LEO cowboys
I'm one of a group of all-volunteer chaperones. The dire legal costs and consequences for an AD (somebody choose--accidental death or accidental discharge) are so high that I won't be challenged on my range policies. In that regard, I think my colleagues are just as intolerant. I know that if something bad happens because I was lax, somebody's gonna sue the club and the Board of Directors, and sooner or later they'll get around to suin' me, and I didn't save all my life to make somebody else's life easier because I didn't have the balls to spank idiocy.
Questions are always welcome, with discussion back and forth if procedures are asked to be changed, and I think we're pretty amenable (hell, we've let'em cut loose with full auto M-16's whenever they have to for qualifying, and we're not out in the woods by any means...). We (at least, I) are not gruff nor belligerent in our treatment of any shooter when we RO; unless we sense that our gun-handling instructions are being ignored or taken lightly. To my knowledge, only 2 qualifying LEO's have ever been banned (and that was for the day only) for poor gun-handling; they were allowed to return on other occasions after they demonstrated familiarity with the weapon in question. In both cases they didn't ignore us; they just couldn't concentrate on gun-handling procedures well enough while handling an obviously 'new' weapon. One was a petite woman who kept pointing her M-16 over the hill while hot, and the other a man who swept twice, the second time, his own feet while shotgunning.
The hot shots and their attitudes don't last very long; we won't tolerate it. That's LEO or not.
We're a public range, too. NO ONE has the "right of way" except the RO. I've been a regular visitor to 4 public ranges; I've never seen LEO's shoot among the "common" people. That is, they've never come in uniform so everyone knows who they are and just taken a couple of stalls. They seem to always come as a large group (necessitating they shoot on a "closed range") or incognito.
In either case, LEO status doesn't give them any special gun-handling privileges whether they're amongst each other or out in public (except the aforementioned private [and approved per shooter per stage] full-auto practice). That these bozos Skunk mentioned were out in a local event and they were identifiable somehow as LEO's doesn't change the fact that the RO is 'god'. That range needs new RO's; I wouldn't shoot there until at least a new policy was enforced. The current RO's showed how lightly they take their task. They're watching my back when I shoot, and in general, public shooters handle guns at least as poorly.
If it was acknowledged that these LEO's came as a group, and more than one objected or disdained the gun-handling instructions, the ranking officer (if there was one) should have been pulled aside privately and threatened with an immediate and permanent ban of his department unless a deferrent attitude towards the RO's gun-related decisions was displayed by ALL. If no one admitted to being the senior officer, then the individual violators should be banned for the day, immediately on their next violation. In both cases, letterhead should be used (naming names and badge numbers) to inform the department chief of the action, with a copy kept by the gun club's secretary.
If the violators won't comply and leave, tell them you'll "cold" the firing line and dismantle the event or call a different Law Enforcement department--County Sheriff, State Troopers, any other armed entity will do. If you have to make the call, just say a 'contentious man with a gun' will not follow instructions at the range. You'll get a pretty quick and serious response. When we had the 2 belligerent local PD's put out (the violator [horizontal shoulder holster w/ cocked and locked] and his partner, both undercover), 2 Sheriffs in 2 cars showed up to do it in 3 minutes. I'd have thought embarrassment woulda been enough to make them comply with the range rules.
