Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “Are You Making Dangerous Mistakes?” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/range-safety/.
Are You Making Dangerous Mistakes?
- Thread starter Mike H.
- Start date
The Night Rider
Professional
Good article.
I used to be on the security team at my church. Once a quarter they would do a two-day training session day one was dry fire day two was live fire and qualifications.
Every quarter when they send out the email telling people that the class was coming up at the head of the email in all caps bolded letters
There Is To Be Absolutely No Live Ammunition In The Training Room
And every month 10 or 15 people would show up for the class and 10 or 12 of them would walk into that training room and unload their loaded guns.
I called them on it one time. The instructor did a safety briefing after everybody had arrived and when he went through his safety briefing he asked if anybody had any concerns. I raised my hand and reminded everybody in that room that the email telling us about the class explicitly stated not to bring any ammunition with you and not to have any in the training room.
Then I picked up somebody's loaded magazine and said "This is not safe."
As soon as I said that one of the guys got all huffy and said that if you're going to carry a gun you need to learn to play by Big Boy rules.
The instructor, the guy who had written the email didn't say anything.
I left the security team very shortly after that
I used to be on the security team at my church. Once a quarter they would do a two-day training session day one was dry fire day two was live fire and qualifications.
Every quarter when they send out the email telling people that the class was coming up at the head of the email in all caps bolded letters
There Is To Be Absolutely No Live Ammunition In The Training Room
And every month 10 or 15 people would show up for the class and 10 or 12 of them would walk into that training room and unload their loaded guns.
I called them on it one time. The instructor did a safety briefing after everybody had arrived and when he went through his safety briefing he asked if anybody had any concerns. I raised my hand and reminded everybody in that room that the email telling us about the class explicitly stated not to bring any ammunition with you and not to have any in the training room.
Then I picked up somebody's loaded magazine and said "This is not safe."
As soon as I said that one of the guys got all huffy and said that if you're going to carry a gun you need to learn to play by Big Boy rules.
The instructor, the guy who had written the email didn't say anything.
I left the security team very shortly after that
As a 30+ year LEO vet, one of my duties was as a rangemaster at one of our mobile ranges. One day, a female captain came in to qualify. On her fourth shot, her Beretta 92 jammed with a double feed, she swung around and covered me with her weapon. I immediately grabbed it and told her not to do that. I fixed the malfunction, and she continued to shoot. Again, her gun malfunctioned, and again she turned and pointed her gun at me. This time, I took her weapon, cleared the malfunction, ejected the mag, and told her to leave my range. She gave me the "I'm going to speak to your captain! Don't you know who I am?" She left in a huff. About an hour later, I got a message to see my captain ASAP. I walked into his office expecting to get my *** chewed out. He asked me what happened, and I told him. To my surprise, he said I was right. That particular female captain never showed up at my range again.
powerboatr
Professional
range safety IMO can never be over stressed
our old range had the 100 yard line rifles BEHIND the firing line for pistols 100 foot range
rifle line had one table and a BIG GIANT red tarp over it locked to the bench with all kinds of signage to indicate the must get pistol range closed and all peoples clear before the tarp could even be removed. in fact the keys are ON the pistol range firing line .
not once and not twice did i happen to be down range changing targets and turn to see some yahoo pulled off the tarp and was placing a rifle on the bench... gives you a shiver
our range now has the rifle parts WAAAAAY down and its a hike.. but they have to go through the pistol line first to place targets and no firearms are allowed to be loaded or handled while anyone is down range. everyone is required to stand back and BS...no touchy bullets, magazines or firearms.. RSO will get you
we have flashing lights tooooooo
but it still happens, people get complacent or simply dont care.. but this club..its handled very harsh for violations.
our old range had the 100 yard line rifles BEHIND the firing line for pistols 100 foot range
rifle line had one table and a BIG GIANT red tarp over it locked to the bench with all kinds of signage to indicate the must get pistol range closed and all peoples clear before the tarp could even be removed. in fact the keys are ON the pistol range firing line .
not once and not twice did i happen to be down range changing targets and turn to see some yahoo pulled off the tarp and was placing a rifle on the bench... gives you a shiver
our range now has the rifle parts WAAAAAY down and its a hike.. but they have to go through the pistol line first to place targets and no firearms are allowed to be loaded or handled while anyone is down range. everyone is required to stand back and BS...no touchy bullets, magazines or firearms.. RSO will get you
we have flashing lights tooooooo
but it still happens, people get complacent or simply dont care.. but this club..its handled very harsh for violations.
bandaidman
Operator
Years ago I went to a training with my Daughter, her husband and about 30 friends as a group training. The class was set up for 40 people with 2 relays of 20. Since we were not totally full the range added some others to fill up the roster. We had 4 firemen from California who we found came yearly to maintain their skills. The one odd duck was a Lawyer from Chicago, instead of wearing good shoes he was in "boaters and shorts, no hat (which was required). He rented his gear as I'm sure he couldn't get a CCW permit until he he had training. The first day was all dry fire, so the staff could see weapons handling as well as other problems. Our Lawyer friend was in the first relay and the command was to do a safety check to see if the gun was loaded. He turned to the left pointing it down the entire relay to his left. I and my friend were to the right of him and we yelled STOP!!! where everyone stopped the range staff also saw this and pulled him aside to remind him of the 4 rules. After which we started again and the second time we did the same thing, he again pointed his weapon along the line. They then took him to the end of the relay and assigned a range staff to babysit him. This was a week long class and on was to be a night shoot. He wasn't invited to that. A few of us felt sorry for him, as he did want to protect himself yet coming from an environment had no experience with guns. We did find out that he did have death threats from certain people that he had lost their cases due to the fact that they were totally guilty. Often wondered if he ever became proficient or what happened to him.