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22lr meet and greet - with a twist

I like the idea, and if it's a reasonable driving distance to me I might go either alone as a range safety officer (I've served in that role before at public and private shooting ranges) or with my nephew and/or one of my nephew's friends.

I agree that this should be rimfire only, and only RIFLES. .22LR handguns are LOUD, and "loud" is not a good thing for newbies. The rifle-length barrel makes a lot of difference in the sound signature of a gun.

What would the shooting range look like?
Will it have a bathroom available?
Will it have a hand-washing station, or a table set up with hand wipes (to get the lead off your skin?)
Will it be shaded or covered in case that day it's drizzling / light rain, but you want to shoot anyway and not send anybody home disappointed?
Finally, will there be a safe place that kids can wait their turn to go to the firing line, and this safe place is something of a corral or pen that contains them? Otherwise kids will wander, even into the woods to do a flanking maneuver to approach the backstop area!
 
I like the idea, and if it's a reasonable driving distance to me I might go either alone as a range safety officer (I've served in that role before at public and private shooting ranges) or with my nephew and/or one of my nephew's friends.

I agree that this should be rimfire only, and only RIFLES. .22LR handguns are LOUD, and "loud" is not a good thing for newbies. The rifle-length barrel makes a lot of difference in the sound signature of a gun.

What would the shooting range look like?
Will it have a bathroom available?
Will it have a hand-washing station, or a table set up with hand wipes (to get the lead off your skin?)
Will it be shaded or covered in case that day it's drizzling / light rain, but you want to shoot anyway and not send anybody home disappointed?
Finally, will there be a safe place that kids can wait their turn to go to the firing line, and this safe place is something of a corral or pen that contains them? Otherwise kids will wander, even into the woods to do a flanking maneuver to approach the backstop area!
Gotta find a place. I have ideas, but none that are sticking. Most places that I shoot have covered areas of some sort. More than likely, ghis ends up in the fall, so heat won't be primary concern. I'm not gonna be a part of this if we are corraliing humans into cages like a pack of goats. Idea here is to be a family event. Not a drop some kids and show back up 4 hours later.

Anything i bring will be suppressed. Rifles, handguns, sbr. A lot of folks have suppressed handguns, so no real concern of having to keep things limited to rifles. Besides, we will be outside. If we need to keep things fully quiet, i can put together all suppressed areas by myself, and I'm sure that there will be plenty more.

The biggest issue that I'm seeing now is finding an outdoor range that will host something like this.
 
Maybe a member of Riverbend Gun Club could approach the board members and block off a range one day. Nice facility and they have multiple ranges up there.

If we need to rent, or pay for usage, I’m pretty sure we can have someone with accountability run a Venmo to let people who want to help but can attend contribute.


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... I'm not gonna be a part of this if we are corraliing humans into cages like a pack of goats. Idea here is to be a family event. Not a drop some kids and show back up 4 hours later...

Well, I was thinking of a roped-off area that is the special "wait your turn" area, with boundaries so the kids don't wander.

Like this parent has a smaller fenced-in play area WITHIN the larger back yard, which is also fenced-in.

c75682949815eb77fab2983cb3f5ffa3.jpg


If this back yard were used for some dangerous activity, like archery for example, the one or two kids who were going to shoot next would be outside of the white fence in the large area of the yard, and the kids waiting their turn would be inside the white fenced area.

But, you can think of it as a stockyard's holding pen, if you like. They serve the same purpose.
 
Well, I was thinking of a roped-off area that is the special "wait your turn" area, with boundaries so the kids don't wander.

Like this parent has a smaller fenced-in play area WITHIN the larger back yard, which is also fenced-in.

c75682949815eb77fab2983cb3f5ffa3.jpg


If this back yard were used for some dangerous activity, like archery for example, the one or two kids who were going to shoot next would be outside of the white fence in the large area of the yard, and the kids waiting their turn would be inside the white fenced area.

But, you can think of it as a stockyard's holding pen, if you like. They serve the same purpose.

A well defined firing line is an obvious thing to most all of us, but if we are able to accomplish our end goal... we will have folks with little to know understanding. A designated area for safety brief and introduction to the ins and outs would be a great idea. When starting off with a fresh batch of “younglings” we would start with safety, layout of the range, and then quickly get them behind rifles. Attention spans play into it, but also it gets the kid AND parent together on the line. We would literally have the parents single load the rifle for every shot. It gets the interaction up between them, and doubles the education experience.


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A bazillion years ago, I belonged to a Michigan gun rights group called "Shooters Alliance for Firearms Rights" (SAFR).
Each year we set up and ran an event similar to what you are talking about.
The highlights;
1. A chance for kids who have never fired or handled a gun before the opportunity to do so.
2. Firearm safety training. It wasn't Eddie Eagle but it was close. And back then there were groups of adults who would go to schools or churches or even big box stores and teach firearms safety to kids for free.
3. Swag Bags. We called vendors in the firearms biz and got stickers and things to put in a bag that each kid would get. I used to call on a magazine publisher that had boxes of spare, older issues of the magazines they published and we would stick one in the swag bag.
4. We realized people would bring younger kids and that people were **** when it came to keeping those kids under control. So we had some volunteers who would watch the kids in an activity area that included face painting and an inflatable bouncy castle.
5. There was an ambulance and some EMT's onsite. I don't recall if they were on the clock or if they were donating their time. We usually had a cop there, but there was never any trouble. I think that the issue was that we were out in the boonies and it would be better to have cops there onsite instead of waiting for them if we needed them.
6. We'd drive over to the nearest Little Ceasar's and get a couple hundred dollars worth of Hot n Ready's to feed everyone at lunch time and the gun club that hosted us would sell everyone cokes.
7. Parents had to sign a waiver holding us harmless if something bad happened. If they didn't sign it, the kids couldn't shoot.

The most important part of this is that we had firearms instructors and RSO's swarming the firing line. Everyone brought a .22lr. rifle or pistol. The competitive group "American Confederation of Tactical Shooters" loaned us some M4orgeries with .22 adapters. Those were _very_ popular.
No kid could be on the firing line unless they had been through the firearms safety class. (usually a half an hour class).
Once they did, an adult would be assigned to them at a particular stage of the firing line and work with them to load, aim and fire the gun. In the entire four years we did this we never had an accident of any kind.
The adult would stay at the table with the guns and when the kid was done shooting the guns at the table, he/she would go down the line to the next stage and learn how to operate the guns there.
Every turn was 10 rounds. Kids could always come back if they really liked shooting the gun at your table but they had to get in line and wait.
The .22 ammo was all donated by the members of SAFR and people who wanted to help out. Back in those days it was cheap, but if I happened to be in Dunhams' or Gander Mountain and they had a sale on, I'd get all neck-beardy with the .22 ammo because I wanted to have a good stash for the next Firearms day.

Since I moved to Ga., the closest thing to this event has been up at Riverbend. I took my son up there a couple of times and he had a ball. Riverbend had rifle, shotgun, hand gun and my favorite, the Black Powder musket.

My daughter has fired some guns before. A lot of her friends haven't and they're all interested in it. I haven't had much free time until recently and now that I do, we've got the Covid to deal with.

I'm in if you want some help. Understand that at the moment I'm unemployed and I can't do anything until I get hired again.
 
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