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Mueller, as it happened, had taken up shooting because she’d been raped. The standard advice at the time—don’t walk alone at night, stay in well-lit areas, run from your attacker or, if he has a gun, try to reason with him—had turned out to be completely useless. So did self-defense classes; she discovered that she couldn’t defeat her 280-pound husband. So shooting it was.
What kind of looks?
“Well, you know,” she says after a pause. “If you’re a woman, some men think you’re stupid or defenseless.”
If, however, Mueller implies, you’re holding a gun in your hand, some men might decide to think again.
According to Mueller, more women should learn to shoot because, one, “Women turn out to be better shots than men,” and, two, “You can build up your confidence because once you know how to handle a pistol, you have total control.” And when Mueller talks about control, she doesn’t just mean out on the shooting range. “I’d just love it if it was a nice, safe world out there,” she says, “but it’s not.”
