The Gun Counter

“I knew it was a bad somebody,” she says. Terrified, she phoned neighbors, with no response. Eventually, she called police, but by the time they arrived, the would-be intruder had fled.

“The next day, I went straight to a gun dealer, who asked me what kind of gun I wanted.” She laughs as she recalls her answer: “Any kind.” Froman’s was not an uncommon reaction. It is precisely that response to threats real and perceived that she—as NRA spokeswoman—wants to normalize in our society, particularly among women. Her persuasiveness with non-gun-owners—getting average people to consider gun ownership—has been the hallmark of her presidency.

“I didn’t know anything about the politics of guns when I went to the dealer that first time; I just wanted protection,” Froman tells me. She was soon initiated into the gun debate head-first. “I mentioned to one of the partners at my firm—someone I’d worked with for years—that I was going to target practice, and he was really taken aback. He said to me, ‘You’re dangerous.’ And he wasn’t joking.”

By then, Froman had become part of what she calls “a community of sport shooters—the same people who would shoot every Saturday morning” at the local range. When she shared her colleague’s comment with her friends, and asked why he might have reacted that way, they told her she would learn more from the NRA and encouraged her to join.