So at the range today.....

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herr walther wrote:
An open handed slug to his shoulder got him back and a statement of "Touch me again and I put you on your a**" let me finish my range therapy in peace.

Didn't they teach you about de-escalating a conflict when you got your CHL?
 
Reno 380 wrote:
I can not believe how some people can do something so dumb, and never realize how close to death they were.

And that is a point that should not be overlooked.

The "carpenter" clearly didn't understand what he was doing or the inherent danger, but from your account it doesn't sound like anyone explained it to him. What he was doing was clearly an immediate danger and had to be stopped immediately. But, once the RM had control of the weapon, it seems the next course of action should have been to take the guy out of the range, into a side room and proceed to educate him on what he was doing that was wrong. From the description of the event, the guy left the range no wiser than he was when he arrived, but with anger over being ejected that would likely prevent him from ever engaging in the introspection required to discover the error for himself.
 
I guess the RM figured this was self explanitary that a handgun is not and should never be used as a hammer.
 
Didn't they teach you about de-escalating a conflict when you got your CHL?

Not part of the course in our state. But at the point someone aggressively grabs you, there isn't a whole lot of potential neutralizing the situation at that point. In any case, this happened about 5 years ago. And the RM in question should be eligible for parole in a year or two. Ironic that he will likely never own a legal firearm ever again.
 
Reno 380 wrote:
I guess the RM figured this was self explanitary [sic] that a handgun is not and should never be used as a hammer.

Well, what is self-evident to both of us was obviously not self-evident to the man I will refer to as the "carpenter" since he was using the slide to "hammer" his round into the chamber.

And my point was that simply throwing him out, and - at least as far as the RM's announcement was concerned, voiding his membership - would simply make the "carpenter" defensive and would thus not: 1) allow him to understand what he did wrong - and why it was not only wrong, but dangerous, 2) would not allow other members who didn't see the pistol used as an extemporized hammer know why someone was ejected, 3) it deprived the club of the "carpenter's" monthly dues, and 4) if - as may well have happened - the "carpenter" was ultimately allowed back in, the authority of the RM was undermined.

As I said before, the RM had to act and his actions had to be immediate and forceful. But, after the RM had control of the weapon, the time for forceful action was over and the time for education, instruction, and "repentance" on the part of the "carpenter" had begun.
 
Well, what is self-evident to both of us was obviously not self-evident to the man I will refer to as the "carpenter" since he was using the slide to "hammer" his round into the chamber.

And my point was that simply throwing him out, and - at least as far as the RM's announcement was concerned, voiding his membership - would simply make the "carpenter" defensive and would thus not: 1) allow him to understand what he did wrong - and why it was not only wrong, but dangerous, 2) would not allow other members who didn't see the pistol used as an extemporized hammer know why someone was ejected, 3) it deprived the club of the "carpenter's" monthly dues, and 4) if - as may well have happened - the "carpenter" was ultimately allowed back in, the authority of the RM was undermined.

As I said before, the RM had to act and his actions had to be immediate and forceful. But, after the RM had control of the weapon, the time for forceful action was over and the time for education, instruction, and "repentance" on the part of the "carpenter" had begun.

Glad some said this, since I was about to write pretty much the same thing. The type of person with the inclination to think that banging a perfectly good pistol on the floor to close the slide, is probably the type of person whose gonna double down about it if you don't explain it to him nicely after giving them a lollipop. After all, that would be how you treat a toddler who keeps banging action figures on the floor. I really don't see how kicking him out permanently made anything better, for exactly the same reasons mentioned. If anything he needs more trigger time and not less, and I really doubt it corrected his mindset.

Though too bad we will never hear about his next adventure at a gun range. That should be interesting... :D
 
Though too bad we will never hear about his next adventure at a gun range. That should be interesting... :D

I'm not so sure...if someone dies in his next "adventure", the antis will parade it all over.

I think the RM was trying to get the idiot off the property before he hurt himself or someone else.

It's not the RM's job to teach this fool gun safety when lives are in danger.
 
In actuality, we don't know why the RM acted as he did with this particular customer. For all we know, the customer could easily have been a repeat offender with ignorance as his weapon. The powers that be may have already decided this was the last opportunity for the customer. So, who knows? All we know really is that the OP took proper actions upon encountering a dangerous situation at the range.
 
I'm not so sure...if someone dies in his next "adventure", the antis will parade it all over.

I think the RM was trying to get the idiot off the property before he hurt himself or someone else.

It's not the RM's job to teach this fool gun safety when lives are in danger.

The issue is that kicking the person out doesn't eliminate the problem. It just makes it someone else's problem. But Apachedriver is right, who knows. Maybe he got wise about it and was beyond salvation.

On a similar note, maybe it's just because I pay more attention to my own state, but here in Florida these things make the news with some regularity. I still feel a ton of pity for the father whose ricochet killed his son about a year ago. Seemed like incredibly bad luck and not really negligence, but regardless it's a horrible situation.

CNN - 'The gun didn't kill my boy. I did': Father grieves son he accidentally shot
 
As a collector, mistreatment of a weapon like this makes me cringe. Of course the personal safety aspect is more important, but this is how guns go from "excellent" condition to "fair" condition.

When I worked at a range I had a local "child" come up and ask me if I could glue the two halves of his TEC-9 frame back together....it had some marks on it...
 
The dumb ass who slammed his handgun onto the floor easily could have been a refugee from NJ/NY/MA who had hardly ever touched a gun.

Most of those transplants seem to have bypassed the FL Panhandle and gone much further south.
 
The issue is that kicking the person out doesn't eliminate the problem. It just makes it someone else's problem. But Apachedriver is right, who knows. Maybe he got wise about it and was beyond salvation.

Which is one reason why I have never kicked anyone off a range, in the hundreds of people I have taught. Many shooters don't learn from their mistakes. And even during target practice a mistake can be deadly. One of my problem students thought the only way to tell if a firearm was loaded was to look down the barrel. Now she is a police officer in a major metropolitan area, and she really hates it when I tell that story about how bad she was at the start.
 
Am I the only one who finds your description of events very confusing?

What kind of rifle has a slide?

Assuming that you probably meant "bolt", or that their is some kind of rifle that actually has a slide, how is it that the buttstock didn't hit the floor before the "slide" did when he was hammering it against the concrete? What kind of rifle has a "slide" that extends further to the rear than the buttstock?


What rifle has a slide? I have never seen one, I have seen a bolt, forestock, lever and a charging handle, plus the butt and stock would get in the way of the slide to hammer the slide shut on the floor.
Reno
 
I can not believe how some people can do something so dumb, and never realize how close to death they were.

Doctors, medicine, helmets, various pads and protectors, seat belts, air bags, video games and other things that cause people to not learn simple lessons or natural selection to occur.

In the old days we would say "well bless their heart", these days it's "you should file a lawsuit."

There is lots of ignorance in the world today just because people have never been exposed to the knowledge required to do things properly.

Look at liberals, they are the same way about even ideas. They throw a tantrum at the drop of the hat, despite not having a clue about what someone might say.
 
In actuality, we don't know why the RM acted as he did with this particular customer. For all we know, the customer could easily have been a repeat offender with ignorance as his weapon. The powers that be may have already decided this was the last opportunity for the customer. So, who knows? All we know really is that the OP took proper actions upon encountering a dangerous situation at the range.


I was reading the posts first to see if this was said yet, and here it is, this is what I was going to say, it was my first time seeing this, this could be a string of bad behaviors over the month(s) or year, I have seen this RM speak to people and explain very thoroughly, my wife is one as stated earlier you can not teach your wife to shoot, I learned the hard way, He came over and said basically the same thing I said to her but she actually listened and improved on safety protocol and firing her weapon.....go figure....then I get the silent treatment for week because I said "gee, I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks..." LOL!!!

-=Reno=-
 
Had a d-bag recently give me a dirty look when I advised him there was a line on the floor indicating the minimum allowable shooting distance at the local range. Guess he didn't want to look like a noob in front of his date.....whom he promptly allowed to shoot an auto pistol with her off hand thumb across her shooting wrist. She left with a bandaged knuckle......alone, lol.
 
So, here's an observation on the Tampa area indoor ranges. The newest, biggest range seems to always have the craziest people, patrons and employees. Back when Shooting Sports on Dale Mabry was pretty much the only game in town, they had the weekend warrior, "Billy Bad ***'s" in there shooting, with the over zealous, holier than thou, employees running the place. When Shoot Straight opened, the crazies migrated there, and now they're at Shooters World. A few were siphoned off to Florida Firearms Academy, but the owners have kept a pretty good handle on things there. I refuse to go back to Shooters World, which is too bad. They have the biggest, cleanest range and the largest selection of product on hand, but it only takes a handful of pompous (or clueless) staff members, or a few grossly incompetent patrons to ruin a trip to the range. And I've encountered both each time I've visited Shooters World. No sir, not for me. My favorites now are back to Shooting Sports, or Bill Jackson's. They're not the latest and greatest, but they're the best, in my opinion, for knoledgable staff, responsible patrons and an all around good experience.
 
I don't see much problem with just kicking the carpenter out.
A round fires when something strikes the back. This is the physics of the firearm, and in his case an instance of not thinking, not necessarily not knowing.
You can educate ignorance, but you can't fix stupid.
 
And I wonder why I don't go to the range more . . .

There are guns which DO have a written instructions for the user to beat on them - the M16. Command forced the inclusion of the Forward Assist where the operator strikes the control to forcibly push the round into the chamber when the flying bolt doesn't have enough momentum to do the job.

Obviously some disagree with it's use. The people who demanded it were mostly WWII vets. Think about that.

The corrective action to free the now jammed round and bolt? Forcibly striking the butt on the ground while keeping the muzzle directed away from the operator. Wow, lets add more to an already bad situation. And if that doesn't work, place butt on ground and kick the charging handle. We go from bad to worse.

All this was invented and approved by professionals. Yet in the 22 years of service I performed, it was rare, and both being supervised and acting on the firing line I was never instructed nor needed to put my hands on anyone for a safety violation, either. We put our hands on the weapon, only.

As for going full retard screaming and manhandling someone, never saw it when troops were handling loaded weapons. Ever. Think about it - we were training other people the skills of how to kill.

Far too many fail to realize that is exactly why we carry - to stop others from manhandling us or demanding we obey their orders. We are giving others the skills to prevent it. Think twice before you become the exact reason we do it.

You give respect you get respect. Cross that line and you are no longer on valid grounds - you step out of the shelter of the Constitution, you are no longer protected by it. You then reap what you sow. Anyone who thinks they can put hands on another armed male had better have good reason - and not because of some arcane safety violation on a privately owned range.

I certainly think Mr. Carpenter was going too far and likely deserved loss of his membership, I also see someone putting their hands on me on the firing line being immediately assessed as a physical threat. Thinking that is an appropriate way to handle things goes to that individual not being appropriately instructed or supervised in how to act safely in their best interests. Just some range hoodlum who's been given license to be overbearing, who hasn't learned that what comes around goes around.

Pick your fights carefully, the entire purpose of learning to handle firearms is to make men EQUAL where one made the error they weren't. It can either be done politely or you can reap what you sow.

As for any business instructing their safety employee to ever put hands on a paying customer? I'd like to see what their insurer has to say about that, and the demonstrated effect in deescalation. I've been given to believe - by my instructors, both military and LEO - that you only go hands on when all other means of communication have failed to elicit the appropriate behavior. And that is when someone is demonstrating lethal intent.

Pogoing a handgun on the floor isn't a good way to fix a loading problem, but its not lethal intent - give that some thought and then consider another rule handed us to help human behavior:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Now, justify going full retard screaming and putting hands on you.
 
All this was invented and approved by professionals. Yet in the 22 years of service I performed, it was rare, and both being supervised and acting on the firing line I was never instructed nor needed to put my hands on anyone for a safety violation, either. We put our hands on the weapon, only.

In 8 years I can count the number of times I forcibly laid hands on a student during the range on one hand. Not a single one was an Infantry soldier. One soldier was a female who did not heed the command of keeping her barrel pointed down the range. She also started walking away from the firing lane without having her chamber checked by the RS, so the magazine was still in the weapon. I stopped her, cleared the weapon, and corrected the orientation of the rifle for safety. The only other time was a soldier who got irate while holding a live grenade. Not only was he tackled by myself and another person, he was dishonorably discharged.
 
Try Tenoroc in Lakeland. If the maniac range officer (pistol, shotgun & short range rifle section) is still there, you'll be fine. He's a stickler and rides the hell out of anyone who demonstrates such idiocy (and for much more minor infractions). Plus it's outdoors & under cover.
 
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