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32 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.15 facturers produce limited runs of new colors, and Van Fleet, like a girl collecting special-edi- tion Barbies, can't resist owning them all. Van Fleet's grandpa taught her to shoot in the backyard when she was six. Now she owns the 111 Gun Shop on Hurstbourne Park Bou- levard. Guns are her life. Te 38-year-old says she's the only woman gun store owner in great- er Louisville. Despite the growing popularity of frearms among women — the National Shooting Sports Foundation reported last year that almost half of frst-time gun buyers were women — gun shops may be the last non-X- rated male stronghold. It's not that women aren't tolerated; it's that they're not expected. Frequently, customers will stroll into 111 Gun Shop, turn down Van Fleet's ofer of help, and take their questions to one of the men in the store. She has overheard people refer to her as "the cashier in that gun store." She rolls with it. Tey'll fgure it out. In December 2012, Van Fleet was vacation- ing in Los Angeles when her cell phone rang. A 111 Gun Shop employee told her that the store was under retail siege. Customers were cleaning the place out, grabbing every last high-capacity magazine and every single AR- 15 semi-automatic rife. As the day wore on, the calls from her shop continued. If this kept up, Van Fleet realized, there would be nothing left to sell. "Oh, my God!" she thought. "I've got to get back there!" She considered booking an early fight home but frst dialed her distributors, looking for guns and ammo to restock shelves. Her suppliers were cleaned out. Across the country, frightened customers were taking measures to protect themselves. But it wasn't gunfre they feared. Behind this rush was the debate following the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Calls for gun-con- trol legislation (particularly targeting AR-15s and magazines holding more than 10 rounds) triggered panicked gun-buying nationwide. "People buy guns the way they buy gasoline when something is going on in the Middle East," says Luke Hobson, the store's 27-year- old manager. "People would ask, 'Where are the magazines?' and we would point, and they would scoop up an entire armful and lay them on the counter to buy." By Dec. 17, it was clear this rush would be a record-breaker. Hobson says the turning point for him was when a guy in jeans and a dark jacket came in, picked up a wooden crate of ammo about three feet long, a foot wide, and six inches deep, and bought the entire thing. One guy buying an AR-15 told Hobson, "I don't really have the budget for this, but if I don't buy it now, I might never be able to." "Basically, that exact same line got muttered over and over again from people realigning their budget priorities to purchase these fre- arms," Hobson says. But by April 2013, Sandy Hook-inspired gun control legislation died in the U.S. Senate. Van Fleet points to a photograph of President Obama in her store. Underneath it someone has written, "Firearms Salesman of the Year." It probably should say, "Firearms Salesman of the Decade." ATF data shows that the United States produced 26.1 million guns during Obama's frst term. Tat's nearly equal to the number of guns manufactured during George W. Bush's entire eight-year presidency. A bra holster. I try to picture how such a thing would work. Even though Van Fleet assures me a pistol will dangle safely out of sight once the holster is afxed to my bra, I can't imagine pulling the weapon. Do I lift my shirt frst or just reach up under? How much practice would it take before I learn to instinc- tively grab for my breast when in danger? Ten there's the story of the Michigan woman who killed herself adjusting her bra holster. I can't wrap my head around a bra holster. I can't wrap my head around concealed carry. How hard would it be to overpower me and take my weapon, even if I managed to draw the thing safely? Yet here I am one morning in April, driving up to a sad little building on Bishop Lane south of the Watterson. Te guy inside looks like an outlaw: a long gray beard covers his chest and his straight brown hair falls halfway down his back. Te guy's name is Roger Mor- ris, and he's really no outlaw at all. He's a ge- nial former policeman, and he's going to teach me and fve other people everything we need to know about carrying a concealed weapon. I wonder why anyone thinks allowing me to have a concealed-carry license is a good idea. What the commonwealth ought to do is recall my driver's license, not hand me another way to infict harm. I haven't fred a gun in de- cades. When I did, I shot a single round from a .357 Magnum. My wrists tingled from the kick and the barrel ended up pointing heaven- ward. I handed the weapon back to the deputy who had hoped to teach me to shoot. Since Kentucky frst permitted concealed carry in 2004, more than 330,000 people in this state of 4.4 million have obtained licenses to do so. In 2013 — the year following the Sandy Hook shooting — the state broke re- cords, almost doubling the number of licenses usually issued in a year to nearly 60,000. Not everyone can get this license. Convicted felons, domestic abusers, people adjudicated men- tally ill can't. Among the other exclusions are convictions for driving while intoxicated, long- term delinquency on child-support payments and alcoholism. Kentucky law requires training of "not more than eight (8) hours in length," including a qualifying target shoot. If that seems like slim preparation to tote a deadly weapon to Sunday school, take a look at Indiana, which requires no training. Still, the class is no brainteaser. Te best part is when Morris shows us how to hold a weapon, how to stand and how to aim. But most of the state-developed train- ing involves watching state-produced videos, including one exceedingly long one in which someone reads directly from the Kentucky Revised Statutes. Finally, we drive to the Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point for our qualifying shoot. I rent a .22 Ruger that holds fve rounds. I must hit a green man-shaped target from 21 feet in 11 out of 20 attempts to win my license. Morris has to show me how to load the gun and then steps back while I fre. I stop and peer at the target to see how I'm doing. Tere isn't a single hole. I ask Morris what I'm doing wrong. "You're doing fne," he says. I fre again. Again, nothing. Can I really be missing every time? I try to remember everything I learned. Tis time, I line up my sights as I hold the gun out at arm's length, only to discover that the sights are so small, they're blurry. When the range ofcer fnally calls a halt to all the shooting and I retrieve the green man, I am surprised to see that I have passed — just barely. I simply couldn't see the hole a .22 caliber bullet makes from 21 feet. I fle for my permit the next day. I have no intention of using it. Before my arrival at the Starbucks on Bardstown Road just south of the Watterson, Ken Pagano did all he could to minimize our vulnerability. He showed up early, performed a quick threat assessment, determined the best place to sit and chose Since Kentucky frst permitted concealed carry in 2004, more than 330,000 people in this state of 4.4 million have obtained licenses to do so. Opposite page, clockwise from top left: Te author taking instruction for a Tursday- night ladies' shoot in Fairdale (far right); the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot; the author looking at some hardware.