The right to bear arms is a right not many women exercise in Missouri. Women arm themselves nearly four times less than men in many Missouri counties. One Ozarks woman says she's proof that should change.

Jane Downey loves guns. She collects them and is almost always carrying one.
Downey says, "It's important to protect myself but it's also a sense of sport."
Downey usually carries her .38 special air weight. She says, "It's my protector."

One night Downey needed protection when someone broke into her sister's home. Downey says, "I noticed the door frame was broken and thought that's not good."

Downey checked the whole house to see if the intruder was still inside and she found him in the master bedroom closet. She says, "I started to open it and he said ‘I'm still in here’ and I said that's a good place for you to stay.” Downey says the man was in no shape to put up a fight. She says, "He told me he took about three bottles worth of pills." Downey says the suspect, Raymond Craig, even started crying in the closet. Downey says, "He knew he was in trouble and he needed a tissue so I let him get a tissue. Then I made him sit on the toilet." Craig sat until officers arrived.

Cedar County Sheriff Aaron Spillman says, "She was very cool calm and showed a lot of restraint in a stressful situation.” A situation she says she was prepared thanks to a conceal and carry class she took in Springfield. Downey says, "Everything he said to do in that class I did. He told me to establish a distance and let them know who was in charge." Not many Ozarks women are like Downey. Women made up only 12.1% Greene County's conceal and carry classes. In the last five years 2,266 conceal and carry licenses have been issued in Greene County. Only 275 were issued to women. In cedar county out of 153 conceal and carry licenses filed last year only 31 were women. Downey says, "I feel it’s very important for women to know how to protect themselves and not become a victim. Something Downey is proud to say she didn't become.

The suspected burglar had to go to the hospital before jail because of the prescription pills he took. The prosecutor charged him with stealing prescription medication and first degree burglary.