Amanda Suffecool says she was born with a rattle in one hand and a Ruger in the other. She comes from a family of firearm enthsiasts. The patent-holding engineer turned instructor, turned activist, turned radio host, turned National Rifle Association (NRA) Board member is a fixture in the Second Amendment community. She might be a fixture, but Suffecool is not staying in one place, nor is she slowing down.
“My mother taught Hunter Safety. My grandfather shot trap in the circuit,” said Suffecool. “Some of my earliest memories were actually going around with a pillowcase, picking up wads from the trap fields,” to assistt her grandfather, who would reload shells in the days before reloading was a thing, and they had to reuse the wads.
Suffecool’s father was a collector of Ruger .357 Magnum revolvers. “By the time my father died, he had 37 of exactly the same gun in every manufacturing variation,” Suffecool reflected.
Suffecool says she cut her teeth in the 80s at a company that she described to be a “brain trust.” Classically trained with an engineering degree under her belt, she enjoyed the independence that came at that company.
“They gave everybody the freedom of 10 percent of your time at work, you can work on something only you believe in,” she said. “By the time I left, the company had become a multi-million dollar company.”
As far as becoming a “gun gal,” Suffecool said that the Second Amendment was just something they talked about at the dinner table when she was growing up. But it was not until she was an adult—at 40—that she unintentionally dove head first into the industry as a professional.
It was following workforce reductions that Suffecool had a bit of an existential moment. During a conversation with her brother, business partner and radio co-host, Rob Campbell, he told Suffecool, “If I got to do anything, anything at all … I would open a firearms training business.”
In disbelief, Suffecool proclaimed, “There's no money in that.”
The two discussed the idea, but it wasn’t until after Suffecool said she wrote a business plan—to prove Campbell wrong—that she realized he was right.
“Ohio was passing its concealed carry bill, and so it just all kind of went together,” Suffecool said. “We wrote a business plan about how to be concealed-carry instructors, how to provide the best experience for students, and how different students learn.”
Suffecool and Campbell have remained partners through all of their endeavors. Since they had a training company, the duo figured they should open up a gun shop so they had a place to sell that training. The original plan included several other partners, but one by one, they fell out. With no one else to share the financial burden, they were on their own.
“Ok, what do we do? Because we don't have any money,” Suffecool recalled. “But we had guns. We took guns from our own collections. We took guns from our own closets. We took everything we had that we said, ‘OK, I can live without this one.’ And we stocked the store with $3,000 worth of stuff from Midway and the guns from our own houses. That's how we started. And we ran a gun shop from 2004 to 2016.”
While Suffecool and Campbell weren’t busy training students or running the gun shop, they became radio show hosts on their own show, Eye on the Target Radio.
“We started answering questions about guns and Ohio's concealed carry law … The radio station local to us called us and said, ‘Would you like to come in and answer a couple questions? We'd like to do a 20-minute segment,’” Suffecool talked about her early days behind the microphone.
“Rob and I went into the station, and our 20-minute segment turned into three hours. Then they invited us back a month later. It was another three hours. Then they called us and said, ‘Would you like an hour-long show of your own once a month?’ Sure. That was September of 2010. By January of 2011, they had moved it to an hour long show once a week.”
Eye on the Target Radio is the only nationally syndicated radio show on the Second Amendment that’s hosted by a woman.
The advocacy and activism followed. Suffecool has been involved with Women for Gun Rights, the group formerly known as the DC Project, for years. She also began hosting concealed-carry fashion shows, of which she wrote a book about, and she launched a 501(c)(3). All in her spare time.
Racking up speaking engagements and lectures at events such as the Gun Rights Policy Conference, Alternative Mass Media Conference, the Ambassador Academy, and her local/state GOP’s events, Suffecool became more and more in demand.
Ultimately Suffecool returned to her career as an engineer, a decision that helped her really decide who she wanted to be when she grew up.
“In 2022, there was a shift. I wanted to be involved in some stuff that was happening in the Second Amendment world, and I was doing that on the side,” Suffecool said. “And I had an opportunity to go to New York to be interviewed for ‘Time Magazine,’ and I couldn't because I was doing an aerospace audit. I had an invitation to go to Mar-a-Lago, and I couldn't because I was doing an aerospace audit.
“I was like, ‘Look, this job thing is getting in the way of interesting, fun things that could make a difference.’ Come to find out, my friends were on the front cover of ‘Time Magazine,’ and I was not.”
Suffecool said she decided to retire at 60. “Yes, 60,” she said. “I am past 60. I reassessed my bucket list,” Suffecool said reflecting about the change in gear. “I want to take a couple firearms training classes someplace in the country every year. I want to get involved in some not-for-profits. I want to give people who are doing good work a hand up. And I want to be involved with the NRA.”
Suffecool explained that she submitted her paperwork to the NRA’s Nominating committee for four years in a row. That fourth year, the committee selected her to be on the ballot in 2023. She has served on the Board since her election.
Why the NRA? Suffecool said because it’s been “around for 150 years, and I want it to be there for another 150 years.” She noted that she wanted to be involved in the preservation and reform of the Association, and she wasn’t going to let it come to an end. “Not on my watch,” she warned.
What’s the future look like for Amanda Suffecool? “It’s bright,” she said. “There's so much stuff that can be done. I’m living in the best place. I really think right now, I think I'm doing good work.”
She continued, “The Second Amendment is in a shift to where—I don't think that a lot of the population really understands just what's happening at the Supreme Court level and at the concealed carry level and at the women's shooting clubs level—and so the dynamic within there is shifting. Just shifting fast.
“To be a female that is knowledgeable about manufacturing, and about guns, and about concealed carry, and being able to be articulate and speak in public … It's just, it's just a great place to be.”
Follow Suffecool and her work at EyeOnTheTargetRadio.com.
Listen to this full interview here.
