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Buffy Martin Tarbox is a hip, smart public relations professional in San Francisco.

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She once registered as a Green Party voter, and she has done political consulting work for Planned Parenthood.

She is also armed.

“My personal satisfaction is that I can take care of myself,” she says.

“I don’t need to rely on a man to protect me.”

Once out on her own, Tarbox was shocked to learn some of her girlfriends had guns.

These were her spa buddiesprofessional women like her who said a gun made them feel safer living alone.

Out of curiosity, she enrolled in a gun-safety class.

To her surprise, she was an excellent shot.

“It did feel empowering,” she remembers.

“You hope your instincts of survival would kick in.

If it came down to them or me, I hope I would choose me,” she says.

“If I’m home alone, it’s peace of mind.”

But is Tarbox, or any woman, truly safer because she has a gun?

Sellers have customized handguns and rifles with pastel colors and glittery accents.

I’m all in favor of girls with guns who know their purpose."

Men own the vast majority of the nation’s nearly 300 million guns.

But whether women are catching up to them has become a topic of debate.

Enrollment in women-only NRA shooting clinics grew from about 500 participants in 2000 to more than 9,500 in 2011.

“This is not a constitutional issue.

This is not about politics.

The danger that guns pose to women is a public health issue,” he says.

“A gun in the home is killing far more women than it is actually protecting.”

Tarbox has read all about the dangers.

“I know the statistics,” she says.

“But to suggest women are too weak and feebleminded to be around guns is incredibly sexist.”

“I’m 4 feet 11 inches tall.

As many as 46 percent of those uses were by women, Kleck says.

In fact, it makes robberies more likely, as guns are attractive loot to criminals.

We imagine we would react like Sarah McKinley, whose steady hand saved her and her newborn baby.

Her storydidn’tturn her into a national celebrity.

“We signed up for a weapons class but never took it,” he says.

There was a noise; Angelique sneaked into the living room, where Stephen had crashed on the couch.

“Wake up!”

Stephen, groggy after having taken a sleeping pill, grabbed a baseball bat and went outside to investigate.

Angelique returned to the bedroom, felt under the mattress and retrieved her gun.

She reached to her nightstand and found the bullets she kept there.

As she waited inside, gun loaded and ready, Angelique saw someone nearing the house.

“Stephen” Is that you??

she called out softly.

Then she said it again, more firmly.

But the figure didn’t respond, and he wasn’t carrying the bat Stephen had left with.

Whoever was there was moving toward her.

Terrified, she fired.

“It took everything I had to pull that trigger.”

Through the darkness, she heard a calm voice: “Honey, I think you shot me.”

Her kids got so much harassment, the family ended up moving.

“It’s a heavy burden for her to carry,” Stephen says.

She’s the crazy woman who shot her husband.”

Women, and men, too, need to have tremendous training if you want to be armed.

And if you’re psychologically unfit, don’t have a gun.

This is notBonnie and Clyde.

This is real life."

says Margot Bennett, executive director of Women Against Gun Violence in Los Angeles.

As a result, women “often become the victim of their own weapon.”

“I never saw his face,” she says.

“I had tunnel vision, and time seemed to slow down.”

Lim now counsels other officers who are involved in shootings and at risk for insomnia or nightmares.

“If you don’t practice regularly, your motor skills diminish under stress,” she says.

“You could miss or hit an innocent bystander.”

Yet scary events may move Americans to buy guns.

“It’s always possible that an armed civilian might abort a mass shooting that otherwise would continue.

In most cases, my risk for homicide will increase.

My risk for suicide will increase.

Is that what I want??

Charlene Hill gets frustrated, too, when she hears women talk tough.

Charlene says Danny abused her for years.

The judge took the unusual step of deferring sentence for 10 years.

If Hill stays out of trouble, the charge will be dismissed.

“You have nightmares forever,” she says.

“I haven’t been able to get past it.

The ramifications have been ungodly.”

Six years later, she’s still in therapy.

She doesn’t sleep, and thoughts of suicide haunt her.

“I have good days and bad days.

Lately, the bad days are getting less bad.”

Hill is OK with other women owning guns; many of her girlfriends do.

Despite warnings from health experts, lawmakers across the country are loosening restrictions on guns.

Already, Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin require campuses to allow some guns.

Utah also allows concealed weapons on K12 school property.

“If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” he says.

The link between suicide and gun ownership is well documented.

Among women 21 to 44 years old who bought weapons, half of deaths were suicides using guns.

Also last year, Florida became the first state to prohibit physicians from asking patients about gun ownership.

When the mom refused to answer, the physician said she needed to find a new doctor.

“Pediatrics is all about preventionthat’s why kids get checkups.”

Among Americans younger than 20, firearms are more deadly than cancer, birth defects and infections.

But NRA spokeswoman Samford says parenting decisions shouldn’t be legislated.

“Gun safety is the NRA’s bread and butter,” she says.

The intractability of gun politics disappoints Hemenway.

“I attempt to be a scientist, to look at the data,” he says.

But the evidence shows that, overall, a gun in the home increases the risk for injury.

For most people, you’re able to have a gun and nothing bad will happen.

All public health is trying to do is help reduce the risk.”

That risk is real.

Whether or not you buy a gun depends on how willing you are to live with it.

Photo Credit: Graeme Montgomery