PA Bill Number: HB829
Title: In preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Description: An Act amending the act of April 12, 1951 (P.L.90, No.21), known as the Liquor Code, in preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Last Action: Signed in House
Last Action Date: Jul 3, 2024
More women are buying guns, using firing ranges than in years past :: 11/26/2018
MORTON — Kevin Moody has a front row seat to the changing demographics of gun ownership in the country. Moody owns KAM Shooting Sports, 901 Detroit Court, Suite C, in Morton. The store features one of the few public indoor firing ranges in the area, along with guns for sale, a classroom and gunsmith shop.
“More and more, women are buying guns,” Moody said. “Do I sell more guns to guys? Absolutely. But it’s no longer a man’s game. The perception that a gun store is like a barber shop with a bunch of guys sitting around talking and drinking coffee isn’t reality anymore.”
Shawna Theison of Mackinaw is one of Moody’s customers. She received her Illinois concealed carry permit in 2017. Her daughter Jayden, 14, a freshman at Deer Creek-Mackinaw High School, participates in gun competitions.
KAM Shooting Sports sponsored Jayden at a Glock competition this summer in Dwight.
“There’s no doubt more women are owning guns,” Theison said. “I see a lot of photos my female friends took when they were out hunting, and I was in an all-female gun class of 30-plus women with a female instructor in Bloomington.”
There are more than 3.3 million female hunters and more than 5.4 million female target shooters in the United States, according to a 2017 blog post on the National Rifle Association website.
Shawna and Jayden Theison say they’re glad there’s now an indoor firing range that’s close to their home. KAM Shooting Sports’ firing range opened Oct. 22 after the gun retail store opened in February.
“We’ve been looking forward to the firing range opening,” Shawna Theison said. “We used to have to go to Bloomington to shoot indoors.”
A 2017 study by the Pew Research Center showed 39 percent of men and 22 percent of women said they owned a gun.
Among the gun owners, 67 percent listed protection as the major reason for owning a gun. Shawna Theison said that was her major reason for getting her concealed carry permit.
Moody has been an NRA-certified instructor since 2001 and an Illinois concealed carry instructor since 2013.
He said NRA statistics show self-defense was the major reason for gun ownership by only 5 percent to 10 percent of owners in the early 2000s, but that number is now 90 percent.
“I’m not so sure it’s 90 percent, but it is way higher than it used to be,” he said.
Moody said he looks at his business as a gun training and education center in addition to a gun retail outlet. That’s why he has a firing range and a classroom.
An applicant for an Illinois concealed carry permit must first complete 16 hours of state-mandated courses that include work on a firing range.
State law mandates that a shooter with a concealed carry permit must be able to hit the center portion of a silhouetted target seven times out of 10 from distances of 5, 7 and 10 yards.
Moody recently had a training session in his firing range with a church security team consisting of the pastor and five church members who each has a concealed carry permit.
The heated and air-conditioned firing range at KAM Shooting Sports has 10 shooting lanes, all 25 yards long, with automatic target returns.
Firing range safety is a major focus at the business.
A closed-circuit television feed from 14 cameras on two screens show a range security officer what’s happening in the firing range at all times. Five NRA-certified range security officers are employed by KAM Shooting Sports.
“We have a range security officer on duty 100 percent of the time we’re open,” Moody said.
Those who enter the firing range must go in through an air lock, and wear safety glasses or goggles along with ear protection.
“The air lock is for lead mitigation,” Moody said.
Across the Illinois River, The Tac Shop, 8919 N. University St., in Peoria, has an indoor firing range with six heated, 25-yard lanes. Targets operate with an electric trolley system. There are plans to add air conditioning, according to the facility’s website.
Public classroom instruction, one-on-one instruction and private group classes are offered.
The Tac Shop also has an indoor firing range in Monmouth with eight heated and cooled shooting lanes.
The not-for-profit Peoria Skeet and Trap Club, 470 Spring Bay Road, East Peoria, is open on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday each week.
About three in 10 gun owners in the Pew study listed sport shooting such as target, trap and skeet shooting as a major reason for owning a gun.
