Black women are investing in firearms in a big way.

We told you not long ago that black gun ownership has risen dramatically since Election Day, that the National African American Gun Association has doubled its membership in just a few months.

It turns out that women are doing their part to swell the rolls.

“Minority women are definitely increasing in numbers,” Rick Ector, a Detroit firearms instructor, told Fox News. “Women overall — in particular, minority women — are looking towards guns to protect themselves against crime.”

Stacey Washington, a black conservative columnist with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, agrees, “I believe the reason we’re seeing more women of color joining this movement to use firearms is because they’re realizing this in not a political issue. It really never has been. It’s about personal safety and protection.”

Washington was recently suspended for running an article in her column that attacked another writer’s anti-NRA piece. A firearms expert, Washington says she has no affiliation with the NRA, but has gone to NRA shows to try out weapons.

Guns are important for women, she says, because “a firearm is an equalizer for women because women have a harder time defending themselves when they’re attacked by a man; men have more body mass.”

Ector too believes that guns can help women defend against men with evil in their hearts, noting, “There’s a huge rape problem here in the state of Michigan.” He believes women are increasingly turning to firearms to deter attackers, and that is why now “women make up half the classes” he teaches.

Niecee X, a founder of the Black Women’s Defense League, recently told The Guardian that it’s not just bodily harm that has women reaching for firearms — it is the threat of political harm as well. Now that Donald Trump is president, X says, “a lot of people are feeling unsafe.”

Despite the many factors attributed to the uptick, the data show that it is real. Research conducted by John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center found that “concealed carry has increased most rapidly among black females. From 2000 to 2015, the rate of growth was 3.81 times faster than among white females.”

NRA spokesperson Catherine Mortensen says that her organization welcomes black women with open arms. “The NRA is a natural home for women firearms owners,” she said. “Women … want to be able to protect themselves and their families.”