Robin S. interview

Robyn Sandoval with A Girl And A Gun joins us for a great chat about her amazing orginization. AGIRLANDAGUNCLUB.org

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Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Three three Taskle focuses on firearms trainingby use of the firearms Fundamentals. This
podcast is for educational purposes only isnot to be used as any legal advice
or justification. Hey, everybody,welcome to three zero three Task All Firearms

(00:32):
through the Fundamentals. We have areally special guest. This is our first
podcast of the new year, andI don't want to miss any of the
many hats she wears, so I'llintroduce her and let her give the hat
she wears. Robin Sandoval with AGirl and a Gun. Go ahead and
introduce yourself. Hi, Daves,Thanks for having me on. My name
is Robin Sandoval. I'm the executivedirector of A Girl and a Gun,

(00:54):
and that's really the heart and soulof what I do every day other than
being a mom and a wife.I love a girl in the Gun.
I love our community, and Ilove the training that we do nationwide.
We are a community of women.It's a club that women can join,
but we have training events. Wehave more than three hundred events every month
across the country and some are local, some are regional, some are nationals,

(01:15):
some are virtual. So there's alot of ways that we've reached women
to train them with safe firearms training. Robin, that's awesome I have as
a father of a daughter having adaughter, it's really cool. And that's
really why I wanted to get youon to kind of talk about that.
I'm doing my best to teach heron my own, but it's nice to
know that when she gets a littleolder, that she's going to have a
place that you go hang out withother women and not feel intimidated. And

(01:38):
we're going to get into all thattoday. So the first question I just
want to start is how did youpersonally become involved in firearms training and shooting
in all the sports that you do. If you had told me fifteen years
ago this is what I would do, I would have said you were crazy.
I was strongly anti gun for mostof my life. I didn't believe
that people should have firearms, didn'tsee them. I figured the police were

(02:00):
just a phone call away, youknow, all of those things growing up
in a city that I thought onlygangbangers and farmers had them. So I
didn't realize that beat normal people,every day people would have them. And
it wasn't until I watched the aftermathof HARKing Katrina when I saw a modern
American city become debilitated overnight and familieswere left on their own. First responders

(02:21):
couldn't respond or didn't respond, Andthat was a real wake up call for
me, and I realized I hadthese three little people that relied on me.
And there was a moment when therewas one moment that changed my life
forever. I was watching the newsand I saw this woman at the Superdome
who was so scared and she handedher small children to strangers who were getting
on a bus to Houston, andshe said, please take them. I'll

(02:43):
try to find you in a fewdays. And I turned to my husband
and I said, what do Ihave to do that that's never mean,
But no matter what happens, wecan stay together as a family and hunker
down. So my plan was tostore peanut butter and tuna fish and we
would just hunker down. And hesaid, if the world is really caving
in and people are that desperate,someone's going to kicking our door for what
we've stored, how am I goingto stop them? And after arguing for

(03:05):
gun control my whole life, Ihad no argument. So at the same
time, around that time, therewas a woman named Juliana Crowd who was
a firearms instructor in Austin, andshe started girls' night out at the range
back then in twenty eleven. Theend thing was to have these happy hours,
you know, reelers would have happyhours at the house and salon girls
would have happy hours at the salon. So she thought, well, heck,
I'll have a happy hour at therange. And she had this little

(03:29):
get together and my husband heard aboutit, and a couple weeks later she
was doing it again, and itwas back on meetup at the time,
and he went on and he rsvpedfor me to go, and he signed
me up. And I don't knowif I was more scared of going to
the range or meeting other women,or you know, shooting a gun.
All of it was terrifying to me. All of it was out of my
wheelhouse. But I went and itchanged my life because not only did I

(03:51):
learn how to use this tool thatI thought was going to come out of
the safe and in Jurisol, Ilearned the tool, but I more importantly
got a community and I met theseone and where I could ask those questions
like how do you talk to yourkids about this? What if people at
work know that you have it?How does this affect your life? Why
would you want to compete, whywould you want to carry and all of
those questions. Learning that from otherwomen was invaluable. So I just kind

(04:15):
of kept going back. And youknow, when so many women are coming,
you know, because you've been twotimes, you know, two times
more than everyone else who's brand news. So right away they were like,
Rovin, you're new, you know, you know some stuff tea turn And
I was like, I don't knowanything about anything. So here I am
trying to coach a new shooter,and I thought, if I'm going to
really help out, I need tolearn this. So I jumped into two
really serious training and Juliana, youknow, people were approaching her and us

(04:41):
about how we were running this littleclub that we started, and so she
and I partnered up and now weran it together for ten years and now
we have Girls' Night Out at theRange at three hundred plus ranges across the
country, bringing women in, answeringthose questions, creating community and really changing
lives. That's what we do,you know, Robin, that's great.

(05:02):
I mean I did a lot ofresearch before we even got online and started
talking. This looks like a monster, and that is awesome for some people
to go where there's really no lowor no pressure and you know, just
to hang out with other people,you know, and if it's their bag,
it's their bag. If it's nottheir bag, maybe they just meant
some cool people to talk to.Yeah, exactly. And you know,

(05:26):
marksmanship skills can be earned at therange, but hearts and minds are changed
at the dinner table. And that'swhy it's so important that our at our
events, at a Girl and theGun events, we take that time to
take off your eyes in the earsand meet over you know, dinner and
talk to the other women and getto know each other and really answer those
questions or challenge each other. Alot of times people will say, well,
i've never shot trap before, Welllet's go out and we'll have a

(05:47):
trap night. Or i've never shota match before, Well we've got a
three gun match coming up. Let'sload you up with gear and here we
go. So it's really about creatingopportunities for that learning too, because when
you come into this the gun canmunity. You know, when you're raised
in it, you realize that there'sa lot of different types of activities.
But when you're new to it,you think that static target at the indoor

(06:08):
range is really all there is,and you don't realize about matches and events
and all the different really fun thingsthat are out there. And so that's
kind of what we do is justopen doors for women across the country.
Yeah. I have to find myselfreminding myself that, you know what,
I grew up around guns. Mydad was a avid bird hunter, and
you know, I didn't like thatbecause it's very cold and very early in

(06:30):
the morning. But you know,I discovered other avenues, you know,
sporting plays and all those other things. There's so many offshoots to these gun
sports, and now competition is justso big, and with the advent of
YouTube and getting people out there andthey're showing their skills and demonstrating their wearers
if you will, it's really cooland it's changed just from when I grew

(06:54):
up in it, and I haveto remind myself that that not everyone kind
of grew up that way. Yeah, it was completely foreign to me.
And that's what I love about itis that we're always changing the paradigm of
what people think. The American gunowner is That's really my favorite thing is
that when people find out what Ido for a living and are like,
really, because you're just a regularmom that's at this school, and it's

(07:15):
just we're not those old guys inplaid anymore. You know. There's a
lot of really fun things that wedo. And you know, a girl
and again, we host the onlyall ladies three n match in the nation.
We host a pistol match as well. But we do lots of stuff.
We have a sniper school, soif you want to put on a
gilly suit and shooting a mile anda half away, we'll teach you how
to do it. And we're justregular moms. We had this. We
have one event called Drift Academy.It's all things vehicle defense, so shooting

(07:38):
in, through and around the vehiclesbecause you know, parking lots, parking
garages, gas pumps that are allreally dangerous places for people, but especially
women. So we have a wholeweekend of vehicle defense and part of it
is rollover off road recovery driftings.You know, you working on the skid
pad and then going on the trackfor high speeded vasive driving. And when
I first wanted to do this class. Like four years ago. I would

(07:59):
go to a track and say,can we use your track for a vasive
driving course? And they're like,sure, which agency are you with?
And I said, no, no, we're just regular moms in minivands.
We just want to get out thereand do this, and they're like,
yeah, we don't have insurance forthat. So I found finally, I
found a friend who had a friendwho had a friend, and now we
have Drift Academy toice a year.But yeah, it's definitely been creating those

(08:22):
conversations and breaking this paradigms across thecountry. That sounds like a really good
time. We kind of started hittingon it. Can you kind of tell
me the history and what the missionof a Girl and a Gun is?
Yeah, so A Girl and theGun started in twenty eleven. The idea
is just to get women to therange, get women off the sidelines.
Juliana. At the time when shehad the idea for a Girl in the

(08:43):
Gun, she was the only girlshooting IDPA at her club and she would
see other women there, but theywould be sitting watching, supporting their husbands
or their sons or whatever, andshe thought, wouldn't it be awesome if
I had an all girls squad.So that was her mission was to just
get women there. She was aninstructor, but she thought she would more
women in class. But you know, a lot of women are intimidated.

(09:05):
It takes a lot of time awayfrom the family to really train, it
takes a budget away from the family. So really overcoming all those barriers to
say this is for you, Thisis for your family, This is you
protecting your children, This is youbecoming confident so that you can be a
good role model to your children.So it really is for the family that
you do all these things and kindof changing that paradigm and just giving women

(09:26):
the permission, the motivation, thepathway to change their lives has been really
really rewarding. And that's really whatwe do with Girls Night Out, but
also with our destination events. Andfor the ladies who are you know,
have little ones at home, it'shard for them to get away or don't
have the budget, and so wehave a lot of virtual training too.

(09:46):
It's amazing how much you can learnjust from watching and reading and listening and
doing the virtual and interaction as well. Yeah, and it's a fun skill
and you can really push yourself.And everyone has that hobby that they really
want to joy and finding other peoplewho enjoy it as well and kind of
being able to push yourself is somethinggreat. Yeah, And a lot of

(10:09):
people don't want to get into itbecause they think, you know, that's
my husband's saying, or that's myyou know, that was my dad's thing.
He liked to go hunting. Butwe're finding more and more women that
are the first gun owner in theirfamilies. More and more of them have
it's something they've wanted to do fortheir own personal safety, or just to
do something that's fun outside their comfortzone, or just to do something when
they feel a little more empowered,you know. It's it's there's something for

(10:33):
everybody. Yeah. Absolutely. Howdid you become associated with girl and a
gun and how did it kind oftake off? Well, that's kind of
my story. I showed up atthat first girl's night out and was kind
of thrown into the trenches. AndI was at a crossroads in my career.
I was my company had been divestedthree times and through mergers and acquisitions,

(10:54):
and I was about to go workfor a different company and I really
didn't want to and Juliana and Ihad been growing a girl and again together
and it was twenty thirteen at thattime. We'd been doing it for two
years, and my husband said,why don't you try this gun thing full
time? And I was like,can we do that? I don't know
that was a real leap, butwe did, and Julian and Juliana and

(11:18):
I both jumped in and we werepartners for ten years building the club,
and I've taken the reins since thenand just live out our mission every day
of getting women off the sidelines andbringing them in and giving them additional opportunities
for learning and making learning fun.Well, I know you've done a bunch
of other podcasts and you said,this really is your dream job? Is

(11:39):
it still your dream job? Ihave the best job in the world.
I get to hang out with thecoolest people. I have the most amazing
ladies, and you know it's sofulfilling too. I just do the work
I do. You know, Ithink of an event, I put the
event together. I'm really fortunate tohave incredible instructors that can tailor our events
to all different levels, whether you'renew are very experienced. We do everything

(12:01):
in between. But it's very fulfillingto me when we have a woman who
is in her seventies, or youknow, we lost some of our older
members during the pandemic, and oryou know, recently we lost one of
our members. She passed away,and in the five hundred words of their
entire life, of their obituary,when a girl and a gun is five

(12:24):
of those words. It means thatmuch to the people that their children recognize
this is a legacy for them.It means that much to her to be
that empowered, to be that connected, to be that inspired by other women.
And so I'm just so fortunate thatI get a front row seat to
all this amazingness. Well, Ithink you talked about it when we first

(12:45):
started talking, you know, beingthat community and bringing joys to other people,
and that they shared that with theirfamily, that's a really big deal.
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty awesome. A lot of a lot of
my gun girls have told me thattheir kids are like, Mom, you're
not this person you were, andit really inspires them too. I know
my son has said that to me, you know, And because the empowerment

(13:07):
you see on the range, theempowerment you feel on the range, translates
into so many other areas of women'slives, and they don't expect that.
They think, I'm going to golearn this tool, and that's fine,
but it's so many different ways thatit manifests throughout their life, whether it's
being just the way they carry themselves, the way that they know they can
tackle different challenges, you know,fitness journeys, weight loss journeys, help

(13:30):
medical journeys. We've had a lotof women that wear their Girl and the
Gun hoodies when they get chemo,just because they feel a little stronger and
they feel so supported. It's thatkind of stuff that you just can't quantify,
you know, how important it is. There's one story that I love.
This was years ago, back inprobably twenty twelve. There was this
woman who came to us. Shewas from Colorado, and we had an

(13:50):
event down in New Mexico at theWhittington Center. It was a shotgun event,
a tactical shotgun introduction to three gunkind of stuff, and she had
never shot a shotgun before and wasgoing through a divorce. Her self esteem
was at an all time low andshe really only lived for her children.
She had two daughters and she wasthe Girl Scout Troop leader, and that
was kind of her identity, wasjust to be a mom because throughout her

(14:11):
divorce and her marriage, she justwas at an all time low and feeling
of self worth it was not eventhere. And she sent us an email
a couple of weeks later and shesaid, you know what, I found
out I was a pretty good shotgunner. And I took the girl's bowling.
I took the Girl Scout Troop bowling. And I never got up in front
of everybody before. I always letthe girl's bowl. I was never you

(14:33):
know, I didn't want people tolook at me and I didn't think I
could do it, and so Ialways sat out. And she said that
night, I found out I wasa pretty good bowler too. And it
just makes my heart burst because notonly is now she living a better life
that she knows she's worthy of,but she's being a role model for all
these girls that are looking at her. And that's when we're talking about really

(14:54):
the impact that a simple shotgun eventcan have on a generation. Yeah,
that's awesome. I think you kindof read ahead. I was going to
ask you, is there kind ofone personal story that makes you kind of
speaks to your mission and purpose ofa girl on a gun. That's great,
and you know she'll get to carrywith that and so many more aspects
of her life and that's really cool. Yeah, there's so many stories,

(15:15):
you know, hundreds of stories.It's I have the best job in the
world, you do, and Ican tell a lot of your stories.
I'm holding up and we're just doingaudio, so people are going to see
this, but you're shooting journal.When I found out we're going to get
to do this interview and I wasgoing through your website, I saw a
shooting journal that looks really interesting,so I ordered one and I ordered it

(15:35):
and I'm like, I have somany books from training classes. I'm like
this, I'm sure it's going tobe good. And I think I'll just
take it and then give it tomy daughter and you'll let her go through
it as she goes on through herjourney of learning how to shoot. I
don't know, I'm going to giveit back to her. You have the
first page. It must have beenat one of your events with all these

(15:56):
ladies there. That is a giganticpanoramic picture and it looks like everyone's having
a great time there yeah, theShooting Journal is really special. It kind
of came about because as a nationalorganization, it's really hard to have consistency
among training across the country. Andwhat we found early on, you know,

(16:18):
back in twenty eleven, there werenot a lot of women training,
and I would go to a classand would often be the only female there
in the line, and especially ifit was an advanced class, but even
some of the more basic classes,there just weren't a lot of women going
out for training. And so oftenI would hear from women across the country
and say, oh no, thisspecial offscuy told me that this is how
you do it, or this coptold me this is how you do it.

(16:40):
And I'd be like, Okay,I know that he's on a pedestal
in your little bubble, but you'regoing to have to trust me that it's
not right, it's not good.And having that kind of buy in of
trust was kind of difficult, andso I thought, how do we make
that messaging consistent? You know,how can we get out just a baseline
if you don't don't have an instructor, or you have a bad instructor,

(17:02):
how can we give you like amanual of here's some basic stuff you need
to know on this journey to getstarted, just so you can vet people
around you to say, do theyknow what they're talking about? What is
the safety requirements? If they're notadhering to safety, don't go to them.
And that was a real problem thatwe were facing back then. So
the journal kind of came out ofa necessity for us to get consistent information

(17:22):
out nationwide, and then it alsowas about empowering women. So back in
twenty fifteen, it was right beforeour national conference and my daughter, who
had just turned five a couple weeksbefore, was diagnosed with brain cancer.
And I knew something was wrong andwe thought we would figure it out and
after conference we would find some help. But it turned out that her brain

(17:45):
was herniating and she was dying,my little five year old. I carried
her into the er and they summonedthe surgeon and off we went. And
it was just days before our nationalconference, so I had hundreds of ladies
coming into town and I couldn't bethere, And everything in my world just
came down to my daughter in thatmoment and not losing her and fighting for
her. And it was like anarmy of women came together and ladies would

(18:10):
cease fire on the range and sendme texts and selfies and say, we're
here with you, we got you, were praying with you. And it
really was that community that got methrough those times. And since I wasn't
there, everyone kind of just youknow, I said, here are my
spreadsheets, here's what yell as justto do, and they kind of figured
it out. And one of thethings that they discussed was what does a
girl and the gun mean to you? So the leadership team, all of

(18:30):
our instructors, there's about one hundredand fifty of our instructors that run our
chapter's nation, why they were thereand one of the girls wrote a girl
and a gun on a whiteboard vertically, and she said, what does a
girl and a gun mean to you? And the lady said, accepting,
gracious, impactful, real learning opportunities, And so they wrote down a girl

(18:51):
and a gun. So there's aletter for every one of those values.
And it just turns out that there'stwelve months in a year and twelve letters
and a girl and a gun,and so we have a different value for
every month. And that's how thosevalues came to be, which makes it
really special because you know, Ididn't come up with them. That's what
the community, that's what the ladiescame up with. But every month in
our journal we focus on a personaldevelopment skill and a pistol development skill so

(19:12):
that people can have this baseline.And if you look at the skills that
we learned pistol wise, it's notso much about target impact. It's not
so much about the scoring, whicheveryone's always focused on what happens at the
target. This is really what's happeningwith you, your hands, your ability
to manipulate the gun, you havingthe right placement on the gun to be
able to reach the controls and functionit properly. It's really about what's happening

(19:33):
with you. And so that combinedwith the value system of what's happening with
you, how are you growing yourlife and how are you growing your skills,
and the journal just kind of evolved. It wasn't even something we planned.
It just kind of happened out ofnecessity to teach and to encourage and
to empower. So that's the journal. It's really awesome. You know,

(19:57):
as they started going through it,the first part that really jumped out of
me was the quote that's on thevery first page. It says, dedicated
to the new girl at the range. We were you once. We're glad
you're here. And I think thatgets lost a lot of times, and
I'm sure you've experienced this sometimes whenyou go to training classes as instructors,

(20:18):
we forgot what it was like tobe new again. I had a instructor
one time when it was going toa high level in structure class. It's
like, okay, all my righthanded shooters go over here, all my
left handed shooters go over here andtrade gear. And I'm like, what
it's like trade year. You willnow shoot the next two days with your

(20:41):
support hand, and you learn whatit was like to be a brand new
shooter again, and how that yourhands felt just like butter. How can
I make this thing locked back tothe rear? I can't do this,
And I think that's super important.I try and tell people that a lot
of times when they get frustrated onthe range. It's like the only difference
between you and me as time andI have just done this a thousand times

(21:03):
over. You're just starting your beginningof repetitions, and I'm here to make
sure that the best reputations so thatas you go on, they become just
ingrained in you. And that quotereally kind of stuck out to me and
when I first opened up your manualhere. Yeah, and a lot of
times it's the naming conventions too,just what we call things. We kind
of take it for granted that everybodyknows what a muzzle is, you know,

(21:26):
and we have to say it's thebarrel part of the gun where the
bullet comes out, Like you haveto really explain it to them, because
it's not second nature. People don'tknow even just the basics of that.
So I've been in classes where wehad one instructor that told everyone they needed
to clean their kit. It wasa driver for our class cleaner kit,
and they really thought they needed toclean their guns, like get out solvent,

(21:48):
like they were completely I said,no, no, no, just
get all the ammal, get allthe live ammunition out of the room.
Like it's just the way we speakabout things. You don't it seems second
nature to you if you're in itfor a long time. But back in
twenty eleven, Natalie Foster was thefirst to make the Girls the gun Girl's
Glossary, and she helped kind ofjust define these terms so that if you

(22:11):
didn't know what a muzzle was,you could look it up if you didn't
know. You know, just allthe terms that the people assume that you
know that you might not. Yeah, that's it's so right because you get
so used to what you're talking about. A funny story about that My daughter's
becoming a teenager and is just reallygetting into the shooting sports and has drifted

(22:36):
to a red dot pistol. AndI set her up a gun and I
said, we'll go out to therange next weekend. We'll put some dope
on your gun. And she lookedat me, just just fuddled, and
I'm like, oh, you don'tknow what that means. We'll go adjust
your dot on your gun so thatit hits where you wanted to hit.
And she's like, why didn't youjust say that. I'm like, and

(22:57):
you know, she didn't say thatspecifically, but the look on her face
spoke it in volumes. That isso funny. Yes, dope to us
is different than dope to the restof the World's right, you know,
going back to your journal here,I think it really serves her great niche
and like you and like me,We've been to classes all over the place,

(23:19):
five days, two weeks, orhowever long they've been, and you
lose something. When you leave,you're nice and tuned up and you're ready
to go, and then what happenswhen you get home and get back into
your real life. And your bookreally does line it out on hey,
on this day, you should bedoing this. You know there's parts in
there where you can check what youdid for that day. Did you do

(23:41):
something physical, did you do dryfire practice, did you get to the
range, what skill did you workon? And it's color coded and it
really stands out. Yeah, wewanted to make an accountability tracker because what
we found is that, you know, our three gun matches in October and
in January, everybody's like my niear'sresolution. It's going to be I'm going
to get to fall fests. I'mgoing to shoot that three gun match.

(24:02):
I can't wait. I'm so excited. And then September comes and they never
bought the shotgun, and they didn'tdo the practice and they don't have any
shell caddies, and so you know, the whole idea is in January,
set your goals, make them realistic, and then keep yourself accountable. We
found that if you really want toset a realistic goal, you have to
set a budget for it. Whatgear and equipment do I need to take?

(24:26):
What classes do I need to taketraining goals? What skills do I
need to learn and master in practice? You know? So start that in
January and say what is a realisticgoal? Because you want to develop pistol
skills, shotgun skills, rifle skillsbefore the three gun match, and so
it takes all those months to getall the equipment and to get proficient at
all of it, and to runa couple matches, you know, local

(24:48):
matches. So the whole idea wasto hold people accountable. What are your
goals and how can we help youbreak them down to that they're achievable.
So, yes, each month thereare accountability trackers so that you can do
your fitness goals, your drive fireas, your budget goals. We have
different goals setting and also a wayto celebrate too, because that's really important
that when you do meet a goal, we want the whole community to celebrate

(25:08):
with you and to cheer along becauseit might have just been saving up to
buy that staccato that is a biggoal, or you know, actually getting
the courage to go and shoot yourfirst match, or going and getting your
carry permit and carrying the first timewhere you feel like the whole world's looking
at you with the gun in yourwaistband. You know, those kinds of
milestones are huge, and it's soexciting when a whole community can cheer for

(25:30):
you when you when you do it. Yeah, and you're right. And
there's something about when you put iton paper, when it's in front of
you in a nice glossy binder andit's there staring you back at the back
of the face, and it Sometimeswe don't make our goals, and sometimes
it takes a little longer, Butif you're seeing it every day and you're
getting into it, I think that'sa huge part of accountability. Agreed.

(25:56):
I thought we'd talked about some moreabout some of the events you've done,
and the one that sticks out tome and for my affection for law enforcement
is the back of the Blue event. When I spent a lot of times
at a police range, I reallyenjoyed doing the classes of the people who
struggled and getting them in and gettingthem up to a more proficient level and

(26:18):
like you said, making them feelmore confident and making sure you had the
right instructors, and sometimes there werefemails in the class, so I tried
to have a female instructor so thatthey could if they felt uncomfortable or didn't
quite understand that they always had thatother voice there. Tell me about this
back to the Blue event and howthat kind of works into that. Well,
years ago, one of our girlsthat comes to all of our three

(26:41):
gun matches, she's always in theLee Military Division and she we usually do
only have a couple of them inthe Lee Military Division in our matches,
and she said that she's seeing abig uptick in women coming to matches just
because they're trying to get that triggertime because they're not getting it through their
agency. And we started seeing anuptick in law enforcement officers and corrections officers

(27:06):
and military girls come to our events. And then we started seeing an increase
in violence across the nation against ourpolice officers, and so many of them
are in our community, and wewere thinking what can we do to help,
and so we went to our sponsorsand we said, what if we
have this event? And they jumpedon board, and so for the past
eight years we've hosted back the Womenin Blue. Women are nominated from communities

(27:32):
across the country. So you submitan officer's name and then we take care
of the rest. We cover theirhousing, their food, their AMMO,
their range fees, their targets,their supplies, and we give them a
big goody bag of stuff and theyget to come to They come here to
Austin the Roundrug Police Department. Shethinks is amazing. And he rolls out
the red carpet for these officers fromall kinds of different agencies, and his

(27:56):
trainers and his state of the artfacility just make it a really incredible experience
for them. So I'm so gratefulto the Roundret Police Department. We started
doing this and you know, ourfirst event, I was hesitant because I
thought we're a civilian organization. Wedon't have any business in LA. I
was really nervous about that. Butafter that first event, I thought,

(28:17):
no, firearms training is farms training. I leave the tactics to the LA
guys, but I can you know, coach people on the line. And
yeah, so giving those girls thosemarksmanship skills were huge, and also what
was huge was giving them each otherthat having these women meet each other that
are in the same career path,the same servant leaders in their communities.

(28:40):
Having them have professional mentors talking aboutwhat gears working for them, what training
is working for them, what supportthey're getting in their agencies or not,
was huge and those connections have beenlifelong for those ladies, and so it's
been a really fulfilling So, yeah, we bring them in and they have
a they get defensive tactics, whichmany of them have not had since the

(29:02):
academy, if they even got itin the academy, which blows my mind
that, you know, going handson is such an an integral part of
their job, or being able tohaving the confidence too if you have to,
especially for somebody twice your size whenconfronted. So giving them most skills
is really important. The firearm skillsis of course, is huge. And
Brian Quick, Sergeant Brian Quick isthe lead instructor for our event and he's

(29:26):
amazing. He's taught at our nationalconference for many years. And what I
love about Brian is he's all aboutwhat works for you and a lot of
the concepts that he teaches are notanything that women have seen from their range
masters or their instructors back home.You know they have one size fits all
gear, one size fits all guns, one size fits all teaching, and

(29:48):
I love that here. Over thepast few years of doing this, I've
been able to learn the questions isthat a department issued or is that an
agency policy? Can we modify that? Can we adjust it? What flexibility
do you have in terms of yourpolicy on these things? And we were
able to help women. The firstyear there was a rural officer. She
was a deputy from rural Nebraska,and she was the only female in her

(30:11):
agency. They would put her inthe DARE programs in the junior high and
then send her out on a callby herself with no backup for forty five
minutes, and it was terrifying.And her gear she had a man's vest
that she wore so when she satdown in her unit that in her car
like they would go up over herface. So she had to drive with
one hand on under her chin holdingher vest down, and one hand driving

(30:33):
the car. It was ridiculous,and so asking her, how can we
adjust this gear? Do you haveto use it this way? She had
a ten second draw because her gearwas still equipped. So we got it
down to probably a for your foursecond draw, but it was still I
mean it was still like five timeslonger than you would want for an officer,
but it was better than it was. And now she knew some questions

(30:56):
to go home and ask, andshe also had some resources among other calls
on what their departments were doing.So it's an incredible event. Well,
when you say that, you know, and it doesn't matter whether it's male
or female officers on the job,and sometimes people are just too scared to
ask, and it's nice to bein a smaller group setting where you can
see their people and hey, I'vefound this works. I hate going to

(31:19):
training classes because I always find there'ssome new piece of equipment that I really
should get and try out because it'sawesome, you know, being able in
that space where you can ask thosequestions. This doesn't work. Why does
this not work? What am Inot seeing? And especially we have so
many new officers coming into the fieldthat they and they just don't know.

(31:41):
And when I was teaching an academy, the percentage of the first time gun
owner coming to the class, thefirst gun they have purchased was the gun
they brought to the academy. It'shuge, and it's only more increasing as
our police force is retiring or gettingbrand new people. And like we started
talking about earlier, you know,they don't have this culture of going hunting

(32:07):
with their dad or working in theirfamily. So having that event is amazing.
And from the pictures it looks likea who repelling driving all that good
stuff, and you talked about it, Yeah, it's really it's really great
that they're given these skills that theymay have never had. In the academy.
They don't get the fire arms trainingthey need. They don't get the
the close quarter. You know,we do some force on forest. We

(32:31):
do a single officer clearing. Thisyear we had I think we had eighteen
officers almost all except one. Seventeenofficers do single officer clearing. And the
instructors like their hearts kind of sunkinto their stomach. It's like, really,
yell are going out alone into buildings. Yeah, that's what they do,

(32:52):
that's their policy. And so okay, well here we go. We're
going to teach you how to bethe safe safe as you can be.
Here's where you go faster as wego slow. Having those skills, I
mean, this is this is lifesaving stuff. Well, and now for
our officers too, it's to demandit that you go by yourself. If
bad things are happening, it isexpected whether you're by yourself or not,

(33:15):
you will do something. And tohave a tactic and a tool into a
toolbox is invaluable for everyone. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. One other thing,
I caught it when you were goingthrough the stuff that you did and
you're talking about doing fource on fouror sent some ground tactics and stuff,
and I think that's a good thing. A firearm is just one of the

(33:36):
tools, right, there's so manyother components that you may have to use
and to work that all together,I think that's great. Yeah, And
it's really great for these women tolearn all the different tools so that they
can have that confidence in advance.We're seeing more officers women who really want
to move up in their career andmaybe move into SWAT and different special ops

(34:00):
in their agencies, and it's excitingto see opportunities. They're breaking barriers and
I love giving them the skills tohelp them do that. That's great.
Before we finish talking on that,do you want to roll out of your
sponsors? That really helped make Backthe Blue event happen. Yeah, Glock
is the title sponsor for that,so GLO covers most of the lodging and
then federal premium ammos since AMMO forthe girls of course the round our police

(34:23):
department. It's all. We couldn'tdo it without their support and a lot
of our local chapters A Girl andthe Gun chapters do fundraising throughout the year.
Some of them will adopt back theBlue program as a one of their
giving back mission and they'll do fundraising, big sales or different things that they

(34:44):
do to raise money for that forthat program. So it really is a
nationwide effort to make it happen.That's great, Neil. We forget how
expensive going to this training is thegun when you start getting into this whole
big world, the training really isthe most expensive component because going to just

(35:05):
a multi day classes hundreds of dollarsand AMMO is hundreds of dollars. And
that you get sponsors and people tohelp out with that. That's great.
Yeah, I'm really grateful that theiragencies let them take the time off.
Most of their sergeants are the onesthat refer to them to say, we
have an officer who really wants toown her skills, and we just don't
have the training available here. SoI'm really grateful that other agencies are turning

(35:29):
to us as well. It's verygratifying. That's surely awesome. And what
I've found with officers who are training, there's a kind of an un used
way to sneak in training, andit's the tuition reimbursement. And lots of
these cities have this tuition reimbursement andpushing people to use that to go to
hone their skills, whether it's drivingor whether it's firearms. I think is

(35:51):
one of the secrets that cities keepfrom their officers that they can use to
get themselves some really great training.A good point. I hope more people
take advantage of it. Yeah,for certain, Robin, how many chapters
do you currently have? We havethree hundred and two host ranges. We
have about two hundred chapters, soI have a cadre of about one hundred

(36:15):
and eighty instructors that run our events, so we run it out of about
three hundred ranges. Oh, that'sawesome. I'm based in Colorado. Tell
me what you think about Cameo.Oh, I love cameo. It's our
home away from home. We haveour national conference there. It's our biggest
event of the year. We haveseven hundred students. That's sold out under
a day. It's the hottest ticketin town. So we bring about two

(36:36):
thousand people to the Grand Junction,and the Western Slope always loves to see
us. They love it when thegun girls arrive in April. So pretty
much everywhere you go you see girls. We all kind of look the same,
we dress the same, we actthe same, so you know who's
with us. But everyone in theGrand Junction really rolls out the red carpet

(36:58):
for us. It's fun. Fromthe airport on down. We got signs
welcoming a girl and a gun totown, and I love it. Yeah,
that range is beautiful up there.There's so many different things you can
do. Do you guys take overthe whole range. We take over the
whole facility. They close the entirerange to us, so we're able to
shoot on the LRP. The longrange goes out to two thousand and three
yards. We use all the sportingclays areas, we use all the just

(37:21):
if there's a canyon where I canput a class, we use it.
We're training for three days and thenwe have a day of demos, so
all of our sponsors come out andwe fill all the bays with sponsors,
so Block, Walter, Mossburg,Staccato, They all bring their lines and
our girls, and of course there'smany more sponsors. I didn't mension,
but we fill the bays with them, and they bring Ammo and the girls

(37:44):
get to fire all their new gunsand check them out and put their hands
on them and feel them and seewhat they want to go home and buy.
So all everybody goes home with Staccato'sand Hk's and stags and everything.
So it's lots of fun. Wedid it just to Christmas episode last month,
and we talked about that and it'sreally important to be able to get

(38:05):
to put your hands on something.There's nothing worse than either getting a gun
as a gift or going and buyinggun and find out it really doesn't work
for you. So that's awesome thatyou get to do that. Oh my
gosh. I always tell guys,don't buy you would not go buy her
shoes. You don't want him buyingyour jeans, you don't want him buying
There's things you need to try onthat. You don't want him just buying

(38:25):
because he loves you. He canpay for it, but you have to
pick it out. You never lethim buy your shoes, you know,
or it's just like buying a pairof shoes online. You really want to
walk in him. You want todo a little test walk. It's the
same thing with your gun. Andin a lot of our chapters, we
have a we call it a speeddating night where we have a bunch of
different guns and you get ten roundsin each gun, and you speed date

(38:47):
each gun so you can write noteson what you liked about one, which
you didn't like about one, becauseit really is amazing that what something looks
like on paper. I have alittle gun that I bought because it had
all the features I thought I needed, the carry gun. The sky opened
and the angels brought down this littlecarry gun, and I found shortly after
I bought it and carried it andtrained with it that I would rather pistol

(39:07):
whip someone with it than actually pullthe trigger. So you definitely need to
go to a scow dating night andtry which one fits you best. Yeah,
and especially now guns have become sospecialized in ergonomic and one ergonomics may
work for one person and one maywork for another person. And you're right.

(39:29):
You would hate to get the gunthat you want as a carry gun
and then take it to a fiveday class and then you're just miserable with
it. Oh my gosh. Iwouldn't take it to a five minute class
with this gun. But I seegirls show up all the time with guns
and I say, how married tothis gun are you? And they'll say,
well, it was my dad's andit means a lot to me.
Okay, well then we'll work withit. Or they'll say, well,

(39:49):
my husband got it for me,but I'm not opposed to trying something else.
I'm like, yeah, try thisother one. It's you know,
people are very emotional about their gunsbecause a lot of times they put in
a lot of time and thought intothis purchase. They budgeted, they've done
all the research. They go onlineand all the bloggers say this is the
one for you, and I'm like, girl, that is don't let's let's
not beat yourself up like this.Come on, let's let's get you in

(40:10):
something really, really great that youcan actually run for a while. Yeah.
My friend and Jason and I weretalking about Christmas gifts last episode,
and sometimes you feel like you're getsold what the salesman wants to sell you,
and that's may not be what's rightfor you. And everything has its
own purposes. That to carry gunis that what I'm going to learn my

(40:31):
fundamentals on. And that speed datingnight sounds like it really solves a lot
of that. It does, anda lot of these girls still are showing
up with jayframes men, gun storeguys. Stop selling jay frames to these
women. You know, they needround capacity and they need something that's not
a four day trigger pool. Sostop. If that's that's my one mission

(40:51):
in life, it's to get theselittle j I mean, there's a time
and a place, but that seemsto be pushed a lot. And I
thought that by you know, twelveyears, thirteen years into this mission,
I would have solved that by now, But I'm still working on it.
Well, it's funny you say that, because you when you shoot something that
is uncomfortable, that you're unfamiliar with, at some point you just stop paying

(41:14):
attention to your learning process and you'retrying to get your fundamentals down and all
that. It's hard when your handhurts and just miserable. Like you said,
the four day trigger pull, andit's hard when that happens. Well,
you can't be accurate when you're usingall your strength to press the trigger.
Like, you have to find agun that works with you. And
everyone's different, everyone's hands are different. A lot of women can't reach certain

(41:37):
controls and so you have to kindof manipulate your grip a little bit.
And that's why working with an instructoris so important. So, yeah,
give her a gift card for Christmas, give her a training class for Christmas,
give her a membership to a Girlin a Gun. But yeah,
don't go out and buy it.Yeah, I think, and I think
you're starting to see it too.And a lot of the stores that have

(41:59):
ranges, especially where you can actuallytry something way before you buy it.
And like you said, the trainingclass may be the most important part of
that before any purchase has made.Yeah, and if nothing else, you'll
find that that gun isn't right foryou and you'll find one that is.
We're so lucky that nowadays manufacturers arecoming out with really fantastic firearms. I

(42:20):
was fortunate to be on the productdevelopment team for the Walter PDPF series,
which is a fantastic gun and it'sreally exploded in the women's market because they
did move the trigger back a littlebit to accommodate for smaller hands. So
it's not just a woman's guns.It's great for anyone who has smaller hands.
But the controls are a little bigger, it lets you reach them,
it has an easy rack slide.There's a lot of really great features on

(42:43):
that. So manufacturers are listening andthey're putting out really good products that can
not just be the average I mean, you know, most guns up until
recently were made for the average manthat was the average size and the average
ratios of finger replacement and all ofthat kind of thing. Even the finger
grooves. My fingers have never onetime fit into any finger grooves that have

(43:06):
ever been edged on any gear ever. So fortunately manufacturers are kind of moving
away from that and that's a reallygood thing. Well and I think too,
and the industry really has seen asthings are are so much more modular
now, removable backstraps, the adjustabletriggers, all that cool stuff that even
just ten years ago wasn't around.Yeah, it just create more of a

(43:29):
learning curve though, because you think, am I pulling low left because my
trigger's in the wrong place? Youknow what I mean? You can tweak
until the cows come home. Andthat's why it's really important that you get
with an instructor or. You justleave it and work with it. Don't
change too many things at once,because that can lead you down a different
rabbit hole when you have two options. Yeah, for sure. So what

(43:52):
kind of upcoming shooting aves do youhave coming up? Well, we're planning
our National conference, which is ourbiggest event that you're out at Cameo that
has already been sold out. SoI'm working now with instructors to put together
our course catalog of all the classesthat are going to be offered to the
lady who are attending. And then, but before that, I've taken a
group of girls to Glock. Itake a group twice a year. We

(44:14):
go out to Glock and they takethe Armour's course and they spend two days
on the range at the Glock ProfessionalFacility with the Glock instructors. It's so
much fun. I look forward tothat those weeks all the time, all
year round. And you know,again, back ten years ago, women
thought, oh, I can't bean armorer. That's a guy thing.
Or you know, it was justyou didn't see women armorers. And now

(44:36):
I'm fortunate to have brought hundreds ofgirls to glock with me, and you
learn it's kind of like adult legos. They just pop apart and you pop
back together. And once you takeit with friends and you realize it's not
intimidating. Now not only are youunderstanding how the gun goes together, but
you know how it functions, andyou're more confident. And especially as an
instructor, if you're a firearms instructorout there and you have not taken a

(44:59):
clock arm course, you really needto understand how these guns function. It's
a good baseline for a lot ofother gun platforms to start with block.
But it's just building that confidence andunderstanding. You know, when you have
some guy im plaid tell you,well, there's no safety on a block,
and you can say, well,there's actually three safeties in a block,
and you can tell them you canschool them on the safe triggers,

(45:21):
the safe gun safe system. Sohaving that knowledge is invaluable and it also
builds confidence. When a woman cantake down field strict clean her own guns,
understand how they fit, function,repair them. If an instructor's not
working, you can say this isI'm having a failure to extract and you
can be more confident on just youdon't have to have somebody tell you what

(45:43):
to do. You know it andyou can take care of it. And
there's a lot of empowerment that comesfrom that. Well, I think my
brain leaps to want to know howthings work and how they go together and
being able to see that, AndI'm glad Block does it. Block has
done a lot of great things,and I think blocks are a great gun
to really teach people because you canunderstand it and you can show the plane

(46:07):
how it works. And yeah,I've been a big fan of them for
a long time too, and I'mglad they're really support in getting you guys
out there. Yeah, the Glockis really great to us. Missus Glock
Catherine Glock is a support of agirl and a gun, and I love
having her support and encouragement as well, and everyone from the top down the
Glock instructors are some of my favoritepeople on the planet. So it's always

(46:29):
a great time. That's great,Robin. So the next question I have
for you is it's taken the industryby storm. Where you at on red
dots. Oh, once you gored dot, you never go back.
And I see you here with yourold man readers. I got my old
lady readers here to you. Soyeah, having a red dot. I

(46:51):
was very hesitant about it because Iwas cheating. It was all the things
you hear, it's not good fundamentals. But what iun is it's just so
much faster, it's so much moreproficient. When I was a believer,
when I saw a mediocre shooter outshoot really advanced shooters, and that's when
I thought, wait a minute,there's something to this. The best way

(47:15):
I can describe it to people astime on target is reduced just because there's
no troubleshooting. You're not trying toget equal heigh, equal lighter, or
manipulate that site picture. It justis you see the dot, you're confirmed
it's go time. And having thatgo from a troubleshooting you know, I
focus lining up symmetry issue. There'sa lot of your things going on in

(47:38):
your brain with that to just stayAm I on target? Yes? Bang
that It reduces your drawstroke or yourpresentation your your time on target immensely and
yeah, now that I'm on aDOT, I'll never go back. I
can shoot Ian sometimes and I'm alwayssurprised, like if I don't want to
be in an open division in amatch, I'm like, all right,

(47:59):
I'll I'll shoot my my glock seventeenwith my irons, and I'm like,
oh my gosh, here i amback in the old old ages, my
homage sites. Well, it's funny, and from an instructor point of view,
telling what knowing what the shooter isseeing is the hardest part because as

(48:20):
much improvement as we've made to thehuman body, there's no USB port so
I can plug in and see whatyou're looking at. But I can talk
to the shooter and say, whatis the DOT doing? Well, right
before I fire, the DoD justdies right out of the screen. Okay,
then we can start diagnosing that.And I think it's as much of
a tool for the shooter as itis for the instructor. Yeah, that's

(48:42):
a great point. I have foundthat also to help them identify as it
going up and down, is itcoming in from twelve o'clock, is it
coming in from nine o'clock? Doesit vary. I've done drills recently.
Brian Hill led a class and wedid an instructor development drill where you tracked
where your dot came in on tenor twenty presentations and mind came in from
different places, like trying to ithad it consistent. I had pretty much

(49:05):
a consistent one, but I hadto understand where it was coming from if
it wasn't on task each time,and knowing how to communicate that to your
students. Yeah, there's a lotyou can do with the dot on you
know, managing recoil and all ofthat, but also, like you said,
understanding how the eye works and keepingpeople target focused. Understanding that more
and more of my ladies are movingto green dots because their eyes pick it

(49:27):
up faster, so as opposed tored dot. There's now there's even different
shapes of dots, and I kindof find it distracting, but you know,
there's something for everybody. If that'swhat your eye picks up, that's
cool. But keeping target focused andyeah, there's a lot that can be
talked about and just with defensive mindsetthere. Yeah, we've talked in the

(49:49):
previous episodes. The dot gets youwhere you need to be on the target,
but the fundamentals you still had tofocus on. And if we take
the sighting part and we make thatvery clear for you, now we can
go back and work on those otherthings. Yeah, one hundred percent,
you're right, It's all about thefundamentals. What I found the vision is

(50:12):
such a hindrance for a lot ofpeople, especially as people are aging or
their eyes are changing and women's world. You know, this might be TMI,
but in Girling the game, wetalked about menopause a lot and what
it does to your eyes and howpeople's eyes change, and so what worked
for you a couple of years agomay not work for you now. And
so a lot of ladies are tryingto get their bifocals and their transition lenses
flipped so that they can be moretarget focused and not have to focus on

(50:37):
that front site because when you're wearingbifocals, you have to lean back to
put the front site in your readerview, and so then it messes up
your body posture. And so visionis huge with shooting, and so the
doc can help with some of thattoo and build confidence, because if your
vision is disrupting your posture, it'sgoing to disrupt your fundamentals. So yeah,

(50:58):
there's a lot that can be dissectedthere well. And it's exciting because
we're just in the infancy of reddots on pistols, and it'll be interesting
to see where they go from herebecause they're just getting better and more different,
and I'm excited to see where itgoes. And it's fun as a
teaching tool, and it's fun aswhen I get to go out and shooting
with them. I really do enjoythem. So shot shows coming up?

(51:24):
Are you going to make the trip? Yes, I will be there.
Excellent. Is there something you're lookingforward to seeing there? You know,
I've always asked what I'm going tosee, and honestly, I just go
to see the people. I goto range day and I just walk by
everything and I kind of see ifanything's new, where people are talking,

(51:45):
if things are a buzz about acertain product. Last year there were a
lot of really cool lightweight suppressors thatI just kind of checked out. But
honestly, I just want to talkto the people and see what products are
you excited about? Tell me aboutthem. I don't really need to go
and shoot all the guns or feelall the new bags or you know,
I'm not really into the products ofit. I love gun people, I

(52:07):
love the gun community, and Ilove when people get excited about a product.
So yeah, I don't necessarily needto know how everything works or tear
it down and needs to know allof the calibrations and machining and all of
that. I just want to knowwhat'd you like about it? That's really
cool. Yeah, I'm like you, I'm super excited. I'm going to
go for just a couple of days, and I'm really excited to meet people,

(52:29):
whether it's a new product or allproduct they've made an adjustment on,
just to hear their passion and hearthem explain how it works. And I'm
excited for stuff like that. Yeah, it's always a good time. Are
you on to Range Day on Monday? I don't know. I know I'll
be there for the first couple ofdays of the show, depending on dog

(52:50):
sitters and a few other things.Yeah, everybody's having their own range days
now, so there's all the individualrange days. It makes it quite a
loop. Trat show used to befour days and now it's a whole week.
Yeah, it's crazy what it's becomeand I've been to it three different
times with a time span of probablyten years. And the first year I

(53:12):
went, I just there was justso much. It was just so much
overload. And then I went theyear after COVID and not quite everyone was
back yet that was the best year. Yeah, it was right. There
was hardly anyone there, but someof the big names, you know,
like Cold and if your other peopledidn't make the trip. And I understand
that. So I'm excited to seewhat this year brings. Yeah. Yeah,

(53:35):
I have my booth and my cheatsheets of where I want to go,
and like I said, I wantto try and get there and do
some interviews and just hear people reallytalk passionately about the product and what it
can do for the shooter. Well, I hope to run into you at
the Circle bar. That's what I'llbe amazings, so you'll know where to
find me. Excellent. So Ialways ask this of my guests who come

(53:57):
on, is there anything new inthe industry, a new gear, new
light, new gun that you're reallyexcited to get your hands on, or
that you've gotten off to try.Is there something new out there that you
really are into. I would saythe PDPF series was the one that shook
the industry up a lot. Inthe women's world. They just came out

(54:20):
with an all steel PDP. It'snot the F series, but it's a
steel frame PDP, which is excitingin terms of just different gear. There's
always really great things coming out.I can't think of one that jumps out
at me. I'll probably think aboutit right when we get off this call,
but there's a lot of really greatthings. Carry bags are better than

(54:42):
ever a quick access and security,and more people are moving to recognizing off
body carry as a viable option,and that's exciting to see that. Something
that we've been saying for years isthat if you're going to carry, make
sure you're doing it efficiently and safely. Thousands of women and men carry and

(55:05):
bags and purses all the time,so let's make sure that we don't poo
poo it, that we actually givesolid training on it. So there's a
lot of people that write from thebeginning start criticizing, and I love that
there's some really good carry bags andwe use them for training all the time
and dispell a lot of myths andgive people a lot safer options. Yeah,
and I think you hit on itright there too. Whatever gear you

(55:29):
get, it needs to be somethingthat's trained with and that is safe and
efficient for you to use. Andalso ask people when they're giving you advice
about it. If it's a guywho's never carried in a bag or he's
telling you don't purse carry, askhim if he's purse carried and the light
says, oh, yeah, Itried it. They didn't. They didn't.

(55:51):
Same thing with bra carry. There'ssome braw holsters. The flashbang has
gotten a lot of bad wrap fromdifferent instructors I've had. I've put the
bra holster on men and had themgo to the ground uh and DT and
test it out. Can you getto your gun? Can you get your
attention? And they could so untilyou've actually tried the product, don't just

(56:15):
read something that you saw on ablog or here on a podcast and take
it as gospel. Really get outthere and look for people who are who
give research based training facts. Ifeel the same way about appendix carries and
some of these holts. People areusing it as a pendics carry and I'm
like, I don't think that's howthat was designed and oh yeah, okay,
yeah, same thing. Yeah,you can't just believe anything anybody says

(56:38):
online. Not everyone's an expert.I've said this in a couple of our
episodes. Be careful to people whosay this is the way, and try
and find people who say these arethese are some of the ways. Absolutely
careful people who are married to onedoctrine. So, Robin, we're coming
to the end. Is there anyresponse, any people you want to give

(57:00):
a shout out to that come tomind. I just want to thank all
of the girl and the gun membersout there, our facilitator team, our
sponsors, our friends, our hostranges. We definitely couldn't have the events
we have without the facility support thatwe have. I love that they recognize
that women are increasingly coming into thecommunity and they want to provide them good

(57:22):
gear and good training and a safeplace to shoot. So it really does
take a village. I'm very transparentand that I want more members, and
I want our instructors to have moreclients, and I want our ranges to
have more retail sales. And itreally is a great relationship that we can
all grow together to bring more womenout and get them off the sidelines of
their lives. Well it looks likeyou have a monster on your hands,

(57:45):
and it's exciting. Like I said, being the dad of a daughter,
that there's places like this out therethat makes me happy where she can include
two things that her dad really enjoys, and that she'll have somewhere to practice
with other gals. When here,we'll have our shooting way better than you.
And if she's not already, wellI'm okay with that. As a

(58:07):
dad, you always want your kidsto do a little better than you.
Well, Robin, thank you somuch. Why don't you give your website
for people? Yeah, you canfind more about us at a Girl and
a Gun dot org and all ofthe social channels. We're on all of
those things as well. But aGirl on the Gun dot org we have
a bunch of articles in a videolibrary and a lot of a lot of

(58:28):
resources, and it talks about ourupcoming events and how to find a chapter
near you. Yeah, it's agreat website. I got lost multiple times
on my self being on there,and there's lots of things on there that
people can really take advantage of,so it's really great. Don't forget to
hit three h three Dash Tactical dotcom. That's where you can find me
at Robin. Thank you so muchand we'll see you soon. Thanks James,