks into a room.

"You've got to envision what could go wrong because if you make the wrong decision with a gun in your hand, you'll be spending time in jail — and rightfully so," he said.

OpenCarry.org touts the slogan: "A right unexercised is a right lost." Saturday's group of pistol packers echoed the sentiment. A bonus to keeping the gun in the open, said Pether Jensen, a self-proclaimed cowboy from West Valley City, is the opportunity it presents to educate people about Utah's gun laws. No permit is required to openly carry a gun in Utah.

"I have the right to protect my family," he said. "A lot of people don't know they have that right."

Utah gun laws are some of the most relaxed in the country, said Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council. His elbow rubbed against the handle of his pistol as he munched on his hamburger. Utah also boasts one of the lowest rates of crimes committed using lawfully-obtained firearms, he said. "We aren't apologizing for a felon trying to buy a gun," he said. "We obey the law and expect everyone else to also."

The only things Clachelle Jensen has ever taken out with her pistol are targets and broken bottles. None of the diners had ever taken aim at a human being.

"I hope the day never comes when I have to use my weapon," said Kevin Jensen, Clachelle's husband. "I just like to have it there in case of emergency."

All agreed that keeping the gun out in the open encourages criminals to stay at bay.

"An armed society is a polite society," they said. Kevin Jensen said he wanted his wife to keep her gun on her belt because she didn't always have hold of the purse she kept it in. He didn't want her to end up "arming a purse-snatcher," he said.

He prefers to wear his Glock strapped to his thigh. He shrugged when someone asked if he was a member of the FBI.

"If I wear it on my waist, I can't tuck my shirt in," he said, while bouncing his 3-month-old on his hip.

This is wild and check out Opencarry.org - Clark -Carryconcealed.net

About the Author: Elizabeth Stuart

They’re called girls with guns, women with weapons, females with firearm, babes with bullets and there are probably others. But whatever the alliterative phrase, it’s a case of what is usually thought of as the gentle gender and a developing relationship with packing hardware.

Sandy Froman is woman who might be called slight in stature. Despite her diminutive size, beach bullies don’t kick sand in her face because the former president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) carries a gun with her whenever legally allowed to do so.

"I love guns and have never met one I didn’t like," says the Tucson attorney. "Pretty much if a bullet goes in a gun and comes out the barrel, I’ve shot it – pistol, rifle, shotgun, I love them all."

The former leader of the four million-member firearms organization has been elected to a lifetime appointment on the NRA’s executive council.

Not bad for a woman who waited to pull the trigger on her first gun – a Colt .45 – until she was 32. And even that action was prompted by necessity when an intruder tried to break into her San Francisco Bay Area home while she was a student at Stanford law school.

"Guns were never a part of my life up to that point," Froman said. "My father didn’t hunt or target shoot. We didn’t own any firearms, and nobody I knew owned guns either. It wasn’t that I disliked guns, they just weren’t on my radar screen."

That was until the night a would-be intruder tried to pry the lock off her front door and scared her.

"That was a moment of truth for me. Realizing just how alone and vulnerable I was, how I wouldn’t have been able to protect myself," she said. "The very next morning I went and bought a weapon. The salesman recommended I take a gun safety class where we fired pistols on an indoor range. My hand-eye coordination is pretty good and I put all the holes in one tiny circle on the target and felt much better about my ability to ensure my own safety. It grew from there to competitive shooting, hunting, and teaching others as an NRA-certified instructor."

Her involvement with the NRA has continued on for 25 years; 14 on the board, nine as a director and a two-year term as the president, which concluded in April.

Owning a gun or having any kind of involvement with firearms is an individual decision, she says.

"While I think that all women ought to own a gun or at least know how to shoot one, I respect the right of a woman not to have a gun if that decision is an informed one," Froman said. "When I learned about my Second Amendment rights and realized they applied to women as well as men, I learned the issue wasn’t just about guns, but about the freedom to choose to own a firearm if you wanted to."

Another late-in-life shooter is Debbie Ferns, a Tucson-based motivational speaker, handgun instructor, and author of the book, "Babes With Bullets (Women Having Fun With Guns)."

"I have a continuing passion to preserve Second Amendment rights for future generations," says Ferns, who didn’t pick up a pistol until she was 45. "I’m proficient in literally every type of weapon from handguns to rifles to shotguns."

She, too is a member of the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

As part of her feminine image, Ferns hands out pink business cards, shoots with pink-gripped pistols and long guns, and refers to herself as a Princess in Pink.

She say she’s "not interested in dressing in camouflage and sitting in rain or snow, being wet and uncomfortable for hours" so she is not a hunter, but likes shooting sports. That stance prompted her to be part of a report on "NBC Nightly News."

"I felt as a part of pro-gun America, it was an opportunity to share how I felt about firearms and why I don’t want my Second Amendment rights infringed upon," Ferns said. "It’s like the bumper sticker says: Ignore Your Rights and Eventually They’ll Go Away."

Married with two grown daughters who both shoot, Ferns’ passion to educate women about firearms has prompted organizing womens handgun camps across the country to introduce participants to shooting sports, but not hunting.

"It’s women teaching women," she says.

A certified tactical three-gun instructor, Ferns feels shooting sports enhance a woman’s ability for self-protection and improve her self-esteem.

"I can’t tell you how many times women all over the country have told me that they’ve heard things that go bump in the night and had no one else in the house to protect them," she said. "Camps are part gun education, part pajama party, and total enjoyment as we all crank off a thousand rounds getting comfortable handling pistols. We assemble, disassemble, field strip and clean our weapons, load our own magazines, pick up all brass and clean the whole range before we leave."

Nancy Crowley is a shooting compatriot who lives on a small ranch outside of Albuquerque. She likes bolt-action rifles at long distances, punching the bullseye on targets 1,000 yards away.

"I was brought up to fear guns," she says, until she learned about guns and gun safety as part of self defense. "The transformation from women who are scared at the beginning into women who confidently handle firearms by the end of their training is rewarding. Near the end of our classes we bring out a variety of firearms with ammunition and we can’t get students to stop shooting."

Richland deputy 10th best shooter in national event

As Deputy Anna Bailey prepares to begin a shooting competition, she repeats five words.

Only about a dozen of the roughly 320 competitors were women, and they were all competing in the two highest classes, she said.

Her category was 1500 matches, in which competitors fire 150 rounds from revolvers and semi-automatic handguns at different distances. A perfect score is 1500; Bailey’s high score was 1486.

Bailey said she doesn’t think of competition in terms of male or female. She wants to be the best — period.

“I played football in middle school. I didn’t think, ‘I’m a girl and I want to play football.’ I just liked football.”

In high school, she played volleyball, basketball and softball. At USC Upstate, she played volleyball.

“I find something I like doing, and I train to do it to the best of my ability,” she said.

Sheriff Leon Lott said he first realized Bailey’s potential two years ago at a department shooting competition.

“I was the reigning champ, and she out-shot me,” he said. “She’s just got that natural ability.”

Her accomplishments are even more impressive considering she was competing against shooters with far more years of experience, Lott said.

Still, 30 mph winds and bright sunlight in the Albuquerque, N.M., desert upped the ante, she said.

About the Author: The State Click on the link for the rest of the story.

By: Brett Johnson

Cheryl Weissmann of Camarillo owns a 9 mm handgun, a .22-caliber automatic pistol and a Taurus revolver. She likes to go to Shooters Paradise in Oxnard at least twice a month and pop off a few rounds as a way to blow off steam.

Over the years, Kim Carsey of Moorpark has "fired just about everything — shotguns, Tommys, 9 millimeters"

Ventura resident Carly Gregory, a firearms newbie barely into her 20s, ticked off a list of guns she shot at a clinic in Rose Valley above Ojai this summer — a .22 Smith & Wesson handgun, a 9 mm Beretta and a .357 Magnum.

More and more women have taken up guns and gone to shooting ranges in recent years. The story has drawn attention nationally, and local women say they've definitely noticed more of their gender flanking them on the firing lines.

The Women on Target instructional and shooting clinic at Rose Valley this summer, a National Rifle Association event, was packed. Organizer Nina Neuron of Santa Paula said she had to turn away more than 40 women, adding, "And that's when I stopped counting." About a third of the roughly two dozen female participants, Neuron noted, had never fired a gun before.

Self-defense is one of their interests, but local women say they're also in it for fun and sport. Some are competition target shooters. Some just want to shoot recreationally with spouses, family or friends. Some are hunters. Some are NRA members.

The Women on Target clinics have grown almost 20-fold in six years. The program had 13 events and 496 participants nationally in 2000 and 237 clinics and 6,945 shooters last year, said Ashley Varner, a spokeswoman at NRA's Virginia headquarters.

Among shooting sports, Varner said, "women are the largest growing new demographic. It's one of the final sports hurdles that women are breaking into."

So much so, she said, that manufacturers are designing handles and pistols to fit women's hands. Gloves, clothing and sporty bags for concealed-carry firearms also are being made with women in mind, she added.

Target bashing

Many shooters are women with professional jobs.

Weissmann, a 38-year-old computer systems manager, had never handled or fired a gun until about a year ago. She went with a co-worker to Shooters Paradise, an indoor range, and was "surprised it was so easy."

It looked easy at a session last week. Weissmann shuttled a paper target (a figure of a torso and head of a man) about 5 yards down one of the 14 shooting stalls there and plugged away, alternating her 9 mm and the .22.

Amid loud pops (even with earphones on), she split the target. Bullets blasted through and hit a soft pile of shredded tires along the back wall about 50 feet down the gallery and the shells fell around her feet. She pushed a button to retrieve the sheet; the spread was admirably small with both firearms and particularly tight with the .22, which lacks the 9 mm's kick.

Weissmann threw the sheet in the trash and rated her performance "pretty good." She once kept a sheet when the spread was all in the orange, she said, motioning to a colored box that represents the center of center.

Pop-culture images of the hard-bitten babe with a gun or the gun-totin' mama — to borrow two of Neuron's phrases — are taking a hard hit.

"Women are realizing that there's nothing particularly unfeminine about being a shooter," Neuron said. "You can still wear lipstick and high heels."

Shooting enthusiast Stephanie Fuller of Ventura put it more succinctly: "Stereotypes? I don't care."

Firing off shots

Fuller, a 52-year-old mortgage loan processor, took her daughter, Gregory, to the clinic.

"It was a great mother-daughter bonding thing," Fuller said.

Progeny agreed. Gregory, a 23-year-old pharmacy technician and student, said: "I want to know how to use a gun. Plus, it was spending some quality time with my mom."

Times are changing, said Neuron, a 59-year-old Web and database designer.

"Now," she said, "women are saying: Hey, wait a minute. If the man can do it, I can do it.' And in most cases, they find they do well at it."

It led her to fire off this salvo: "In this country, we equate boys with guns — but women are better shots."

The women are aware this puts them amid such polemic, hot-button and endlessly tossed-around issues as gun control, violence and the Second Amendment. It's easy to see where they stand on such topics.

"I support people being able to have their own arms," said Carsey, a 49-year-old stay-at-home mom.

Neuron is a member of both the NRA and the Ojai Valley Gun Club, the one that meets at the Rose Valley range. So is Mary Osborn of Ventura, a 59-year-old senior executive assistant for an international safety training and consulting company who can wax forth on the differences between trap and skeet shooting.

The nation, Osborn opined, has so many gun laws "it's ridiculous." Most of the time guns are used maliciously, she said, it's by criminals who are going to find a way to obtain them anyway.

Neuron took umbrage at the charge that if a handgun hadn't been present, the murder wouldn't have occurred. "Wrong!" she fired back. "If there hadn't been a handgun present, the murder would have occurred with a knife or by some other means.

"Can guns be misused?" she continued. "Yes, but there has to be an intent for them to be misused."

These are but a sampling of the many labyrinthian tunnels the myriad arguments can go down. Guns are dangerous and potentially harmful, Weissmann said. "Yeah they can be," she added, "if you don't know how to handle them."

Security within reach

Self-defense is on their minds, the women say. Most states allow some form of concealed-carry firearms.

Osborn keeps a gun in her house for protection. She thinks about it when she knows her husband is going to be out of town. She also has a shot-up target up in her garage as a mild warning to any intruders, letting them know she can fire a gun.

"It just gives me a secure feeling," she said. "I know it's there, and I know how to load it."

Weissmann lives alone. "I never thought I would need a gun, but you read about all these people breaking into people's homes," she said, adding that she keeps one of her guns near her bed.

Fuller is away by herself a lot. She thinks about it, even when she goes into a gas station restroom on the road.

"Our society has gotten to the point where there are a lot of mean people out there," she said. "I don't want to be a victim. I know women who have been raped, and they never get over it. That's a lot of baggage to carry around."

Her daughter, Gregory, said that if she ever is out on her own, she'd want a gun around for protection.

Said Neuron: "People are going back to the realization that it is not in the purview of the police to protect them. You have to be the first line of defense."

Women's interest in being that at home, knowing how to use firearms and getting training for certain situations has led some to dub them "security moms," the NRA's Varner noted.

"They are a new voice in the female political community," she said — especially post-9/11.

Neuron has had to defend herself twice in her life — "It wasn't pleasant, but I survived them." In neither case was she armed; in both cases, a gun would not have helped, she said. But her experience with guns and shooting enabled her "to recognize that there was a hazard."

"That awareness," she said, "is a huge part of learning how not to be a victim."

Shooting also helped her to build confidence — an asset others also cited — that she could handle dicey situations. Using a gun, she indicated, is low priority.

"If I shoot someone, I'm going to have a very, very good reason for doing so," she said.

And, like the others, she hopes she never has to do so.

The lure, and a word on safety

Guns have a visceral attraction, enthusiasts say. Shooting one also is empowering.

"I love it," Osborn said. "It's very relaxing and it puts you in a zone. It's self-invigorating."

Fuller said she never thought she'd enjoy guns. Her father committed suicide with a gun when she was 7, and she subsequently was afraid of them much of her life. But she started shooting about 18 years ago and liked it, especially as a stress reliever.

"It's really fulfilling to do," she said. "After I shoot, it's like I've had a full-body massage."

Gregory, who had shot only once prior to the Rose Valley clinic, said she felt shaky at first. But with training, she was soon comfortable. She picked up a .357 Magnum with a scope and hit the bull's-eye on her first shot, which she thought "was pretty cool."

"It's great recreation," Gregory said. "You don't realize how much concentration and skill it requires."

While guns are a discovery for some, others have been around them almost their entire lives. Carsey grew up in the San Fernando Valley with brothers and recalled going off to the mountains near Gorman to shoot.

Neuron's grandmother and family grew up in rural Kern County in the 1880s.

"They didn't shoot intruders," Neuron said, "but they did shoot for meat. Many times, they'd shoot a rattlesnake on the porch and it'd end up in the kettle."

She began shooting when she was 6 (her dad started her on a Mark II air pistol), hoisted her first rifle at 10, and later went to a junior rifle club in Woodland Hills.

Neuron hopes to have another Women on Target clinic next year on the last weekend in May. Participants are taught to handle, load, unload and clean guns safely.

She contends shooting is a safe sport. Ranges have a "zero-tolerance policy." If a situation looks unsafe, activity is stopped immediately. That can include targets set too close to the firing line so that a ricochet is a risk, or the occasional deer that wanders through outdoor venues. They also check to make sure muzzles are pointed downrange.

As a gun owner, Osborn noted, safety has to be the top priority. She cringes when she hears about accidental shootings and wonders if the person involved was thinking about safety the entire time they were handling the gun.

"If you are safe and responsible, it can be a lot of fun," she said. "It's a wonderful opportunity as a sport."

A bullet, Neuron noted, can travel anywhere from 800 to 3,200 feet per second. That's a helluva thing to comprehend, an object that can travel easily more than a mile in the time it takes to read this sentence.

"I'm deathly afraid of any firearm not under my control," she said, "and I treat those under my control with considerable circumspection."