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NRA’s new Jewish leader shoots holes in stereotypes
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By: JOSHUA RUNYAN Exponent and IDAN IVRI L.A. Journal Contributing Writers
As a Jewish woman and Harvard-educated lawyer who practiced law in Los Angeles, Sandra Froman admits that, at least on paper, she doesn’t seem a natural choice to lead the National Rifle Association (NRA).
But the Second Amendment, she says, is all about empowerment.
“I’ve never met a gun I didn’t like,” says Froman, 55, a California native who moved to Tucson in 1985. “I shoot pistols, rifles, black-powder rifles.”
Froman became the newest president of the almost four million-strong NRA in April, immediately presenting a different face for an organization whose vibe has been almost reflexively white and male.
Jewish, female, lawyerly and Left Coast is about as unstereotypical as it gets for an NRA leader. But when it comes to gun politics, Froman is as NRA as they come.
“Firearms in America today represent freedom,” Froman says. “They represent the ability to defend yourself individually, and they represent the ability to defend yourself as a country.”
The NRA scored a victory this summer when the U.S. Senate passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which bans lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers when their products are used to commit crimes. The legislation now goes to the House.
Froman speaks approvingly of the legislation, but it’s just one part of a crowded agenda. The NRA also has called for a boycott of ConocoPhillips until the oil company drops its ban on letting employees keep firearms in the company parking lot, demonstrating a sense of civics “worthy of the O.K. Corral,” as The New York Times put it. Froman also aims to expand gun ownership among traditionally gun-averse groups, such as ethnic minorities, women and the Jewish community.
She’s not shy about invoking historically charged imagery: “Part of my feeling the importance of all of this is what I know about Jewish history. You look at what the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were able to do because they had firearms, and you understand how necessary is the right to own a gun.”
Froman cites her own experience, an attempted break-in when she lived in Los Angeles, as evidence that women especially need guns. A gun, she says, is a great equalizer: “We don’t have the upper body strength. In a fistfight, a man is usually going to be able to prevail over just about any woman.”
Such views put her ideologically at odds with many Jews, including Roberta Schiller, former executive director of Women Against Gun Violence. Schiller asserts that it’s criminals and terrorists who are best able to take advantage of the free-wheeling U.S. market for gun sales that the NRA works so diligently to protect.
“While historically it might have been helpful for people to buy firearms,” says Schiller, currently a board member of the anti-violence group, “now we’re in a situation where terrorists coming into this country have a field day buying all sorts of firearms, AK-47s, assault weapons, with literally no background search in many of the 50 states.
“We don’t live in ghettos,” she says. “We don’t have the need for a militia of women to counterforce some unknown enemy.”
Froman didn’t always love the smell of gunpowder or a shotgun’s recoil. She grew up in a Jewish home in the San Francisco Bay Area, raised by parents who didn’t own firearms.
“The most I knew about guns was from Westerns, where the good guys had guns, and the bad guys had bows and arrows.”
After attending Stanford University and Harvard Law School, she returned to California to practice law. It was at her home 25 years ago that someone attempted to break in while she slept.
The would-be intruder didn’t get in and left before police arrived, but Froman’s outlook had utterly changed.
“Here I am, trapped in my house with this man trying to get in. It really frightened me. Then I began thinking, ‘How dare he try to get into my house.’ I got angry. I decided to take control of the situation.”
The next day, Froman signed up for firearms training. Soon after, she bought her first gun.
It’s a tale Froman tells persuasively, but it doesn’t pass muster with Schiller. “The truth is that if a person is breaking into your house, you are probably asleep, and it’s unanticipated, so you’re already not in a position to fight back on a fair playing field,” Schiller said. “The idea that just because you have a gun, it will make you safe is just untrue.”
Having a gun introduces new risks, she adds.
“Children always know where guns are, and then you can have a tragedy. If you live with older children, they can come in late (at night) or unexpectedly, and you can mistakenly shoot one of your own family members.”
There are dueling statistics on whether guns make their owners safer.
Froman dismisses data about the danger of gun ownership as “just lies,” citing the work of researcher John Lott as refuting anti-gun statistics.
“Except for John Lott,” counters Schiller, “every violence prevention study, every Department of Justice study, comes to the same conclusion” that owning guns is more dangerous than not owning them.
Froman, a Republican, says she was essentially apolitical prior to her involvement with firearms.
“After I learned how to shoot a gun, I found out there were people who wanted to take my right away, people who wanted to ban guns.
“Why would anyone think I would be a danger?” she asks rhetorically. “And why would anyone not want me to be able to protect myself? The police can’t be everywhere at once.”
Such feelings would lead her to join the NRA. She found that the transition from mere member to outspoken activist was fairly easy.
Froman’s passion for shooting is apparent in her personal life: She appears to appreciate a partner who knows how to shoot. Her second husband, who died in 1995, was a law enforcement officer, and so is the man she is currently dating.
One of her early political efforts was getting a law passed in Arizona that would allow most people to carry concealed weapons via an approved permit. Her rise in the NRA followed quickly.
In 1992, Froman ran for the NRA’s board of directors and placed at the top of the ticket. Today, she is the second woman to serve as president.
When the Colt 1851 revolver was invented, she says, “There was a saying that God created men, but Colt made them all equal.”
Portions of this article first appeared in the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
But the Second Amendment, she says, is all about empowerment.
“I’ve never met a gun I didn’t like,” says Froman, 55, a California native who moved to Tucson in 1985. “I shoot pistols, rifles, black-powder rifles.”
Froman became the newest president of the almost four million-strong NRA in April, immediately presenting a different face for an organization whose vibe has been almost reflexively white and male.
Jewish, female, lawyerly and Left Coast is about as unstereotypical as it gets for an NRA leader. But when it comes to gun politics, Froman is as NRA as they come.
“Firearms in America today represent freedom,” Froman says. “They represent the ability to defend yourself individually, and they represent the ability to defend yourself as a country.”
The NRA scored a victory this summer when the U.S. Senate passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which bans lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers when their products are used to commit crimes. The legislation now goes to the House.
Froman speaks approvingly of the legislation, but it’s just one part of a crowded agenda. The NRA also has called for a boycott of ConocoPhillips until the oil company drops its ban on letting employees keep firearms in the company parking lot, demonstrating a sense of civics “worthy of the O.K. Corral,” as The New York Times put it. Froman also aims to expand gun ownership among traditionally gun-averse groups, such as ethnic minorities, women and the Jewish community.
She’s not shy about invoking historically charged imagery: “Part of my feeling the importance of all of this is what I know about Jewish history. You look at what the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were able to do because they had firearms, and you understand how necessary is the right to own a gun.”
Froman cites her own experience, an attempted break-in when she lived in Los Angeles, as evidence that women especially need guns. A gun, she says, is a great equalizer: “We don’t have the upper body strength. In a fistfight, a man is usually going to be able to prevail over just about any woman.”
Such views put her ideologically at odds with many Jews, including Roberta Schiller, former executive director of Women Against Gun Violence. Schiller asserts that it’s criminals and terrorists who are best able to take advantage of the free-wheeling U.S. market for gun sales that the NRA works so diligently to protect.
“While historically it might have been helpful for people to buy firearms,” says Schiller, currently a board member of the anti-violence group, “now we’re in a situation where terrorists coming into this country have a field day buying all sorts of firearms, AK-47s, assault weapons, with literally no background search in many of the 50 states.
“We don’t live in ghettos,” she says. “We don’t have the need for a militia of women to counterforce some unknown enemy.”
Froman didn’t always love the smell of gunpowder or a shotgun’s recoil. She grew up in a Jewish home in the San Francisco Bay Area, raised by parents who didn’t own firearms.
“The most I knew about guns was from Westerns, where the good guys had guns, and the bad guys had bows and arrows.”
After attending Stanford University and Harvard Law School, she returned to California to practice law. It was at her home 25 years ago that someone attempted to break in while she slept.
The would-be intruder didn’t get in and left before police arrived, but Froman’s outlook had utterly changed.
“Here I am, trapped in my house with this man trying to get in. It really frightened me. Then I began thinking, ‘How dare he try to get into my house.’ I got angry. I decided to take control of the situation.”
The next day, Froman signed up for firearms training. Soon after, she bought her first gun.
It’s a tale Froman tells persuasively, but it doesn’t pass muster with Schiller. “The truth is that if a person is breaking into your house, you are probably asleep, and it’s unanticipated, so you’re already not in a position to fight back on a fair playing field,” Schiller said. “The idea that just because you have a gun, it will make you safe is just untrue.”
Having a gun introduces new risks, she adds.
“Children always know where guns are, and then you can have a tragedy. If you live with older children, they can come in late (at night) or unexpectedly, and you can mistakenly shoot one of your own family members.”
There are dueling statistics on whether guns make their owners safer.
Froman dismisses data about the danger of gun ownership as “just lies,” citing the work of researcher John Lott as refuting anti-gun statistics.
“Except for John Lott,” counters Schiller, “every violence prevention study, every Department of Justice study, comes to the same conclusion” that owning guns is more dangerous than not owning them.
Froman, a Republican, says she was essentially apolitical prior to her involvement with firearms.
“After I learned how to shoot a gun, I found out there were people who wanted to take my right away, people who wanted to ban guns.
“Why would anyone think I would be a danger?” she asks rhetorically. “And why would anyone not want me to be able to protect myself? The police can’t be everywhere at once.”
Such feelings would lead her to join the NRA. She found that the transition from mere member to outspoken activist was fairly easy.
Froman’s passion for shooting is apparent in her personal life: She appears to appreciate a partner who knows how to shoot. Her second husband, who died in 1995, was a law enforcement officer, and so is the man she is currently dating.
One of her early political efforts was getting a law passed in Arizona that would allow most people to carry concealed weapons via an approved permit. Her rise in the NRA followed quickly.
In 1992, Froman ran for the NRA’s board of directors and placed at the top of the ticket. Today, she is the second woman to serve as president.
When the Colt 1851 revolver was invented, she says, “There was a saying that God created men, but Colt made them all equal.”
Portions of this article first appeared in the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
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