Friday, January 21, 2011

We're the Only Ones Home on the Range Enough

On Thursday morning, residents had circled with orange marker approximately a dozen pieces of gray metal on Ronald Avenue. Included in their survey were a few deformed, copper-colored bullets with gray metal cores. [More]
Back when I lived in Redondo Beach, I could hear them shooting from my house. They didn't do it at obnoxious hours, so I didn't mind it because of the noise per se. Besides, to rip off Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, I love the sound of a range--it sounds like freedom.

But then I would remember the place was "Only Ones" exclusive, and it didn't sound like that at all.

9 comments:

Defender said...

Bullet skip off the ground from practicing shooting "proned-out" subjects? Ricochet experiments on subway station floor tiles, maybe? We could ask Oscar Grant. Oh, no, we can't.
At our range, every shot MUST be along a straight line ending up in the earthen berm.

BrianF said...

I wonder if the group "Concerned Residents Against Pistol Range Redondo" actually gave any consideration to how their organization would be converted into an acronym (CRAPRR)?

Crotalus (Dont Tread on Me) said...

Funny, that, how gunfire from a public range sounds like freedom, while that from a "cops only" range sounds like oppression. They both sound the same, but when one knows the origin, they can take on different and opposing meanings.

Defender said...

Next time someone complains about lead ammo and how it's bad for the entire food chain of wildlife:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/200-more-birds-die-in-s-dakota-usda-claims-responsibility/

The department of Agriculture and its poison Aflockalypse.

Glenn B said...

I find your 'only ones' remark to be both childish and quite offensive. One ars- hat had said that then screwed up and but guys like you have to keep on rubbing it in the faces of all LEOs. You seem to do it as a generalization just about every time something about LEOs and guns comes up and whatever the it is does not suit your fancy. There are plenty of LEOs out here in the real world who are pro-gun (for everyone), pro 2nd amendment, and who are pretty responsible with firearms.

Besides that, you seem to take some umbrage with a range being for law enforcement only. Would you allow the public (non LEOs) to utilize a departmental range. If so, tell me how you would work out the daily operations of that, how you would determine liability issues, how you would work out security issues, how you would be able to go to that range and not have a kaniption or brain hemmorage each time you went therebecause of the criticisms you would come up with for the 'only ones'?

David Codrea said...

You know what I find childish and offensive? Jack-booted thugs.

Let's see, your profile says you're in Law Enforcement/Security and you live in the Long Island NY area, and you claim there are "plenty of LEOs out here in the real world who are pro-gun (for everyone), pro 2nd amendment."

Assuming you're an "Only One" yourself, if I come to Long Island and disclose to you that I am exercising my RIGHT to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by a Constitution you swore an oath to, will you try to arrest me?

Conversely, assuming you're an "Only One"-worshiper, why don't YOU try exercising your rkba in front of them and let me know how that turns out?

Gee, how could a range possibly work where both LEOs and "ordinary" citizens can shoot, and there are all kinds of liability and security requirements? I don't know--maybe at a profit...

W W Woodward said...

As far as the Daily Breeze story goes, and unless a diagram of the neighborhood is available that would show locations of the police department’s range and its layout and physical relationship to the complaining neighbors’ property and the school grounds in question,
I would hesitate to take a stand as to whether the spent rounds the neighbors claim came from the range are LEO fired rounds, or whether they are plants. The one round that is pictured in the column appears to be a full metal jacket ball ammo round, probably from a handgun. If in fact; 1) the police department is requiring the use of “ … frangible, lead-free ammunition,”; and 2) the officers’ and their firearms are being thoroughly checked upon entry to the range; and 3) absolutely no lead core bullets are allowed into the range; the only means by which the projectile pictured in the Daily Breeze story could have landed in the street are; 1) the round was fired from the range in violation of departmental policies; 2) the round was planted by people wanting the range closed down; or 3) the round in the street was placed there by persons not connected to either faction.
[W3]

W W Woodward said...

On another subject: I find shot-gunned accusations of prejudice leveled at David offensive. I am a retired Texas peace officer (1971-2010) and have been reading David’s WoG, Examiner, and Guns Magazine columns for several years now. I do not consider myself a “rogue cop” and am proud of my service to my fellow citizens.

I fully understand the frustrations that peace officers deal with on a daily basis. I fully understand the temptations that cross every officer’s path. In that same vein, I fully understand the expectations of the citizenry officers serve are often exaggerated. For the most part, officers are expected to be the White Knight, righting wrongs, settling all disputes, taking vengeance upon wrongdoers, and staying the hell out of the way unless called. In actuality, it doesn’t work that way.

Officers are agents of government and as such, are constrained by the limitations of the Constitution, both Federal and State, and of the statutes that regulate their actions. LEOs expect citizens to conform their actions to existing law. But by the same token, citizens are fully entitled to the same expectations as to LEOs; and when an officer, or any agent of government, steps outside the constraints of statutes and attempts to place him-self outside the law and above the citizens he took an oath to serve, he dispenses with any claim to respect or protection from ridicule. These are the folks David spotlights, and they deserve that adverse attention. The people David references as “The Only Ones” had a choice. They chose to engage in illegal, immoral, and/or unconstitutional actions, and for the most part they did so under color of law, using their badges as authority to step outside the guidelines they swore to respect.
[W3]

Anonymous said...

Back in the early 1960's, the rifle club that I belonged to was using the police department's outdoor range. I asked how this arrangement came about, and was told that if federal money was used in it's construction, then citizens had to be allowed to use it. We would go to the front desk of the police department, and exchange our membership card for the key. If that person left early, then he would take a later shooter's card and exchange it for his own. Last person out got his card back. the only time we couldn't use the range was on organized training days. A similar deal was at the state police range. And you could buy reloaded ammo from them at a very reasonable price.