Stuff seen at the gun range

[Greg]

I'd imagine this is a common sight in gun range parking lots in states that have legalized weed.

[echo5charlie]

I spent 9 years working at a busy indoor range/gun shop...

Off the top of my head:
- NDs into the wall/ceiling/floor/benches - these happened often enough that we had a fee schedule for damaged equipment.
- A suicide... and an unrelated attempted suicide 6 weeks later.
- Constantly getting flagged.
- In the days following a gun show, constantly having to help customers clear stoppages/squibs caused by their shitty gun show reloads. These also caused the occasional kB!
- A guy blew up his Glock 30 with his own reloads. During a conversation afterwards, "I'm never buying a Glock again... when I do this to my 1911s it just blows the magazine out of the gun."
- Another guy put a .32 S&W through his index finger after trying to open a cocked J-frame. He asked for a band-aid.
- This one happened on my day off - A Navy guy tried to get out of going on a WESTPAC by intentionally shooting himself in the calf. Apparently he didn't realize that there were witnesses... and security cameras.
- We had enough people coming on "date night" that we kept a supply of oversized T-shirts behind the counter to give to female customers in low-cut tops.
- Our backstop was recycled rubber... some genius put a .38 caliber flare round into it. Trying to put out that fire was "fun".

On the gun shop side of things:
- the usual "people getting pissed off that their background check was denied".
- A guy stumbled in hammered drunk and asked for "all of our Mini-14 clips and enough ammunition to fill them."
- Cops showing up with a mugshot, "Do you recognize this guy?" Me: "Yeah" (he had some pretty distinctive tattoos) it turned out that he had killed a couple of people with a shotgun. My business card was in his wallet.
- Our city had a large homeless population and one of our shops was close to both a Social Security office and immediately adjacent to some train tracks. We had a crazy homeless guy in our parking lot wearing a werewolf Halloween mask and howling at the moon, at passing cars, at customers.
- Again, on my day off: A couple was attempting to hop a train and one of them fell. The train ran her legs over. Her companion came running into the shop looking for help. Our guys administered first aid and got help on the way. She survived.

One of the bright spots was a woman coming in after a self-defense shooting to thank me. She was older, lived alone and had inherited a 1911 from her late husband. I had apparently gotten her set up with some ammo, magazines and range time with an instructor a couple of years before. She shot a guy at the top of her stairs in the middle of the night after he ignored multiple commands to not come any closer. She shot him, he stopped (but survived), and at least according to the woman, had a knife and rope in his possession when police showed up.

If I knew I would live and not have any more holes in my body than I was born with I'd do the range thing again just for the stories.

[willie]

Do these accounts indicate that some people should not own guns?

[Stephanie B]

I used to visit my LGS every Friday after work, as they took in a fair number of used guns. One day, three guys were looking at Glocks. One was talking about the safe way to carry was to do it chamber-empty, then rack the slide as part of the draw. He held the store gun under his t-shirt and demonstrated three times. On the third time, he got the gun caught in his t-shirt and dropped the gun.

The counter guy, who had a boatload of experience, never changed expression.
So, a few months later, I mentioned that scene to the counter guy.

He said: "You saw that? I told my wife about that when I got home. She said that nobody was that dumb, I had to be exaggerating. I should get her on the phone with you."

Me: "That was some shit. I'll be glad to talk to her."

(Never did.)

[Yung]

Do these accounts indicate that some people should not own guns?

Perhaps. It definitely shows that the firearms and training cultures have their work cut out for them though.

[JRV]

Do these accounts indicate that some people should not own guns?

You can't fix stupid, but you can beat it until it has safe muscle memory.

If you really want to crap your pants, pay attention to how many human-shaped cloacas drive their cars with eyes off the road, hands off the wheel, and wearing headphones.

Way more likely to kill you. Plus, you can't trespass them from your gun range.

[Clusterfrack]

1. Old man won't stop shooting during a time out for target changes. He knows how to shoot so no threat. His son stops him. Then he does it again and the gun has to be wrestled away and they go home..

This reminds me of a USPSA match at a club that has a lot of new shooters. A adult son and older father in full Uncle Mikes tactical gear showed up on my squad and they were terrible. The son ran around spastically, shot a lot of mikes, and couldn’t keep his gun working. But it was dad who was the real problem. He moved through the stages like he was on Charlie’s Angels, with his muzzle vertical as he took cover behind walls. At one point, he bumped a wall, muzzled his hat, but just barely didn’t break the vertical 180. I reached over his shoulder, grabbed the slide of his gun, and told him to stop because he was unsafe. I said that he was getting a reshoot but he couldn’t do that anymore. The two guys then started arguing and telling me how in the “tactical world” you need to keep your gun in your workspace. My response was to refuse to RO him anymore because I didn’t want to get brains splattered on my clothes.

[Jay Cunningham]

@Aray and I were at the range, kind of BSing and shooting - we were both club officers at the time.

A friend of ours came down to where we were and told us that some dude was over on another range and it didn’t seem like he was shooting at a legit target. So we walked over to check it out.

We saw a seated Boomer plinking away with a .22. And we were hearing tinks after every shot. But we didn’t see a target. Then we realized -

He was shooting the bullseye target turning gear.

Aray approached him very diplomatically and explained to him what he was doing could easily get him thrown out of the club. He seemed to acknowledge the coaching calmly, so we return back to our BS/range session.

So maybe 10 or 12 minutes go by, and here comes the Boomer dude shambling straight towards us. He walks up to us, and without uttering a word, contemptuously whips out his member ID and slams it on the ground at our feet.

Then he turns on his heel and leaves.

Because we asked him to stop intentionally shooting the club bullseye turning gear.

[echo5charlie]

@Aray and I were at the range, kind of BSing and shooting - we were both club officers at the time.

A friend of ours came down to where we were and told us that some dude was over on another range and it didn’t seem like he was shooting at a legit target. So we walked over to check it out.

We saw a seated Boomer plinking away with a .22. And we were hearing tinks after every shot. But we didn’t see a target. Then we realized -

He was shooting the bullseye target turning gear.

Aray approached him very diplomatically and explained to him what he was doing could easily get him thrown out of the club. He seemed to acknowledge the coaching calmly, so we return back to our BS/range session.

So maybe 10 or 12 minutes go by, and here comes the Boomer dude shambling straight towards us. He walks up to us, and without uttering a word, contemptuously whips out his member ID and slams it on the ground at our feet.

Then he turns on his heel and leaves.

Because we asked him to stop intentionally shooting the club bullseye turning gear.

Stuff like that is whole thread of its own. It is amazing how people will react when their stupidity is brought to their attention. "It wasn't like it is loaded." and "No, I didn't point it at you." are common gunshop diatribe.

[Shoresy]

@Aray and I were at the range, kind of BSing and shooting - we were both club officers at the time.

A friend of ours came down to where we were and told us that some dude was over on another range and it didn’t seem like he was shooting at a legit target. So we walked over to check it out.

We saw a seated Boomer plinking away with a .22. And we were hearing tinks after every shot. But we didn’t see a target. Then we realized -

He was shooting the bullseye target turning gear.

Aray approached him very diplomatically and explained to him what he was doing could easily get him thrown out of the club. He seemed to acknowledge the coaching calmly, so we return back to our BS/range session.

So maybe 10 or 12 minutes go by, and here comes the Boomer dude shambling straight towards us. He walks up to us, and without uttering a word, contemptuously whips out his member ID and slams it on the ground at our feet.

Then he turns on his heel and leaves.

Because we asked him to stop intentionally shooting the club bullseye turning gear.