Odd rules
Tam notes the local range has a rule saying there’s to be no loaded, concealed handguns. At a firing range. I’ve encountered this before at Gunny’s and the John Seveir Range in Knoxville. Yes, it’s silly. But I think it’s usually part of their agreement with their insurance companies.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:48 am
I was told it was a rule at the John Seveir Range because it is a Federally owned facility – but operated by the State under some type of an agreement…
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 am
It’s also a good way to keep some of our dearest friends from doing drills on presenting from concealment that they really ought to be starting at a mirror on. (A mirror with an acceptable backstop behind it, of course.)
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:49 am
Phelps,
It’s quite possible to have both a hot range and not allow working from a holster.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:50 am
(Also, If I can’t trust someone to be doing presentation drills on a range with a backstop, then I sure as hell don’t want them clearing their sidearm in the parking lot with my BMW for a backstop. Can they use your car instead? 😉 )
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:26 am
It would be nice if the range facility had designated parking for use as a backstop.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
Excesses committed by juries => insurance company requirements => less freedom.
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
At my local range, we’re not allowed to use a holster of any kind! “No guns at the gun range!”
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I guess I’m lucky here. Both ranges that I frequent allow carry inside the store and to the range, they just don’t allow presentation drills on their range. I can respect that. At On Target the sign is “holstered or unloaded and cased”
I do still need to find a good place for presentation practice, though.
Regards,
Pol
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Logic dictates that if a rule is contrary to common sense, it is to be ignored. I am not a member of a range for this reason. Sure, I’d save $20-$40 a year, but I would also be subject to rules that I feel are contrary to common sense, safety, and proper firearms handling. I remember when I turned 18 having a 5 minute argument with a range master who insisted that my rifle and my friend’s rifle were not unloaded, because the (empty) magazines were still in them. I had a Russian SKS, he had an M1 Garand. How do we take the magazines (which he kept calling “clips” over and over) out of the rifle without disassembling them? “Those are the rules! All magazines must be removed!”
I’ve heard numerous stories from friends who are members of this range or that who have been threatened with having their membership to the range revoked because their car was creating dust on a dirt road on the range on an especially hot and dry day. Why? Because it’s proof they were speeding, of course! The sign says 5 MPH! You can’t possibly be safe if your car idles at 7 MPH! Ride that break! Who needs a radar gun when you have dust!
August 4th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Not due to insurance – in situations like this the severity of loss is so high that the more risk controls in place (i.e. rules) the higher degree of comparable negligence on that part of the person who put those rules in place. Think of the difference between Disneyland who takes full responsibility for the safety of guests vs a rafting guide that just asks you to sign a waiver. The people who ask for unloaded CC don’t have full faith in the 4 rules, sort of like saying you believe in Jesus but then going to a Buddhist temple ‘just in case.’
August 4th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Public ranges have to write rules to the lowest common denominator.
August 4th, 2009 at 6:48 am
One of the local ranges has those signs all over the place, but people carrying concealed are not hassled. After all “concealed means concealed”.
Open carriers are expected to have cleared firearms, however.
As usual Tam makes the commonsense point, and since the parking lot is part of “the premises” anything that happens there is just as much a problem as anything that happens indoors — and in the parking lot there are no walls to contain whatever happens.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:50 am
At most gun shops I’ve been in, a “No Loaded Guns” sign is purely a CYA measure, so that if Lurleen brings her Mossberg in to be fixed and accidentally lets fly some buckshot through the wainscoting, there’s a sign to point at during any subsequent insurance wrangling or legal contretemps.
August 4th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
“But I think it’s usually part of their agreement with their insurance companies.”
Can’t ignore that. So; we’re doing all this talking about some insurance companies, then?
If it’s true, the insurance companies need to be educated. We’ve identified the problem and the solution.