DES MOINES, IA (CNN) – An Iowa woman is leading a baby-wearing, gun carrying workshop.
“If you’re a mother, and if you’re an armed mother, they have to. You have no choice,” said Melody Lauer/mother-gun instructor.
Lauer is a mom and an expert in two entirely different worlds.
“I was actually working at both a gun store and a parenting center at the same time,” Lauer said.
She’s not trying to convince parents that they should carry a gun. Simply encouraging them to do it safely, if they choose to.
“We have seen a huge insurgence in young mothers – mothers of young children, wanting to get into firearms. And what’s happening is we don’t have instructors that are addressing their needs. So they just do it. They don’t do it right and then they end up having an accident,” Lauer said.
So as a firearm instructor and parenting expert, she’s going where no one has gone before.
“If you have baby on one side, it’s best to have gun on the other side,” Lauer said.
“To our knowledge, nobody is doing this yet. The interest was so great that she actually had to turn off or shut off the registration. Otherwise, we would have had two-three times as many people here,” said Barry Snell, Crossroads Shooting Sports.
Some parents say it’s what they’ve been looking for.
“When we first had Margaret, and I just had this overwhelming desire, that I need to protect this child. And it’s really made me take it a lot more seriously,” said Eric Tull, a student.
She says what she’s doing feels right.
“That makes me feel a little bit more better that we’ve had at least a few more people that are less likely to have accidents because I’ve helped them along that way,” Lauer said.
