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Charging LEOs to use Club Range

whacko said:
What happens when a member does the same? I don't see the point.
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The point is the members have a vested interest in seeing the club survive so they take a little extra care before pulling the trigger(98% of them do at least)), cops using the range, not so much.. They just move on to the next club to host them if the club gets closed, no skin off their back. You can at least see that, right?
 
Len-2A Training said:
As a retired police officer, I agree. I saw too many guns pointed in unsafe directions during our qualifications. I used to stop by the club and scoop up brass left by officers during qualifications, etc.

When I first joined Braintree R&P they had numerous agencies using the range for training, all for free. Eventually they re-purposed that range for members use and forbade any agency use due to all the problems mentioned above.
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Volunteered as an RO one summer before they put in the barriers. Got swept by a muzzle exactly once: by a LEO. Wished I had a grass rod like Drill Sergeants do to beat him about the head and ears.
 
$250/ officer, minimum charge of $2500 dollars for 4 hours, PLUS the agency puts up a 10 MILLION dollar liability policy with the Club and all its Board listed as co-insured.

They also agree to foot the cost of any legal fees and damages incurred by the club or BOD if there is an allegation of a stray round exiting the property, up to and including the value of the club if the place is shut down by court order due to their actions.
 
kalash said:
If regular Joe wants to inspect my rifle at the range, I can tell him to go kick rocks. It's a little harder to do that with a guy who has arrest powers. Did this really need to be spelled out?
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I have told a cop to f*ck off and that he was full of sh*t at a USPSA competiton.

The guy didnt have a badge or uniform on, but he mentioned he was a cop before I gave him sh*t.

He was going off spewing fear about the AG banning assault rifles and how people can't buy an AR ... he was getting a bunch of people scared and telling them it was law. I corrected him.

But I get your point, if the guy wanted to be a d*ck, he probably could have been one if I had an AR.
 
eddy1953 said:
What about liability? If a cop has a ND and someone gets injured or killed, is it on the police department or on the club? Last thing we need is another incident that puts a club in danger of being shut down by local authorities. All it takes is one fool to do something stupid!
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That's a good point!
 
CrackPot said:
As a member of a club that lets local LEO use it for qualification…

They are the worst people as a group I have ever seen. Zero weapon discipline. No concept of a cold range with everyone waving weapons and playing with ammo when people are down range. No muzzle discipline with hot weapons getting pointed EVERYWHERE. Brass left everywhere when they leave. Live ammo left everywhere when they leave.

I am clearly talking about them as a group. Lots of individuals know what they are doing and are members in good standing. But as a group they are horrible. I leave the range if they are on the property…
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if you talk about harvard - i wonder, like i saw several time patrol cars not using a magnetic card, but opening the gate by typing in the access code.
then i saw i think at least once that looked like a civilian car - a subaru sedan, i think - with driver doing the same. which makes me think - once you let a police in, it becomes a free range for them (and all they know) to use.
of course that gate code may be a secret of polichinelle, which i am just too ignorant to know about. :)
 
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JRT said:
We just debated this at our club, same reasons others have noted, brass everywhere, garbage and members don’t like losing ranges.

I kind of lead the bounce them group, PD takes one of the two action ranges and members get annoyed. No amount of emails and posts on calendars seem to work, people show up en masse that day lol.

In the end, we compromised with the keep them group, we raised their rate from $1,500 to $4,000. They paid the fee and didn’t complain.

The most annoying part was club members arguing we can’t poke the bear, the cops could make our lives more difficult. My response of “f*** them” was not well received.
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Yeah. Because they have a cheat-sheet of people they're supposed to pull over in the patrol car. It's right on the screen so they can target you. LOL

They honestly don't care. Unless you're a bizarre right-wing tool about it. Then they might just get worried when you start saying, "No way you Fascist babykiller."

Broc said:
I have told a cop to f*ck off and that he was full of sh*t at a USPSA competiton.

The guy didnt have a badge or uniform on, but he mentioned he was a cop before I gave him sh*t.

He was going off spewing fear about the AG banning assault rifles and how people can't buy an AR ... he was getting a bunch of people scared and telling them it was law. I corrected him.

But I get your point, if the guy wanted to be a d*ck, he probably could have been one if I had an AR.
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People get like that no matter what. I had a "team lead" tell me that they have to be careful on checking Roth IRA distributions because they COULD be taxable. . . . right after I explained that this client had already checked ALL of the tax-free boxes and could not be taxed even if Nancy Pelosi had carte blanche for 24 hours. "Well, our due diligence and compliance require us. . . " Dude. You marginally know the law. STFU!

Not a cop. Just someone who thinks they have authority. It's a human thing, not a cop thing.
 
Drix said:
Isn't there a story about Mass Rifle almost getting shut down for stray bullets coming off the Suma range?

Something about someone from the state showing up for an inspection one morning to find a LEO firing a MP5 in front of the firing line.
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That was Camp Curtis Guild.
 
whacko said:
What about it? They have a waiver in the contract same as any other guests. We have a lawyer that handles the contracts. Our guests sign waivers to use our range like the majority of clubs. I don't see any additional risk to the club for any accidents that may arise from the po po vs. Any other guest that uses our ranges. If what your saying is a viable concern your basically saying a club should never allow guests.....or he'll shy not allow shooting at all. 😂
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You're right. Probably way too much worry over something that may never materialize. The only "accident" that I heard of was a couple of years ago at Moon Island. Northeastern University officer caught a ricochet in her abdomen and was taken to a Boston hospital. Authorities were very sketchy on the details. Don't know of the round that hit her came from her own gun or another officer's gun.
 
kalash said:
Wouldn't be the first time something like that has been done...
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Probably true, but I don't think we would have such problems in our location. LEO range use goes very smoothly for us, but I can totally understand the issues that others on the forum have experienced and why they would respond F no to use of their range.
 
houdini said:
At my club we let the police use range for their qualifications at no charge you want them on your side if the neighbors are against you.
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I simply don’t believe they would be on your side. We have very few issues at our club with neighbors. We’ve had a few issues and the cops will play the middle, they try to negotiate and they are shitty negotiators.

If the club gets challenged, only the courts will protect you and save the club. You need strong preemption laws and good lawyers.
 
I really don’t like the idea of anyone who can arrest you based off of their poor understanding of the law being allowed on the gun range.
Guilty until proven innocent is too common.
If they want to pay $1000 to rent the club for a day that’s cool but I don’t want some self righteous tool bag infringing on my freedom.
 
Michael J. Spangler said:
I really don’t like the idea of anyone who can arrest you based off of their poor understanding of the law being allowed on the gun range.
Guilty until proven innocent is too common.
If they want to pay $1000 to rent the club for a day that’s cool but I don’t want some self righteous tool bag infringing on my freedom.
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$1,000 per day?

Man you would sell out cheap! $1,000 doesn’t buy shit these days.
 
whacko said:
We charge a flat rate of $1000 per year. For that the department gets 4 access cards that the department can issue out to its officers to use our facilities to practice. It's in the contract that they must obey all club range rules that the members must adhere to while there on their own for practice. They also get up to 5 days a year to use the outdoor range for their qualifications. Those days must be requested 60 days in advance and can only be Monday to Friday 9am to 1pm.

We have a few departments that we have contracts with. We've only had one hiccup with officers telling members that they "have the range today" and telling them to leave so they could have the range for "swat" practice and drove a uparmored vehicle out on our range. They did not request the day 60 days in advance and just showed up. Their contract was killed immediately and the chief apologized.....seems the lieutenant in charge was a bit of a dickhead.

Other than that one incident we have had no issues and have contracts with probably 5 towns. The contracts are specific......they must police up brass and leave the range as they found it or they are charged $500. We have cameras for proof of what it looked like before and after. Never had a problem they always clean up.
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I've heard of similar instances where they show up and chase the members off claiming the range is "theirs" today.
I still remember going up bob's in Seabrook when it was the original Bob and asking WTF happened to the range ?
Skid marks where bullets went down the sides of the walls , ricochet marks on the floor, bullet holes in the duct work across the ceiling .
He just rolled his eyes and said Cops
 
FisherTech said:
What happens when someone on one of those police depts launches a round that goes outside of the club property? Who is going to take the hit and have a range closing issue? It won't be the PD it will be the club. Camp Curtis Guild's ranges were shut because of a Cop F*** UP.
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And it will be the same PD that serves the order ! [rofl]
 
I'm still a little pissy about the Gun Club shut downs when Covid started. Didn't Harvard have Police at the gate...??? Or am I remembering wrong?
 
Dadstoys said:
I've heard of similar instances where they show up and chase the members off claiming the range is "theirs" today.
I still remember going up bob's in Seabrook when it was the original Bob and asking WTF happened to the range ?
Skid marks where bullets went down the sides of the walls , ricochet marks on the floor, bullet holes in the duct work across the ceiling .
He just rolled his eyes and said Cops
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Please, if you have been in there your well aware of the shit show that place was on the regular, they would pack groups of 10 guys into 2 lanes after renting guns.

The owners didn't give a shit, the range was there only consistent money maker

The town cops I know never set foot in there let alone to train
 
Yeah.

I'm in the "they can join the club whenever they want, just like anyone else" option. Members keep the range safe, undamaged, and tidy; renters don't.

If they want to shoot for free? I'm sure there are plenty of police-operated ranges statewide. They can drive there.
 
SHOCKNAWE said:
Please, if you have been in there your well aware of the shit show that place was on the regular, they would pack groups of 10 guys into 2 lanes after renting guns.

The owners didn't give a shit, the range was there only consistent money maker

The town cops I know never set foot in there let alone to train
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You were in there 20 - 25 years ago ?
Might have even been longer than that .
The first owner was friends with my Dad.
He had some nice NFA stuff and when the place was dead he'd call us up to come over and have some fun.
So please nothing.
 
houdini said:
At my club we let the police use range for there qualifications at no charge you want them on your side if the neighbors are against you.
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Is that what they tell you? lol

I'll play along.. What do you think the local cops will do when your club gets sued for whatever reason? Will they pool all their Detail bucks and help with the lawyers, or just move on to the next club?
 
Dadstoys said:
You were in there 20 - 25 years ago ?
Might have even been longer than that .
The first owner was friends with my Dad.
He had some nice NFA stuff and when the place was dead he'd call us up to come over and have some fun.
So please nothing.
Click to expand...

Disregard I misread your post

20-25 years ago your probably correct

My apologies
 

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