Am I the only one who finds the loons while looking for a place to shoot?

[stubbicatt]

Yep. Gotta wake up early and get there before the yahoos. Most of the hard core yahoos are sleeping it off at that hour.

 

[taliv]

so let me get this straight...

you encounter young shooters at a gun range, attempting to have fun and train, and you observe what you perceive to be a lack of safety and courtesy. and rather than encourage them, and coach and mentor them, and politely ask for some space on the line, you decide the correct action is to come whine on the anonymous internet, call them names, and air your biases against military style weapons?


i find your collective behavior reprehensible. how do you think these people will learn safe and responsible gun handling if YOU don't help them? you are cowards. you should be setting an example, not deriding people who like a different style of shooting.

 

[longshot7.62x51]

I personally love seeing people"run drills" and have no problem teaching them the proper way to do it. If 11 years in the army has taught me any thing is most 20 somethings want to learn and will listen once you have their attaion. I have met vary few rude people on ranges over the years. Ask what they up to and explain that it my not be a good idea. Slot of them have been misled about firearms and explosives since they where young be the teacher and show them what right looks like. I train on my own dime cause I love my job and mil wont let you use their ranges for personal use. I also hunt and reload shooting is fun sticking to one disciplain is great but doing a run and gun every now and then really puts those skills to the test. Variety is the spice of life

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I thought it was bad when I showed up at the local gun club I used to live within driving distance of only to find some mall ninja want to "running drills" with his AR and taking up whole shooting ranges ( there were multiple). Who want to shoot next to that? But it was not to bad because we had multiple places to safely shoot at the range.

LOL, so you are complaining about this guy because he wasn't shooting the way you thought he should be shooting, despite the fact that you had multiple places to safely shoot at the range? Wow!

 

[Corpral_Agarn]

so let me get this straight...

you encounter young shooters at a gun range, attempting to have fun and train, and you observe what you perceive to be a lack of safety and courtesy. and rather than encourage them, and coach and mentor them, and politely ask for some space on the line, you decide the correct action is to come whine on the anonymous internet, call them names, and air your biases against military style weapons?


i find your collective behavior reprehensible. how do you think these people will learn safe and responsible gun handling if YOU don't help them? you are cowards. you should be setting an example, not deriding people who like a different style of shooting.

I joined this forum because it is "high road." That doesn't sound like the best example of a post to me.
While I encourage folks to help and guide others I can fully understand not wanting to risk one's life to teach and instruct people who have not interest in learning safety or proper range manners. There are times to help and times to leave. Lets not start judging folks for doing what they thought was best.

 

[taliv]

the judging started in the OP. Freedom is a function of a virtuous people. Maintaining that virtue through generations requires the courage to go talk to people when they are misbehaving. The time to leave is after you've talked to them and they still refuse to be safe and courteous.

 

[grubbylabs]

NO where in my long list of certifications and trainings over my life time have I ever had or been trained to be a shooting instructor. And when my family which includes my wife and small children ranging in ages 1-7 are with me, that is the absolute last time to approach some one who is armed. They could be the nicest people in the world or the lowest form of life, I have no way of knowing. If I were alone, maybe, but then again I am not a shooting instructor.

"training" is fine, but there is a county range where any one who is a member of law enforcement of any kind is allowed to shoot. That range is built and designed for just their purposes.

The club range was was not. Fire arms are meant to be shot in one direction, down range, not side ways where a bullet could ricochet in the wrong direction.

 

[taliv]

i'm not buying any of that.

despite a lack of formal instruction, you easily identified a safety violation and knew how to remediate it. your 800+ posts here demonstrate a fundamental proficiency with grammar and ability to communicate.

Putting your wife and small children ages 1-7 on public roads was far more dangerous than speaking to an armed stranger at a public range.

Maybe we should have some threads about how to politely speak to people at a range and how to correct safety violations, but at the end of the day, you're the one who has to develop the courage to actually talk to people.

If YOU don't encourage safety, inevitable incidents will lead to inevitable range closures, and then where will you shoot? the RKBA will disappear. Don't delegate your responsibility to some non-existent instructor. Speak up.

 

[hirundo82]

So what I'm gathering is that if you're law enforcement it is OK to train to shoot while moving on your department's range, but the rest of us should know our place and just shoot with bolt rifles from the bench. I'm going to have to take that under advisement.

 

[Corpral_Agarn]

You and yours First... Everyone else Second.

Despite what some of our fellow High Roaders think, I think the OP did the right thing. He saw a situation, determined that it was not a place he should have his family and left.
If I had my family with me and saw an unsafe situation involving firearms, or any unsafe situation for that matter, and it was easily avoidable, I would have done the same. Waaaayyyy to many people are careless with firearms and while I agree that someone should be helping them out and showing them the way to do things, making sure your family is safe is NUMBER ONE.

I would seriously hesitate before I called anyone a "coward" for making sure his family was safe. And to me, that is not what this forum should be about.
While it may be that I don't agree with absolutely everything the OP mentioned I solidly agree with making sure your family is safe. If that makes me a "coward" to some one on the internet, then so be it. I think I can live with that.
Grammar, Training, Manners, or number of posts on an internet forum shouldn't really be determining factors in how you respond to a situation you deem unsafe for you or your family.
I say good job, OP. Keep on keeping your family as safe as possible.

 

[grubbylabs]

hirundo82, If that is what you want to take from that then go right ahead. But you should really read what I have written.

I did speak to the people the other day, it did not cross their mind that they should consider sharing the range, or shooting in a safer direction. If they cannot see something that simple in a short conversation then I am not going to deal with it while I have my whole family in my car with me. Like I said, If I was by my self I would have asked them if they would consider sharing the range.

As far as the club indecent goes, while people are actively shooting and being unsafe I am not going to approach them. One of the many things I have learned over my professional career is scene safety, if it's not safe don't go or stay. I could have and did let the higher ups at the range know.

 

[hirundo82]

Despite what some of our fellow High Roaders think, I think the OP did the right thing. He saw a situation, determined that it was not a place he should have his family and left.
If I had my family with me and saw an unsafe situation involving firearms, or any unsafe situation for that matter, and it was easily avoidable, I would have done the same. Waaaayyyy to many people are careless with firearms and while I agree that someone should be helping them out and showing them the way to do things, making sure your family is safe is NUMBER ONE.

Clearly the recent situation described in the OP was grossly irresponsible and unsafe behavior on the part of those people. However, in the first situation and many others described in this thread, the complaint seems to be not unsafe behavior but people 1) shooting guns the poster isn't a fan of and 2) in a manner other than how the poster prefers to shoot.

 

[wgaynor]

...and yet another thread that takes a turn towards the ugly.

 

[mcdonl]

Yeah, this got harsh. I agree, that education is important but I also have children, have brought them to the range and would probably opt to move on with my wife and kids instead of educating the other shooters there at that time. Courage has nothing to do with it, and that was pretty low road behavior to the OP. Not something I am used to from a moderator who is very skilled, knowledgable and typically fair. I guess we all get our panties in a twist from time to time.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

devolved. I'm out.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

Everyone says there's this crazy guy that no one wants to talk to who hangs out all the time at our range. I'm there pretty much every day and I've never run into him.

I think this one is done.