LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.15 101
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vous, I tell him. My gun will blow up. "You'll
be all right. It won't blow up." He manages to
say this as though he is not talking to a crazy
person. It helps. I push the Wile E. Coyote
thing from my mind, pull on my ear protection
and wait. "Treat!" Jenkins yells. Everyone
starts shooting. Oh, yeah, that was the signal.
I fre. Five times. All of my bullets. My face is
intact. My gun is intact. My target sufers fve
little holes, three in the center circle.
Oh, man. I rock.
Later, I look at Renee Watts' target — Renee
Watts of the pink combat boots, pink shirt
and black hoodie with a big pink fower on it.
Renee with the eyeliner and styled hair. Tat
Renee. Tere is a big hole in the center of her
target. Almost all of the bullets from her 9 mm
Glock hit dead center. I defate slightly. Aim
more, I tell myself.
"I'm obviously a huge proponent of armed
citizens," Jenkins tells me. Particularly, armed
ladies. "Ladies are usually the target of violence.
Tis may save her life one day or save the lives
of her family." Jenkins is not the only person
to make this point about women and violence.
Ken Pagano, the former pastor, tells me about
a woman in his Women on Target class whose
son was shot in front of her during a home
invasion. "She was [in class] because she wanted
to learn about frearms and not be a victim any-
more. Tis was a time of healing for her. She
shot her frst magazine of ammunition and she
literally broke down in tears," Pagano says.
But statistics say women are at a lower risk
of violent crime than men, and if you're talking
about violent crime committed by strangers,
the risk is lower yet. Te most prominent
danger to women seems to be one that no
concealed-carry permit will prevent. An analysis
that looked at murders from 1980 to 2008
showed that women were six times more likely
than men to be killed by an intimate. And even
men are killed far more often by friends than
strangers.
I ask as many gun owners as I can if they
have ever been the victim of a violent crime.
Tonight, at the Ladies Shoot, I meet one: Jenni-
fer Allen, 36, of Shepherdsville.
A tarnished gold medallion hangs from
Allen's neck. It reads "Steady as we go," a line
from a favorite Dave Matthews song. Below the
medallion, a bit of lace camisole peeks out from
under her black shirt, the lace a nice contrast
to her frayed camoufage cap. Allen slips out of
her jacket, pulls up the black shirt, and indi-
cates a spot on her back. Just beneath the fesh I
feel the hard mass of a bullet. It has been there
for 11 years, resting less than a fnger's width
from a lung.
It was October 2004, about 10 p.m., and
Allen, four months pregnant, was waiting for
friends to arrive. She was in her pajamas, listen-
ing to Delilah After Dark on the radio. Her two
daughters were sound asleep down the hall in
the family's ranch home on Blue Lick Road.
Her husband was traveling for work, putting
up cell phone towers all over Kentucky and
Indiana. Within days of his departure, the
phone calls started, every day, several times a
day. Te caller said nothing, just breathed. At
frst Allen dismissed the calls as a prank, but
as they continued, she grew uneasy. She began
keeping a record, noting the time of each call.
Tonight friends would stay with her and the
girls. Te day before, they'd brought her a gun
for protection.
Allen is a little hard of hearing, and so when
she heard her friends tugging at her door, she
fgured she'd simply not heard them knock.
She got up to let them in. Still, just to be on
the safe side, she picked up the gun and carried
it on her palm. "Like somebody was going to
hand me something," she says. She undid the
deadbolt and was unfastening the chain when a
man in a hoodie and facemask crashed through
the door and hit her in the face.
She fell to the foor and dropped the gun. It
slid across the foor to her assailant, who picked
it up as she jumped back to her feet and began
fghting. He grabbed the straps of her top, but