A Girl and A Gun

THE WOMEN’S SHOOTING ORGANIZATION GROWING BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS

This is the story of two girls and their journey towards a love of guns that has inspired a nationwide organization with over 130 chapters and upwards of 6500 members. Robyn Sandoval and Julianna Crowder seem like they have known each other since kindergarten but surprisingly met only in the last decade. Together they have encouraged, taught, and mentored women from all backgrounds and stages in life. Ladies all over the nation have not only fallen in love with shooting, they have even become competitive shooters, instructors, and advocates for gun rights. They have experienced a surge in membership because of current events. The National Shooting Sports Foundation reported that nearly five million new gun owners have joined the already astounding 100 million gun owners in the U.S. this year. Would you be surprised to learn that 40% of them were women? A Girl and A Gun (AGAG) is exactly the type of organization that these two million women should be joining.

The synergy between these two girls is captivating—during their interview they couldn’t help but finish each other’s sentences on a level I have rarely seen outside of identical twins. Their obvious love for each other as best friends can be felt in their presence as well as in their events. They give their whole heart and so much energy into what they are doing, and the passion is tangible. I truly hope that any lady that has an interest in learning more about shooting pistol, rifle, or 3gun will get connected with their local AGAG chapter. I only wish my first experience with a pistol had been with this group of women, perhaps if it had been, I would have shot a pistol more than ten times in my life.

Julianna was raised in California and grew up shooting a family revolver and a BB gun on camping weekends. Then she met her husband John, a U.S. Marine, and her destiny to become such a big part of shooting sports was sealed. John is from Austin, Texas. He comes from a Marine Corps family—also full of law enforcement, Boy Scouts, and hunters—so firearms were and are a major part of his everyday life. He really wanted her to get involved in shooting with him. She started casually shooting pistol matches and then he encouraged her to get her concealed carry license. After sitting through a 15-hour CHL class, Julianna came out with a better knowledge of carrying a firearm, yet felt unsatisfied. It just so happens that she was transitioning out of her other business as a dance studio owner and she became excited with this new idea that, “we could so do this!”. John got his instructor’s license because he taught firearms in the military, and Julianna ran his office. A year later, she got her instructor credentials. Four and a half years later, she felt so comfortable with teaching that she started doing it on her own and that’s when she decided to focus more on the women’s market.

She started thinking about what the barriers were for women. What keeps them from coming to a concealed carry course or a pistol match? For some, it was taking money away from the family budget. Some just a lack of time. Some were simply not interested, and some thought they knew enough about guns, which was one of the scariest answers because “You can never have enough knowledge when it comes to firearms,” says Julianna. She began to think outside of the box. She wanted to pair the feeling a woman gets when she can leave the husband and kids behind and enjoy a night out and incorporate shooting into that. That’s when she came up with Girls Night Out. On Feb 28, 2011 she brought her guns, her ammo, and supervision and training, and walked the ladies through those first steps. “The beautiful thing is when you are able to empower these women to become mentors to others and then eventually, they want to become certified safety officers and then they become certified instructors…we have just exponentially increased so many women’s participation at the range.”

Around this exact same time, Robyn Sandoval was starting to understand the need for guns in the home. A mother of three children and a strong advocate for gun control, Robyn had been moved by some footage from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In this footage, Robyn saw something that shook her to the core. A mother at the Superdome took her two small children and handed them to a stranger getting on the bus to Houston, and she said, “Please take them. I’ll try to find you in a few days.” Robyn remembers with a glimmer of tears in her eyes, “My heart broke.” When she saw this, she turned to her husband and said, “What do I need to do so that’s never me?” She started storing hurricane survival items, and he reminded her that was smart, but what happens when people break in and try to steal the supplies? What is going to stop them? After years of supporting gun control, she suddenly had no argument.

Robyn’s husband, Mike, had heard from a buddy about a girl’s night out thing with guns and he signed her up to go. This was the third GNO that Julianna held. She didn’t know anyone there, anything about guns, range etiquette, and was quite frankly scared to even shoot a gun. “I was such a fish out of water, and that moment changed my life forever.” Julianna got to be with Robyn when she took her first shots. Robyn laughed saying, “I pretended to know what I was doing.” Julianna added “But she did great, she was a natural.”

It didn’t take long for Julianna to see that Robyn was exactly the partner she needed to make this organization grow. They each have a specific set of skills that when combined is the perfect recipe for not only well-planned events, but a contagious joy and love of shooting that can be felt even through their photos. They’ve been partners for nine years now, and they have Girls Night Out at over 210 ranges across the country. Every night they have something going on, even virtual events – they usually average about 150-200 events a month. The virtual part was going on long before COVID-19 because there was such an influx of people wanting to ask questions, wanting to know what kind of firearm to get, and needing training. “It’s such an exciting time.

Dave Miller from CZ-USA, and event sponsor, helps out with instruction

Ranging from chapter to chapter, they are doing such a great job of balancing serious topics like first aid, gun cleaning, maintenance, while also having fun shooting sessions and letting women have that girls’ night comradery that goes along with having a night away from the family and responsibilities,” commented Julianna. So many have come to them for self defense training and they end up getting involved with shooting and competitions. They build up their gear and they end up being involved in it for life. Julianna says “So, whether they’re afraid of firearms or they’re ready to shoot some stuff, and anywhere in between, we can relate to them and we can help them along the way.”

They also take the statement “All are welcome” very seriously. They realize that not everyone who comes to a Girls Night Out has the same political stand, beliefs, or lifestyle, but they really believe in diversity and inclusion. As long as everyone agrees to be safe at the range, they’re accepted. They’ve created such a happy, fun environment for the women who participate. Julianna says “That’s the whole idea, to get out of your bubble and try something new.”

When asked if they miss competing, they both agreed that they still get their fix when they can. They enjoy the work that they do so much because it’s fulfilling, and they still have time to sneak away to retreats with smaller groups of women and shoot for fun. Julianna says “We’re very hands-on when it comes to these events, so being available to the girls at any time, so that they can love on us and we can love on them, is more important than us pulling the trigger at these events.”

Having accomplished so much in so little time, this duo continues to make strong marks in the world of getting women shooting. Their motto is “education, competition, recreation and community,” so to help with the recreation part, they decided to host the very first National Women’s Clay Championship. It was a year ago that they hosted a Claycation retreat in Arizona and Dave Miller, with CZ-USA Field Sports, approached them with an idea. He wanted them to do for sporting clays what they did for 3-gun. It didn’t take much convincing for these two go-getters and the event ended up being such a well-organized, fun experience for everyone. The goody bags were the best ever! There was coffee, scrunchie, gun cleaning supplies and even a custom embroidered shell bag by Wild Hare Shooting Gear. The ladies agreed that they not only love spoiling their ladies, they “stand behind these brands and the products. These are important items that every woman should have in her gear bag for safety and convenience. Products we want everyone to have. We’re fortunate they stand behind us too.” These ladies are pros at what they do. “Stepping into the sporting clay world, we were a little nervous. I will say that with the support of CZ-USA Field Sports and Powder Creek Shooting Park, they made us look like rock stars.” They’re already looking forward to next year and so am I.

Participants chat and socialize while waiting their turns

AGAG and the Pro Staff at CZ-USA Field Sports did a remarkable job putting on this event. August 13-15 consisted of clinics, a 50 bird Trap event, a 50 bird 5-Stand event, and 200 sporting clays targets. There was a fun flurry with CZ-USA Field Sports demo guns for all the ladies to try too. Each morning there were raffle drawings to give away prizes ranging from cool range bags and gift certificates to carefully selected home goods and even some alcohol. During the meet and greet event the first night of the championship, they gave away ten guns in a drawing made up of each registered shooter. I have personally never seen so much swag given away, along with guns, at an event. This was a lady shooter’s giveaway dream come true. The clinics were put on by the certified instructors on the CZ-USA Field Sports Pro Staff, including Dave Miller. Since many of the women had never shot sporting clays, they were carefully introduced and instructed by the knowledgeable and experienced Pro Staff in order to ensure that they had the best possible time during the competition. Overall, I would say this event was more than a success. I shot all the events, and every time I looked around, I was met with smiling faces, laughter, and even loud cheering. It was so refreshing to see women support each other and cheer each other on.

Julianna and Robyn may have started this organization but it is the women who participate that make it what it is. The sisterhood that has been established by the energy of these two women has been more contagious than the fear of COVID-19. Five years ago, as the ladies were gearing up for their conference and the sisterhood was put to the ultimate test, as Robyn faced one of the most challenging times of her life as a mother. When Julianna was beginning to tell this story, she turned to Robyn and said with a slight crack in her voice and fighting back tears, “Do you want me to talk about it or are you ok?” Robyn took over for Julianna and began to tell me the story. Her daughter, Kiara, had just turned five years old and was rushed to the hospital for emergency brain surgery, she had a five centimeter brain tumor. “You know how things happen serendipitously—I believe that all those women were traveling to my city to be there for me, because I had the strongest, bravest, most supportive women on the planet. It was like God had prepared this army and they were exceptional prayer warriors.” Robyn was in the ICU loving on her daughter as she recovered from surgery and the women were calling a cease fire on the range just to send Robyn an encouraging selfie. That’s where their second motto “It’s more than shooting” came from. When Robyn was finally able to leave her daughter’s side at the hospital for a few hours, she drove to the range and thanked everyone for their love and support. It had been raining all day and the women were gathered under a big tent. Suddenly someone said “Come outside!” and there was a huge rainbow to brighten their day. Kiara is now blind and uses a white cane to get around. This presented some challenges for Robyn because Kiara is now always on her right side, hindering her strong arm from being able to draw a pistol if needed. AGAG was able to provide training to help her adapt to this new lifestyle. Kiara is such a bright and amazing child—Robyn recalls a funny story. Just recently they were riding in the car and it started to rain so bad that Robyn said “I can’t see a thing” aad Kiara chimed in “Me neither!”

Julianna has two boys and often borrows Kiara for fun girly things to do. In fact, Julianna recently became a certified Pilates instructor and used Kiara as her case study on teaching Pilates to blind people. The bond that these women share is enviable. Despite only living 20 minutes away from each other, they rarely see each other outside of these AGAG events. They get to take these trips together and have girl time. As for their husbands, they couldn’t be more supportive. Often times they take time off from their real jobs to work harder for these events. The men are supportive and a vital part of the inner workings of these events. John decided that the term pack mule no longer served him and decided to call himself a range donkey. Now all the husbands that help out work under John and have even been given their own secret donkey name. John has used his Marine background to encourage and unite the men that back the girls and their guns.

Both Julianna and Robyn are certified instructors, but they don’t teach as much as they used to. Julianna admitted to instructing over 9,000 students in her concealed carry classes back in the day. She’s scaled down her workload for now, but she’s enjoying the break. Robyn was quick to add that Julianna is such a great instructor. “You can basically take someone’s personality or someone’s athletic ability and compare the steps of marksmanship to something they already know and that is kinetically in their body, and that seems to be one of my talents,” Julianna says. Teaching classes reminds her why she fell in love with shooting in the first place. Robyn has her own strengths as well, dealing well with the women who are scared of guns and putting them at ease. Wanting to share her story, she’s involved in a lot of advocacy work with members of Congress and projects in Washington, D.C. Because she’s been anti-gun before, people can come to her in confidence and share their fears and beliefs on firearms and Robin can give them alternatives.

They have experienced a spike in membership because of current events. From new gun owners that have been flooding the organization for guidance and training to Virtual Girls’ Night Out for the chapters with members who aren’t comfortable being out in public—the work of AGAG never stops.

AGAG has THE best swag

As women, as moms, as wives, and as friends, Julianna and Robyn have successfully balanced their love of family, their passion for shooting, and their commitment to community. They continue to share their passion for life and shooting with everyone they meet. They are always striving for better events, more participation and, of course, the best swag in the goodie bags.