The sounds of Detroit in summer have changed. No longer does the music of Motown or the mufflers of Motor City reign supreme over the city—at least for one weekend every July. For two days in mid-summer, thousands of women make some noise as they take to the range to fire rounds downrange like their lives depend on it. For 14 years, this has defined the Legally Armed in Detroit (LAID) women’s event. In 2025, however, the range nearly went cold.
To say this year’s event was in question is an understatement after NRA Board member Rick Ector, a well-known firearms instructor in the Detroit region who created and carried out this wildly popular event annually since 2012, suffered a sudden health emergency and was unable to participate in the weekend activities.
Fortunately, against all odds and considerable doubt by many connected to the highly anticipated weekend, the 14th annual event went off as planned in July 2025. By the end of the weekend, more than 1,800 women had learned or refreshed safe gun-handling skills and were given the opportunity to send a series of center-fire ammo downrange. All told, more than 30,000 rounds would be fired over the two days.
For some women, it was their first time firing a handgun. Others were returning participants who wanted to recharge the mindset necessary to be able to defend themselves in a life-threatening situation.
The LAID women’s event has become so significant that NRA Executive Vice President & CEO Doug Hamlin traveled to his hometown to observe for himself what he’d been hearing about for years. “When I arrived, women were lined up outside the building on both sides—one line for classroom instruction and the other waiting for their opportunity for hands-on firearms training with live fire. The enthusiasm never let up throughout the day,” said Hamlin. “Rick Ector has changed the lives of tens of thousands of women. He and his loyal group of volunteers should be commended for everything that they have done for the greater Metropolitan Detroit community.”
Rick Ector (below), founder of Rick’s Firearm Academy, is known in the firearms community for his passion, spirit of enthusiasm, support and ability to foster an environment of camaraderie, especially among women. His name has become synonymous with the event.
“When someone like Rick is in charge and can't attend, you wonder if anyone else can rise to the occasion,” said NRA Board member Todd Ellis, who had volunteered for the 2024 event at Ector’s request, and agreed to return in 2025. Ellis said several volunteers could not attend due to schedule conflicts, but on the first day the group of reduced volunteers still managed to work with 1,109 women. “The next morning we magically found that a number of volunteers had resolved their conflicts and were ready to help.” On that second day, the event ushered through another 709 women.
One of those volunteers who was most instrumental in seeing the event continue was Tanisha Moner, who attended her first LAID women’s event in 2014—then in its third year—when attendance was at about 200. Her involvement with the event has grown so much since then that her ability to connect and organize with all the event’s planned sponsors, volunteers and donors was critical to seeing the 2025 event through. To those on the outside, the event appeared seamless, largely because for years, while Ector was the man out in front, Moner quietly operated in the background as a humble deputy, learning from Ector and soaking in all the details of the operation. To Moner, there was no question that this event would go on. “I gave Rick my word it would happen,” she said.
NRA EVP & CEO Doug Hamlin and chief LAID volunteer Tanisha Moner.
“Tanisha Moner is a real hero because she continues the work that Rick started in his absence due to his illness. She has to be commended,” said Doug Hamlin.
Facing Fears
Moner’s friendship with Ector, whom she says is like a brother to her, began some 15 years earlier when she reached out to him after seeing him on a local TV segment about firearm training for women. Ector had become a well-known figure in the Detroit firearms community, creating the women’s event after seeing a news story about a woman who had been brutally beaten, sexually assaulted and left for dead. Moner was motivated to contact him in hopes that he could help get her past her fear of firearms.
“I decided it was stupid to be afraid of an inanimate object,” said Moner. “Then I saw Rick on the news. He was so passionate … I called him and I told him, ‘I want to take your CPL (Concealed Pistol License) class.” She recalls saying to him, “Look, I’m scared. I’m terrified. But I want to take your class.”
Ector put her at ease. “If you will entrust me, I will get you through it. I promise. I will get you through it,” he told her.
“He was absolutely a man of his word,” said Moner. “He got me through it.”
It wasn’t always the case that Moner feared guns. In fact, she had grown up around firearms with a defense-minded father, and a mother and brother who knew how to use them. Guns were not hidden from them. Rather, she and her brother were taught early gun safety and respect for firearms, as her father removed the mystery of them, including Moner in gun-cleaning sessions. She was never fearful of guns.
That is until at age 17 in the mid 1990s when the unthinkable happened. After sneaking out of the house to call a boy on a payphone at 11 p.m. one night, Moner was abducted at gunpoint, robbed, driven away and sexually assaulted by complete strangers. The serial culprits were eventually caught, having committed multiple rapes, robberies and murders throughout Detroit. Even after that life-changing event, Moner said her crippling fear of firearms didn’t take root until she had a .45-cal. pistol pointed at her during a robbery in her stint as restaurant manager when she was in college. That incident left her with years of PTSD, extreme anxiety, recurring nightmares about being shot—and a paralyzing fear of firearms, especially when she heard loud noises, like balloons popping, let alone firearms being discharged on a gun range.
The phone call to Ector was the first step in reversing the direction of that fear. Moner says after taking Ector’s class, she “lived at the range,” shooting three to four times a week, learning how to take down a pistol and clean it. “When I do something, I am all in,” said Moner. Within a year she was so proficient that Ector asked her to take the NRA Range Safety Officer course, and eventually the NRA Certified Pistol Instructor course. By then she was also assisting in Ector’s pistol classes. It was the third year of the women’s event that Ector asked her to come on as a volunteer. “Who better than you?” he asked.
That year saw about 200 women attend, opening Moner’s eyes to its possibilities. When she arrived, she noticed women “all over place and disorganized,” she said. “This is beautiful, but this ain’t working!” she announced, observing that there was nobody working to keep the range supplied with ammo, no queue. … Women were just there. It was a mess.” Furthermore, she noticed that it was a women’s event but there were no other women besides her working the event. She made mental notes on how she could improve the operations. “Over the years, Rick listened and trusted me,” she said, recalling one day when Ector lost his voice and he asked her to step into his classroom to instruct. “I haven’t come out of the classroom since,” said Moner. Ector had told her, “The classroom is yours.”
These days when Moner is in front of students, she introduces herself and describes her certification. She tells the students, “It means that someone smarter than me thinks I know enough to talk to you today. Sometimes things happen in your life that changes things.”
The Changing Face of the Gun Community
Moner says the landscape of the gun community has changed significantly for the better since she first took Ector’s course. “We now have women instructors and RSOs running the entire range, she said. “Representation is important. You need to see someone who looks like you.”
Even the landscape of attendees of the LAID women’s event has grown since its early days, says Moner. “We have women from every walk of life. That’s what so nice about it,” she said. “Early on most were white women, and we know that gun demographic is what it is. We know that black women are the fastest growing demographic of gun owners.”
Women–especially urban women—are learning how guns are accessible to them too, she said. “They know they can go into a gun store and buy a gun too.” Mone says they have CPL classes running all the time now. “It’s also because of all of the violence reported in the news,” she adds. “They hear it. This is why the face of the event is changing.”
One of Moner’s most memorable LAID events was during COVID in 2020. The Michigan governor had shut down all activities, limiting events to just a few people at a time. Defying orders, Ector knew the show must go on.
“We ignored the ‘Only 10 People’ rule, said Moner. “Women couldn’t get their hair done, go to the mall. No casino. No nothing.” In summer of that year Ector announced the women’s event would take place as planned. “Every woman and her sister and her mom came out—1938 women,” said Moner. “It was beautiful, because our country was in an uproar with riots and protests, and our country was going crazy.”
Moner recalls the event that year “was amazing because it was an election year, and you had black women and white women and Latinas and Muslims and everybody.” Notably, she said she witnessed women wearing “Black Lives Matter” hats standing next to women wearing “MAGA” hats, and women in full Muslim attire—and they were all laughing and talking.
“It was all in the spirit of sisterhood, and it was so beautiful because I’m looking at it thinking, “[The media] says you guys are supposed to hate each other. And they did not,” she said. “They were all there with the same goal and mission, they had a commonality: We’re going to take this free shooting lesson. All the things were going on—COVID, the protests, the riots, the upcoming election; it all went away. None of it mattered on that day, and it was absolutely amazing.
“These are the real people in this country. This isn’t what some Think Tank sits around and says; this is what America is—or what it should be.”
The Women’s Event
As far as logistics of the women’s event, here’s how it works, in general:
A registration page announcing the free shooting event is pushed out through various means, like websites, social media and word of mouth. Thousands of women are invited to shoot, and they can choose from multiple 90-minute session timeslots beginning at 9 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m. over the course of two days. All instructors are volunteers, and with 20 women on the range a one time, there is a one-to-one instructor-student ratio. The weekend sees 35 to 40 volunteer instructors, some of whom stay for the entire event.
All participants are required to go through a safety briefing before they finally pick up their firearms and each send between 10 to 20 rounds downrange.
The event was created for the woman who has very limited or no gun experience at all. However, every woman is welcome, said Moner, noting they had some military and retired military this year, as well as several police officers. “From 12 to 112 years old, they are welcome,” she said. Many women already have Concealed Pistol Licenses; some bring their own guns—but they don’t have to—and most don’t. All materials are supplied free of charge for the event, from the guns, ammunition, targets, eye and ear protection. “She doesn’t need to bring anything but herself,” Moner said.
Behind the scenes, Moner knew who to contact—Rick’s contacts—to make sure the wheels kept turning. Some of those people were Spencer Johnson of the Firearms Legal Protection, who worked with Steve Dulan, representing the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners (the event’s lead financial contributor), to fund the purchase the tens of thousands of rounds MagTech ammo); ATEi owner Douglas Holloway, who donated the majority of firearms supplied for the event (9 mm Glock Models 19 or 17); Will Luker of U.S. Gun Classes, who ran the range and set up the registration and promotional web pages; and the all-important range time offered by Sue Sizemore, manager of Recoil Firearms. “They all looked at me and said, ‘if you’re still in, we’re still in,’ ” said Moner. 2025 was a record-breaking year for attendance on one range for this event.
“So many people were counting this event out,” said Moner. Concerned about attendance, Recoil Firearms manager Sue Sizemore, who closes her doors to business for two days each year to host the event, cautioned Moner that a 2026 event could be in jeopardy, telling her, “I love you and I love this event, but if we don’t get the numbers, we may not be on board for next year.” It took her only a few hours the first day of shooting to set a date for July 2026. “We have to keep this going,” she enthusiastically told Moner.
Creating a Legacy
Thanks to Rick Ector’s foresight and willingness to share his vision, the event has operated like a well-oiled machine.
“Rick felt that this was a need in his community, and his effort to build the program was infectious,” said Todd Ellis. “Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and Rick made sure that every volunteer knew how they were helping all of these women overcome many issues.”
In fact, said Ellis, Rick's role in starting the program will be a part of a new award NRA’s Education and Training Committee is putting together to recognize those instructors who have gone above and beyond as volunteers in their communities. “It's Rick who is an example of someone who meets that lofty accomplishment,” he said.
Ellis emphasizes that programs like this need to be put on in other cities that suffer from crime problems. “New course opportunities will depend on volunteers who can step up, learn how the program is run in Detroit, and pull together a cadre of Instructors and RSOs ready to put in a lot of effort,” he said. “As Chairman of the Education & Training Committee, I'd like to see an additional classroom course being simultaneously offered to anyone not quite ready to head to the firing line.” He notes that NRA's Home Firearm Safety course teaches students about types of firearms, and how to unload them. It touches on topics like safe storage, cleaning firearms, and ammunition knowledge. An abbreviated version of this course is the Gun Safety Seminar. “It's a win-win for everyone,” he says.
Most importantly, Ellis says that it's vital that women become NRA members. Several times throughout the weekend he addressed the women in the classroom hall (180 at a time!) and discussed becoming a member. “I stood in the front of the room with NRA Training Counselor Candy Petticord, an African-American Life member, and explained how together we both represent the interests of the members of our organization,” he says. “There's a saying: A person needs to be asked to join. Together, Candy and I asked these women to join us. With such a positive experience for each woman who attended the event, I hope that many of them join us and help make our organization both richer and stronger.”
As for longtime volunteer Tanisha Moner, she is a self-described product of Rick Ector. “You only have a Tanisha because you had a Rick. I tell people I am truly a Rick Ector production,” she said. “Rick gave birth to this baby,” she said, analogizing it to an infant who, as a newborn, is kept close by its parents. “But by age 2,” said Moner, “that child is happily being handed off to others to hold.” Ector’s “baby” is now a teenager, and because of the many volunteers he trained and entrusted to help him carry out this enormous endeavor, the show will go on.
And it turns out that many women return to the women’s event specifically to hear Moner’s personal story of survival and triumph. When she omitted telling it this year for time’s sake, she took heat from numerous disappointed women who had returned with daughters, nieces, friends and other women whom they thought would benefit from hearing her story. Moner immediately rectified the omission, and recognizing its impact, says she will never omit it again.
Moner, who now works for the city of Detroit, says as long as she is part of the Detroit firearms community, there will be a LAID women’s event. “This is the most rewarding thing I do every single year. It heals my spirit. I promised Rick that as long as I have breath in me and I am able, and as long as I have sponsorships, then I will continue,” said Moner.
The dates for the 2026 event are set for July 25-26. Mark your calendars.
It is common to see many of the participants of the women's event head straight to the gun counter at Recoil to purchase a pistol like they used during the session.
