First post. Hello all.
I was in my preferred gun shop on Saturday looking for a new addition, and the guy behind the counter reminded me that on Tuesday women shoot for free. He also gave me a free range pass, but you get two when you buy a gun, so let's just say I already had a few. I'm a member of an outdoor range, but it's cold now, and my wife hates all things cold, so I thought "Why not"?
So, on Tuesday, I convinced my wife who recently had an unpleasant encounter to at least come with me to the range. I don't get out of work too early, so we got there at 7:00 - the range closes at 9:00. When I arrived the guy working the range counter said it would be 40 minutes. Ok, no problem, there's lots to look at. I also noticed there was a group of 9 women on a girls' night out. As far as I could tell, none of these women had ever shot before. So an hour went by, and I went back to the range counter to see what was going on. The guy manning the counter, who was happier than a pig in poop with 9 women giving him their undivided attention, was waiting for 9 lanes to open. He had rented each their own handgun ranging from .22 to 357 magnum, each with their own box of ammo. He then proceeded to give each of them a 5 minute speech about how to operate the 9 different handguns. You could see their eyes glassing over. He was explaining the difference between pistol actions, revolver cylinder releases, and on, and on. I assure you, nothing was retained. It was now 8:30, and since it seemed pretty clear to me that either at best we weren't going to shoot and at worst we would get shot, we left. That was my wife's first experience at a range.
In case the focus of my outrage isn't obvious, I can't believe someone would have 9 new shooters essentially shoot by themselves at a crowded indoor range. If there were 9 instructors, fine. If he rented them one gun and gave each individual instruction, fine. But to give 9 completely new shooters their own lane and gun seemed both incredibly dangerous and stupid. 5 minutes of explanation on the 4 rules is not enough before being told to blast away, especially not with a 9 to 1 student to teacher ratio at a crowded indoor range. It also seemed like he was trying to get as much money for the shop as possible at their expense. There is no way these girls were going to safely shoot a 50 ct box of ammo in 30 minutes. At this point, the store was mostly empty, and the gun counter workers were more or less standing around. Did the range guy ask for some helpers? No way, he wanted all the glory.
Maybe I've just been lucky, but that was the dumbest thing I've ever seen associated with guns.