The Motherhood Of A Shooter

Outdoor Wire Editor's Note: It's Mothers Day weekend and we hope every one of you has the chance to reach out to your Mom. Today, we let a Mom reach out to you. Contributing writer Laurel Yoshimoto shares her observations on being an "almost Mom" involved in a sport she loves. Next week, we'll have a report on another group of Moms who are also speaking out in defense of the Second Amendment and the right to shoot -or not- as you choose.

To Moms everywhere: Happy Mothers Day!

I fell into shooting about six years ago. It was one of those accidentally/on purpose things. My husband had gone with some friends to try it out and had come back enamored, captivated, and fully committed to this new sport. Deciding to be a wise woman I chose my reaction carefully. Instead of protesting this new love and her pricey flash-and-bang antics, I decided to accompany my husband out to a match and see what all to-do was about. I prided myself on making fair decisions, even if what I was deciding was the worth of this new mistress. I fell in with him and his friends and picked up a handgun for the second time in my life. I was thrilled to find that I was more accurate than he (something that has long since ceased to be true) and thought that it wouldn't hurt too much (both my pride and my budget) to try it one more time. Just once.

As the months passed, and I found myself spending the first paycheck of my newly acquired teaching job on a Glock 34 (on which I promptly painted a flower with nail polish so my husband wouldn't "accidentally" think it was his), I realized that several "just onces" had added up. What had they added up to? A bit of an obsession. A handful of guilt. More dirt-stained socks than I cared to notice. A callused pointer finger. And to be honest, a bit of a swagger. Not that I was or am a great shooter. I'm not. I often am that sad little name at the end of the list. Where I shot actually invented a whole new "E" category for me because the "D's" were swamped and my pride that had been so built up with youthful academic successes took a hit when that 9mm bullet flew past the target that no one else seemed to think was too far away. But swagger I did. I was a shooter. Someone that my pioneering ancestors could be proud of. A red-blooded American that was ready to back up the Constitution on the home front the way that Washington's army had stood up to the Brits. There is glamour, an enthrallment, that happens when a gun molds itself alluringly to your hand, and I was captivated along with my husband.

New loves are enticing and other things get put aside for them, but eventually those things need to be dealt with and as a woman I knew that I wanted a child. I begged my husband, bartered, discussed, reasoned, and finally fell to daily prayers that he would change his mind and want a child. The day after Thanksgiving two years past now, he finally gave in and I stopped buying birth control. More money for bullets, right? Before we knew it we were pregnant. I always knew that my husband was a straight shooter, but his aim was a little better and faster than I had planned on. With the joy of life within me I continued to head out to the range every chance that I got. The morning sickness and tiredness did affect my speed. I was extra careful to wash my hands after shooting and before eating, but that was about it.

I can't remember if it was my well-meaning aunt, a fellow shooter, or some guy at the taco stand that first mentioned it, but apparently there's a social taboo against being a pregnant shooter. One thing that you will find when you are pregnant is that all of the sudden your body and business is the world's property and people will hesitate hardly a seemly second before chipping in their two cents. And the worst part about it is that they all mean you well so you can't really be mad at them. After the third, or perhaps thirtieth, person who told me that my child would turn out deaf, deformed, or dead because of my shooting, I turned to the internet to see if it was true. The internet had surprisingly little to say on the matter and so I asked my doctor. He, a frustrated shooter himself whose wife had locked up all his guns as soon as she got pregnant and is holding the keys until the kids are in college, assured me that shooting was fine, wonderful, "keep doing it!", and he wrote me a recommendation that I keep shooting as long as I wanted to. Feeling much less like a horrible mother I headed out to the ranges to find that people didn't care what my doctor said. I shouldn't be shooting. The club owner informed me that as soon as I hit the 6 month mark that I wouldn't be allowed to shoot any more, note or no note.

I switched clubs and kept on shooting. I asked other women if they knew of other mothers who had kept shooting. My friend from Colorado swore that women out there shot throughout their pregnancies and that their kids all came out just fine. I heard that Julie Golob had shot until she was 6 months along. As I shot the Steel Challenge in August one of the R.O.'s told me that she had shot through her pregnancy too. Besides these people, my husband, and a few stalwart shooting buddies, I got no other support but heard a lot of arguing and was even earnestly begged by some to just give it up for the remaining months until I gave birth. I couldn't help but find it hugely ironic that the men who were touting their strong belief that women and children should join the shooting world were the same ones who were so quick to shoo me off the range. They did mean well, but I still don't understand why they thought they knew better than my doctor.

I also noticed, much to my dismay, that although many dads still shot and brought their kids out with them (good wonderful fathers!) that shooting mothers are few and far between. I asked the moms at the Steel Challenge why they weren't shooting. They all seemed to answer something along the lines of, "well someone had to watch the kids and he liked shooting so much ..." I even had the audacity to corner Julie Golob as she came out of the stall in the ladies' room and ask her how she had kept it up. Almost apologetically she explained about how at naptime her baby monitor reaches out to her backyard range just fine. I have looked at the listings in SoCal and have yet to find one with a backyard range. Wrong state maybe?

The day came. My wonderful little son was born two weeks before my due date. As my husband and I, flush with wonder at this new little life, reasoned in the delivery room, three weeks is plenty of time for me to heal up enough to make the trip from Orange County to Morro Bay and compete in the Ruger Rimfire series ending match. Having attended the first match of this series in Piru, California when I was still in my first trimester, having gotten a stock for my .22 rifle for mother's day from my wonderful husband (it was so sweet that I cried), and having desperately wanted to shoot the finale at that gorgeous Morro Bay range, it wasn't long before my husband and I had convinced his parents to drive out and watch their first grandchild for the weekend while we went shooting. It was a great time! Although the sleep deprivation made it hard to focus, and running to the car to pump milk every two hours took up time and made me miss a few stage instructions that cost me 30 seconds (ouch!), it was worth it and so much fun to be out there, shooting.

I have to admit that here, two months later, that the guilt at missing so much time with my son upon going back to work seven weeks after the birth has made me stay home on Saturdays when my husband goes shooting. I miss the range though. I still cycle through the Steel Challenge stages in my head and think through the splendid cacophony that I dream of hearing the next time I shoot, "ding, ding ... ding, ding, DING!" My finger twitches at the thought of a freshly painted steel target. And secretly, when my son is sleeping, I sneak out to the gun safe (that I insisted my husband buy) and handle my beloved Glock. I lovingly check and make sure that no bullet has snuck in her chamber in my absence, rack her, see how well she still fits in my hand, and practice that smooth pull of a trigger that will ensure a clean hit. I check and see how much better my gun belt will fit now that my stomach has shrunk back down to almost pre-pregnancy size, and I dream of the day when my son turns 6 months old and I can put sunscreen on him and his adorable little ear protection (that my fellow, and much better than I am, shooter Flora Yang bought him for Christmas), and head out to that hot, dusty range where lead flies and friendship abounds. Being a mother and a shooter is a difficult thing to accomplish, but with a sport this great, and friends even greater, it would be a sin to not make a point of getting back out there again.

Laurel is an average shooter who fell in love with shooting sports eight years ago. She resides happily with her loving husband and young son in Southern California and is proud to serve in Law Enforcement.

Republished from The Outdoor Wire.