I was disappointed this weekend to find some odd/disturbing behavior while teaching my "future niece" the basics of rifle shooting. Some of this behavior can be attributed to mental illness, some is just plain stupid. I figured I would post and see what other members had witnessed. If you live in or around Austin, try to guess what range this is.
To start off, my niece is from Florida, and her parents are somewhat anti-gun. We had planned this trip for 3 months now and she was quite excited, as was I.
To start the day off I gave a brief general gun safety lecture and then proceeded to show her gun specific gun safety. Fortunately for my niece’s confidence we were the only ones at the range for a good while. The trouble started off about 1-2 hours after we had been there. The owner of the ranges/local crazy person hitched a ride up to the 100 yard range with a shooter that had just arrived. That in and of it self was just fine, no problems there. The new shooter setup all his equipment while talking to the range owner.
Since the shooter that just arrived was shooting .22 cal rimfires and I was giving instruction in between shots I was putting on / taking off earmuffs off as was my 13 year old niece during live fire conditions. What we proceeded to hear was some of the craziest conversation we had ever heard. While this new shooter started shooting the range owner kept talking about how "Chinese people were really space aliens from Mars' second moon that had landed 8000 years ago he had evidence that could prove it, and that is why they were technology leaders." also how "Blacks were inferior because they came from Jupiter on a makeshift space craft 2000 years go" and how all this was a known fact.
Keep in mind; these are not direct quotes because what they really said would get me banned on this form.
The conversation took a quick turn to the apocalypse and how we will all be killed on Sept. 29th 2005. All the while my 13 year old niece was hearing all of this.
During the conversation of the apocalypse a older man appeared from our 7 o'clock dressed in full battle gear, full survival pack ,full camo face paint, armed with what I counted to be 4 guns. 3 pistols and 1 AR-type rifle. It must have been at least 80lbs of gear on this guy. He then comes up to the range and all 3 of them sit down and talk.
I picked up little of this conversation because at this point I was just trying to keep my niece shooting and her ears off their discussion. I did manage to pick up something about how this "commando" had been out there for 2 days "living off the land" and practicing "battle tactics". From what I picked up this appeared to be his first contact with humans in 3 days.
They then proceeded to talk about the end of the world and more space ship landing crap and something about people being assimilated into the decks of US Navy ships in the bramudia triangle.
Somewhere during their conversation I made it clear that we were calling a cease fire and would be going down range. At this, the range owner soon jumped to his feet and came staggering to me and made some unintelligible comment about women shooting and how they don't belong here. I kind of laughed out of nervousness and just to "play along" and jokingly answered saying in a few more trips to the range she would outshoot him. He seemed somewhat angry, muffled something under his breath and stumbled back to the lunch bench that he and his group were sitting at.
With that, we grabbed our targets about 15 minutes later and left. My niece said she had one of the best times of her life, but she was obviously "put down" by what the man had said and was scared by these absolute psycho’s that were there. I assured her that this was not the norm and will be taking her to my "members only" range to clarify what the real gun community is really like.
Just had to share this, it was absolutely the craziest thing I have ever seen at a gun range. I considered calling the police to see if they could take this guy to an instutition, but then I realised I would be cheating 1/2 of Austin out of a range. Anyone else have an experience like this? Or been to this range and seen the same thing?
To start off, my niece is from Florida, and her parents are somewhat anti-gun. We had planned this trip for 3 months now and she was quite excited, as was I.
To start the day off I gave a brief general gun safety lecture and then proceeded to show her gun specific gun safety. Fortunately for my niece’s confidence we were the only ones at the range for a good while. The trouble started off about 1-2 hours after we had been there. The owner of the ranges/local crazy person hitched a ride up to the 100 yard range with a shooter that had just arrived. That in and of it self was just fine, no problems there. The new shooter setup all his equipment while talking to the range owner.
Since the shooter that just arrived was shooting .22 cal rimfires and I was giving instruction in between shots I was putting on / taking off earmuffs off as was my 13 year old niece during live fire conditions. What we proceeded to hear was some of the craziest conversation we had ever heard. While this new shooter started shooting the range owner kept talking about how "Chinese people were really space aliens from Mars' second moon that had landed 8000 years ago he had evidence that could prove it, and that is why they were technology leaders." also how "Blacks were inferior because they came from Jupiter on a makeshift space craft 2000 years go" and how all this was a known fact.
Keep in mind; these are not direct quotes because what they really said would get me banned on this form. The conversation took a quick turn to the apocalypse and how we will all be killed on Sept. 29th 2005. All the while my 13 year old niece was hearing all of this.
During the conversation of the apocalypse a older man appeared from our 7 o'clock dressed in full battle gear, full survival pack ,full camo face paint, armed with what I counted to be 4 guns. 3 pistols and 1 AR-type rifle. It must have been at least 80lbs of gear on this guy. He then comes up to the range and all 3 of them sit down and talk.
I picked up little of this conversation because at this point I was just trying to keep my niece shooting and her ears off their discussion. I did manage to pick up something about how this "commando" had been out there for 2 days "living off the land" and practicing "battle tactics". From what I picked up this appeared to be his first contact with humans in 3 days.
They then proceeded to talk about the end of the world and more space ship landing crap and something about people being assimilated into the decks of US Navy ships in the bramudia triangle.
Somewhere during their conversation I made it clear that we were calling a cease fire and would be going down range. At this, the range owner soon jumped to his feet and came staggering to me and made some unintelligible comment about women shooting and how they don't belong here. I kind of laughed out of nervousness and just to "play along" and jokingly answered saying in a few more trips to the range she would outshoot him. He seemed somewhat angry, muffled something under his breath and stumbled back to the lunch bench that he and his group were sitting at.
With that, we grabbed our targets about 15 minutes later and left. My niece said she had one of the best times of her life, but she was obviously "put down" by what the man had said and was scared by these absolute psycho’s that were there. I assured her that this was not the norm and will be taking her to my "members only" range to clarify what the real gun community is really like.
Just had to share this, it was absolutely the craziest thing I have ever seen at a gun range. I considered calling the police to see if they could take this guy to an instutition, but then I realised I would be cheating 1/2 of Austin out of a range. Anyone else have an experience like this? Or been to this range and seen the same thing?
Sheesh - were they having a day off their med's or what! 
