A Kimber .45-caliber handgun is for sale at Hyatt Coin and Gun in Charlotte. Domestic handgun production and imports have risen. DAVIE HINSHAW - dhinshaw@charlotteobserver.com

Robin Natanel picks up a compact black pistol, barrel pointed down range. Gripping the gun with both hands, she raises the semi-automatic and methodically squeezes off five shots. If the target were a person's head or heart, he'd probably be dead.

Natanel is a Buddhist and self-avowed "spiritual person," a 53-year-old divorcee who lives alone in a liberal-leaning suburb near Boston. She's a tai chi instructor who invokes the benefits of meditation. And at least twice a month, she takes her German-made Walther PK380 to a shooting range and blazes away.

Natanel is one of a growing number of people in groups once considered anti-handgun - women, liberals, gays and college kids - who have been buying weapons. They are part of a national trend: Domestic handgun production and imports more than doubled over four years to about 4.6 million in 2009, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

The surge has been propelled by shifting politics and demographics that have made it easier and more acceptable than at any time in 75 years for Americans to buy and carry handguns. Post-9/11 fears seem to be a factor, as are the pro-gun politicking of the National Rifle Association and the marketing, particularly to women, by handgun manufacturers. Events like the Dec. 8 fatal shootings on the Virginia Tech University campus reinforce a feeling that the world is an unsafe place, even as violent U.S. crime rates fall.

Two years ago, an ex-boyfriend broke into Natanel's house when she wasn't home. The police advised a restraining order. Instead, she bought pepper spray and programmed the local police number on her cellphone's speed dial.

"I was constantly terrified for my safety," she says.

Ultimately, she got the pistol.

Natanel found it was no trouble to purchase the Walther, a brand favored by movie superspy James Bond, or to locate experts to train her. Her circumstances won her a concealed-carry permit in a state with tough gun-control laws.

"I'd never considered a gun," Natanel says. "...I didn't think anyone should have them."

'Clear societal change'

Twenty years ago, 76 percent of women felt that way about handguns, and 68 percent of all people in the country were wary enough of firearms of any kind to tell Gallup pollsters that they backed laws more strictly limiting their sale. Then what Gallup calls "a clear societal change" began.

In October, a Gallup poll found record-low support for a handgun ban - at 26 percent among all responders and 31 percent among women.

The poll, which has tracked gun attitudes since 1959, documented a record-low 43 percent who favor making it more difficult to acquire guns and record-high numbers of women and Democrats saying there is a firearm at their home. Forty-seven percent said someone in the household owns at least one gun, the highest reading in 18 years.

Skeptics object

Americans who have acquired handguns for protection are living with "serious delusions," says Caroline Brewer, a spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. She contends that few are trained rigorously enough to deploy their weapons in the shock and heat of an attack, that they'll shoot innocent bystanders, and that more times than not their firearms will be turned against them.

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/12/2844830/handgun-ownership-surges-in-new.html#ixzz1gQat0gAJ

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