SEQUIM — At Olympic Cellars winery, owner Kathy Charlton remembers pouring for a group of women who opened her eyes to a topic she hadn’t heard much about.
At first, the women talked wine: the white, the red, the floral, the citrus.
Next thing Charlton knew, they had moved on to what kind of handguns they have.
The numbers of women with concealed pistols — at least the ones who get the license to carry — have climbed in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
In 2012, the total was 2,366. At the beginning of this year, active licenses numbered 2,936, in a 24.1 percent increase.
Across Washington state, 73,167 pistol licenses were issued to women in 2012. By this January, that had grown to 96,801, a rise of 32.3 percent.
Back at the eastern Port Angeles winery, “I was a newbie,” Charlton recalled, when it came to this topic.
Not anymore.
In 2013, she stepped away from Olympic Cellars’ daily operations and joined her husband, Ralph, at Target Focus Training, a company offering self-defense classes and DVDs.
In January, Charlton went to Las Vegas for the SHOT — Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade — Show to talk about women’s personal protection.
Yet Charlton herself does not carry a gun. She has no plans to get a firearm.
“I don’t feel the need. I know unarmed self-defense. I feel comfortable with that,” she said.
Charlton isn’t about to say that people shouldn’t carry guns. She does emphasize the mental preparations she believes women should make before facing someone who intends to do harm.
“You have to be able to react in a split second” as fear courses through your body, she said.
If you have prepared and trained, you can act that fast, but if not, panic could paralyze you.
“If you’re going to the range and shooting a target,” she added, “that’s not training for a random violence event.”
She spoke of a woman who confronted a mugger, and all she could think of was the mace in her purse — which she had to dig for.
“If you’re trying to grab for your gun, it’s not going to work. I’m sorry, it’s not going to work,” Charlton said.
She teaches women that they do have their strength and their bare hands. An assailant can be rendered nonfunctional when hit in the neck, the groin and the solar plexus.
“You have to be close,” Charlton said, “and you have to put your body into it.”
Lt. Sheri Crain, deputy chief of the Sequim Police Department, issues concealed-pistol permits, though in relatively small numbers: just 80 in 2014.
The department doesn’t ask people their reasons for applying, Crain said. Officers want gun owners to be educated about state and federal laws, but beyond that, “we perform the service.”
“We don’t ever recommend you get a gun over other options,” she added.
“There are lots of other things women can do to make themselves less likely to be a victim.
“The more observant you are, the more noticeably observant you are” — at a bar, at an event, walking down the street, crossing a parking lot — the less likely you are to be prey.
In other words, when you’re out and about, don’t lose yourself in your cellphone, reading text messages and such.
A would-be attacker is looking for someone who is not paying attention to her surroundings, Crain said.
________
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
