By Sheri Trusty

Faith Ferkel has found a universal concern among Ohio women who want to use firearms to protect themselves. Many of the women who would like to obtain a concealed weapon permit are intimidated by the thought of taking the state's mandatory Basic Pistol course with a room full of men.

The NRA certified instructor from Fremont, Ohio, came up with a simple solution when she teamed up with her mother to teach all-ladies pistol courses. Faith and her mom, Joy Ferkel, an adjunct instructor of English and Communications at a local community college, have sparked an idea that is bringing many local women into the firearms circle. There are no male teachers and no male students in their classes, just a relaxed feminine atmosphere that creates a comfortable place to learn.

While the students didn't all have the same reason for wanting to learn how to handle a gun, they all chose the Ferkels' class for the same reason: there were no men. "I probably wouldn't have come if it wasn't an all-girls class," said Rhonda Soper, a legal secretary from Clyde.

Soper's past experience as the wife of an anti-gun husband gave her the desire to want to learn how to protect herself with a firearm. "I was married to a guy for 26 years who hated guns," she said. "He said, 'If you're a target, too bad.' I felt very unsafe."

Soper remarried a pro-gun advocate who not only helped her take her first shots, he also encouraged her to take the all-ladies course. "He's very safe, very cautious. I feel very protected around him," she said. But she wanted to take that protection on to the next necessary step and learn to protect herself, so she signed up for the Basic Pistol course taught by the Ferkels. "I loved it," she said, referring not only to the competent teaching, but to the definitely feminine touch placed on the traditionally male-run class.

A bowl of chocolates lay amongst the guns and handbooks, and the students took a break from the instruction to enjoy with an elegant lunch. "We felt like we were going to a day spa," she said.

While the ladies had a lot of fun while learning, it was sometimes very serious circumstances that brought them to the class. Carol Fisher, a medical billing clerk from Fremont, decided to take the class after she was accosted in a local park last summer.

"This guy planned it well, because he kept coming back until all the cars were gone," she said. When he attacked, she had no idea how to protect herself. Her only thought was "What do I do?" Before the attacker could harm her, a city maintenance truck drove into the park. She was able to free herself and run to it. "I was saved by that truck, but what if that employee didn't come?" she said.

The most regrettable part of Fisher's ordeal was that she owned a gun at the time of her attack, but it had been in her closet since she purchased it thirty years ago. The helpless fear of the attack opened her eyes to the need to gain the skill and knowledge to protect herself, and the Ferkels' all-ladies course gave her the courage to take the first step.

While self-protection is the reason most women take the Ferkels' class, it's not the only one. "It was the Second Amendment that made me do that," said Cathy Hineline of Fremont. "The government's trying to take away our guns."

Hineline, a 58-year-old project manager, has had a complete turnaround in her beliefs about gun control. "I used to be a totally liberal, pacifist, 'guns are bad' person," she said. "It was a 70s feminist radical type of thing." But it was the wisdom that comes with age that changed her mind. "Now the rights we have, they're trying to take away," she said.

Hineline was drawn to the opportunity to take the class with other ladies, and was also impressed with the fact that Faith is the Ohio Coordinator for the Second Amendment Sisters. She entered the class with absolutely no prior experience with firearms. "I had never touched a gun before. I was scared to death," she said. "It was so much fun, though. When you take the class, it takes away your fear of guns."

This fear of firearms is nothing new to Faith. She's heard that same response from other women. Giving women the opportunity to overcome those fears was one of her goals in teaching the Basic Pistol course. "Some women are afraid of guns. They're open to them, but they're afraid of them," she said. "We can go as slow as we need to. I want to provide a safe, non-threatening environment where they're going to learn."

It was Faith's strong belief in personal protection that encouraged her to become the Ohio Coordinator for the Second Amendment Sisters, a women's advocacy group whose motto is, "Self defense is a basic human right." She said that the local meetings will be mostly social, giving area women a chance to get together to improve their shooting skills and meet like-minded women. Faith plans to schedule a future "Shoot and Shop" day in which members can meet at a range for shooting practice, then will head out together for dinner and shopping.

While training women is the main focus of the Basic Pistol course, Faith has had enough interest from men that she also teaches coed classes. She is NRA-certified to teach Home Firearms Safety and Personal Protection classes, and offers Refuse to Be a Victim seminars, which teach participants how to make themselves, their homes, and their cars safer.

Faith received a bachelor's degree in 2003 from Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, with a double major in English and music. She has been teaching piano for nine years, and is a Spanish instructor at a local Christian school. She is also a certified EMT who volunteers with a local fire department.

While many outside of the gun community have developed inaccurate stereotypes about female shooters, neither Faith nor Joy fit the mold. They're more likely than not to wear skirts to the range, and are just as comfortable teaching Sunday School classes as they are Basic Pistol courses. They are very feminine women teaching a professionally instructed firearms class.

"I want to bring more women into the discipline of firearms, because it benefits them most. They're most likely to be targeted for violence and crime," said Faith. "A gun is a great equalizer to your attacker."