Photographer documents heat-packing women and the guns they love

Nearly 200,000 Texas women hold licenses to carry a concealed handgun, and the number of licenses issued to women has tripled in the last four years.

While their reasons for packing heat vary, one thing is for sure: These women won't hesitate to pull the trigger if their, or a loved one's, life depends on it.

Photographer Shelley Calton is one of them. In an effort to document and elucidate women's roles in modern gun culture, Carlton took portraits women in her native Lone Star State for her book "Concealed: She's Got a Gun."

You can buy the book in Europe in March and in the US in September, or preorder it on her website.