Why I'm Anti-Social at the Range

I like people who shoot, and who understand the 2nd Amendment. I find they are typically friendly and intelligent. In spite of that, I prefer not to shoot with unknown persons, especially at an unsupervised range. Shortly after I arrived at the range this weekend, a trio of shooters pulled in and, without a word, began setting up on the same bay. The male shooter was going to be helping two ladies shoot. Typically I would have packed up and gone home, but they said they would only be a short time. I made the decision to be neighborly and share the bay with other members. However, in retrospect...

After I finished loading my mags I waited while this group finished getting ready. One of them turned to me and said I could go shoot —all the while he's loading a revolver while one of the ladies was handling another pistol. I replied I'd wait until they finished loading, and reminded them that guns are not to be handled at the bench while someone was downrange. Eventually we all went downrange to shoot. I was even more neighborly at that point and provided cardboard to them and helped hang their targets.

I was feeling a little more comfortable. Until, back at the bench...

I looked over and the guy was standing on the downrange side of the bench, holding his .22 revolver with the barrel pointed away from the berm; pointed directly at, and less than a foot, from the face of one of the women on the other side of the bench. I couldn't take it! I walked over and told him he could not be pointing that weapon at another person. He had at that point set the gun down, but with the aimed barrel at her stomach. I picked it up and turned it to a safe direction. I also reminded him he needed to stand on the uprange side of the bench when loading. He apologized profusely (to me not her.) Since that was three safety violations in about 10 minutes, I was preparing to pack it up but they decided they were done for the day. I guess they didn't want to share the range with such a busybody. :-)

After they were gone, I set out a couple more targets and enjoyed myself putting a couple hundred rounds downrange and practicing target transitions from various distances.

I think I'll stick with being anti-social.