Carrying Guns and Babies Class a Hit

A mother of three is conducting three hour workshops on carrying both guns and babies together.  She is a certified NRA instructor, and has had a very positive response to her class.  The first class took place in Johnston, Iowa, a small town in the middle of the state, on the edge of Des Moines.   Here is the ad that she ran on her facebook page:

I cut the email and phone number out of the class because I was not sure that Melody Lauer would want them broadcast nationally.    In researching the article, I found that Melody is not just an NRA instructor, she is a talented writer who has an excellent blog: limatunesrangediaries.wordpress.com.   I will presume that her class transmits much of what she wrote in an article about the pros and cons of babywearing in December of 2014.  Here is an excerpt:

- Holster Systems Can Be Hindered
This is the single most common issue I see with babywearing and carrying. Because of the nature of baby carriers that attach around the waist, over the chest, and across the back, some of the most common carry locations for firearms are compromised or hindered due to the carrier or baby interfering with the holster or draw. Sometimes it’s a simpler solution like changing the babywearing method or going to a different holster. Sometimes it means coming up with an entirely different defensive carry system depending on the method of carrying the child. What I have seen in practice is parents compromising access and putting their guns and holsters in places that are impractical and potentially dangerous for a self-defense situation.
But that will be a blog for another day.

Melody comes across as a competent, thoughtful and caring woman.   These up and coming members of the gun culture cause enormous confusion in the ranks of the disarmists.  The carrying of guns by competent, articulate women with children is not supposed to exist.  Her class is a direct threat to the very idea that guns are evil.  The class is getting a bit of play on the internet.  From today.com:

As an administrator of a private Facebook group for mothers who carry guns, Lauer has been getting countless messages from members begging for information on how they can do it safely, she said, so she considered the workshop a “much needed class."

"We’re seeing a surge in women who are getting into guns," she noted. "All I know is that they’re bringing kids with them and I want to make sure they’re doing it safely."

Lauer -- who describes herself as “a wife, mother and woman with a gun” on her blog, where she offers advice on how to carry a gun and a baby -- designed the class to be accessible to parents of young kids. There was child care on site in a separate room, and the parents used dummy guns and a dummy baby, Lauer said.

Everyone who is involved in the gun culture is seeing the same phenomena.  Lots of women, and young women, are becoming interested in guns, shooting, and defense of themselves and others.  It is directly contradictory to the theme that the disarmists are pushing: the number of people with guns is shrinking.  Instead, what seems to be happening, is that the number of people who are willing to tell a stranger on a survey that they have a gun in the home, are shrinking, especially when there is a lot of talk of restrictive legislation in the air.

I applaud Melody, her blog, and her attitude.  As with most people in the gun culture, she sees having a gun as an intensely personal decision. But if you make that decision, she is willing to help.

 Definition of  disarmist 

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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