Thread: Range Idiots...

So I usually shoot at public ranges with no range officer.
Took a kid I know who likes to shoot and his new to shooting girlfriend out last summer.
She has CP and is in a wheelchair so I picked a range I hadn't been to before bit had heard it would be more accessible for her.
Gave her the safety speil on the way. Treat every gun as if it's loaded. Don't point the muzzle at anything you're not willing to kill/destroy. We got there and I showed her how to operate the my Charger and she got in to it.
Couple guys showed up with class 3 items so we any to the pistol range to get away from the noise of full auto.
Got out the P22, showed her how to use it and she was in heaven. About 20 minutes later some local yokels showed up so we stopped while they set up. They took a bag of oranges and a bag of potatoes and scattered them on the ground from 5-10 yards away from the bench.
I grabbed my target stands and told the kids to start packing up. She was a bit confused but as I was wheeling her back to the car one of the yokels unloaded a .40 into the fruit as fast as he could. We were 10 yards away from the bench and got hit with flying potatoes chunks.
She calmly exclaimed, "what a bunch of assholes. There should be an IQ year to buy a gun."

I used to spend a lot of time at the range and I can't tell you what really stupid things people do at the range. It is a fact that someone somewhere is watching over a lot of people otherwise they would be dead. One of the worst was some dude who was firing 357mag and he had a mis-fire and immediately takes the revolver points it at his head and is looking down the barrel. I guess he thought the round disappeared or something.

Please, if anyone does something unsafe, SAY SO! If they will not correct themselves, get the hell out of there, if there are range officers available, LET THEM KNOW!

ALWAYS TREAT A GUN AS IF IT WERE LOADED!

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

One of the worst was some dude who was firing 357mag and he had a mis-fire and immediately takes the revolver points it at his head and is looking down the barrel. I guess he thought the round disappeared or something.

That actually made me a little sick to my stomach when I read that line. The kind of sick you feel when you see a really terrible accident on the highway or if you saw a toddler pick up a power tool. Though I know there are people stupid enough to do this on an intellectual level, it still blows me away (no pun intended) when I hear about someone who's that absent minded.

I'm sometimes absent minded, but when I have a gun in my hand I am acutely aware that I am holding a very dangerous weapon and that I need to be absolutely focused on what I'm doing. If I don't think I can devote my full attention to what I'm doing, I make the gun safe and put it down until the distraction is properly dealt with. If the gun misfires, I treat it like an accidental discharge waiting to happen until I can make the gun safe again.

If you've been shooting for any amount of time, you've certainly seen the characters described in this vid!

My wife helps coach the youth trap team my youngest shoots on and I help coach the 22 rifle silhouette event for the YHEC team both my girls shoot on. All the coaches on both teams really drill safety into the kid's heads. Every now and then we have a kid get forgetful but they get corrected instantly (usually before they have a chance to complete a sweep). Parents and coaches are on a constant lookout to keep the kids attention on their safety practices.

I dare say that our youth are much better at their safety practices than the average member at our shooting club. There are a lot of our members who have been given the safety rules and told what was expected (and their are huge signs at every range on the property). Many times just being told isn't enough. It needs to be trained into a person so it becomes a habit almost like a muscle memory. I am all for guys plinking for fun but I certainly encourage formal activites where folks get actual repetitive "safety training". I think it sticks with a person better.

Ray

I was once shooting a 45 of which the slide sometimes jammed after ejecting the empty shell. If that happened, the next bullet would not load all the way and you needed to operate the slide manually. It was not my gun btw. At one point, the bullet got stuck and I could not readily move the slide. And I did not really dare use too much force because I did not know if that could cause the round to fire.

As I've said many times before, I don't know much about guns except they're dangerous, so when something does not go according to plan, I treat things like they might explode if I do something wrong.

Anyway, as I am trying to solve the problem, the girl behind me says 'gimme that', takes it out of my hands and starts violently racking the slide with the barrel pointed at my abdomen. I really wanted to punch her lights out but I settled for grabbing the barrel while jumping aside.

I used to shoot revolvers in Australia years ago. I wasn't the best at it but I did realise that this thing that is a lot of fun to play with is ultimatly designed to kill people. Occasionally there would be someone on the range who didn't understand this and they would do something stupid and they would be corrected straight away by the range officer. If people are not corrected they will never learn.
Apart from pointing the gun at something they didn't want to shoot one mistake that was prevailent was keeping the finger on the trigger while reloading a semi auto.