Apopka, Fla. ? Monday is Ladies Night, and Lorrie McNally is a regular here. So is her 62-year-old mom.

The air is thick and smoky, and the place is packed. People are forced to shout over the boom, boom, boom.

But these women aren’t clutching cocktails – they’re gripping guns. Ladies Night at the Shoot Straight gun range means women don’t pay.

McNally trains her eyes on a neon-orange target nearly 20 feet away. She pulls the trigger 17 times, pausing only momentarily between each shot, eyeing the spot where the slug punctures the target.

“I wouldn’t want her shooting at me,” her boyfriend remarked about her accuracy.

That’s the fear McNally hopes to instill. Ten years ago, McNally found herself on the other end of a gun, when she was nearly abducted in broad daylight from a mall parking lot. Her screams saved her then, but she vowed that next time – should there be one – she would not rely on her lungs to save her. Next time, her attackers would be looking down the barrel of her gun.

McNally, 39, represents a growing number of women who have armed themselves for personal safety.

Shooting ranges are reporting a marked increase in the number of women taking aim, signing up for concealed-weapons courses and making purchases. On a recent Saturday, more than 200 women attended a six-hour introductory firearms workshop – an event that keeps growing each year.

Nationwide, the National Rifle Association’s “Women on Target” program has grown from 500 participants in 2000 to 6,000 this year.

“Women are the largest-growing demographic in the gun industry,” NRA spokeswoman Ashley Varner said.

McNally practices shooting each week. The 5-foot-6-inch, 129-pound mortgage broker slams a magazine into her 9 mm semiautomatic and pulls the slide back, creating a ch-ch sound. She takes aim at the target and fires away, her bracelets jingling at each pull of the trigger.

“I keep it on me wherever I go,” she said when finished.

The mother of an 18-year-old son, she keeps a Springfield semiautomatic in her purse and a Beretta pistol at home or in her glove box.

“I think it’s more important for women with small children to own a gun because you can’t run when you have children,” she said.

Two years ago, one in 10 of Shoot Straight’s students was a woman. Now, ladies make up about 40 percent of its gun classes, said Larry Anderson, manager of the Shoot Straight in Apopka.

Known as security moms, these women, the NRA says, are arming themselves with weapons in the belief that they are the first line of defense against crime, especially since the Sept. 11 attacks sent a wave of fear into American communities.