Talk:Shooting ranges in the United States

First draft

This is the first draft of this article and is based on moving the formerly US-centric Shooting range article over and editing slightly. Yaf 21:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Adverts in External Links

All of the links in the External Links are advertisments for gun ranges in various parts of the U.S., with the excuse that they are an "example" of such-and-such type of gun range. Yeah, right.

I've removed all but the link to the Florida Today article, but removed the sidenote about the "new public range". The Massachusetts Rifle Association and Knob Creek Range links have been removed as well, but references to the wiki articles have been inserted instead.

130.126.146.177 16:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I suppose I agree. But to put that in perspective, I didn't care that much when they were there. They were after all ranges in the U.S. Thernlund 22:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

They were originally included to provide country-specific information for Europeans and UK citizens intending to go on holiday in the US to see what gun ranges were like in the US prior to visiting, in response to questions that had come up on the original Shooting range article. The list had been kept relatively clean from spam, and the examples were not intended to be ads. I don't see a problem with them being restored. Anyone see a problem in restoring the list? Yaf 23:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

As 130 points out, they were sort of reaching the point of adverts, what with everyone wanting to add thier very own local range. Maybe it should be pruned to just some of the large ranges in major cities. For example, Ben Avery's in huge (and state owned). By contrast, the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club is fairly insignifcant by comparison (and it's mostly private, so non-members are for the most part out).

It would require some research on each. If someone else doesn't do it, I might later tonight. Thernlund 23:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge?

I find myself wondering if this article stands on it's own. When I first saw it, my initial reaction was to ponder if the U.S. is special/different enough on the topic of shooting ranges to merit it's very own article.

I'm not saying merge it with another article. But I thought I put the question out there. Maybe the U.S. is that different from the rest of the world on this topic. We certainly are where gun ownership is concerned. Thernlund 22:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

This came up before, back in February 2006, and resulted in the split that currently exists. Have added

Main article: Shooting range

link. Yaf 23:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah. I see. Sounds good to me then. Thernlund 23:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Edit war

The edit war between Yaf and 72.211.140.52/Burk8 made a hash of things. I reverted back to the last version before the edit war began. If I've counted correctly, neither editor can make another edit today (some, I'll discretely say, by a wide margin), so everyone go edit something else, and come back tomorrow.

I haven't reported anyone for 3RR yet. It looks like a bother, so I don't want to. But I will if it keeps up.

Believe it or not, from an outsider's perpective, you both have something legitimate to say. Is it really too much to ask that you hash it out in here, rather than revert each other to death?

Silliness. --barneca (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Environmental issues

"mostly a result of legislators responding to gun politics issues" The main factor is potential toxic ingestion of lead by humans and wildlife and the resulting potential liability, which can result in large lawsuits. It is not about gun politics.

>> If the title of the section is "environmental issues" it should deal with those directly, and with verifiable links to external sources, and perhaps mention in one sentence, that environmental issues are sometimes used by those who are opposed to the proliferation of firearms or the shooting sports (for whatever reason).

Symmetrically, there should be a separate section entitles "Gun Rights" or "Gun Control Issues" which can discuss, based on verifiable research, opposition to the shooting ranges and the viewpoint of those who feel their gun rights are being jeopardized.

There is mention of "safety issues" and that section/topic can be elaborated a bit.

I am certain there is legitimate concern for environmental, safety, and gun rights issues, and they all can be discussed neutrally with citations to appropriate background material.

While I understand the statement "It is not about gun politics", meaning the section, IMO there IS room for a discussion of gun politics as it affects shooting ranges, and this needs to be given its own presentation. There is no justification, nor a need, to squelch either side. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.33.29.164 (talk) 00:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

"Shooting range locations" section

This entire section is very badly written, definitely not up to Wikipedia's quality standards. There's wild statements with no citation (Almost every city with more than 30,000 people has a shooting range? That's COMPLETELY inaccurate) and also plain old bad grammar, including a run-on sentence fragment. Can someone help rewrite it? I don't really know where to start. All I can think to do is delete it entirely, but that would damage the flow of the article.

99.163.22.236 (talk) 19:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:

1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:55, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup needed

This article really needs an overhaul, but with virtually no sources there's no foundation for fixing it. Does anyone know of good sources for this topic? If not, maybe it should just be cut down to size and merged back to the main shooting range article. Rezin (talk) 18:24, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

reinstating these two sections (3 paragraphs)

There's naturally going to be some overlap between to articles similar in scope, but this article is a necessary split to keep the other article from being entirely US focused. Just because there's information in both articles doesn't mean we have to pick one for it to be in. Think if this were a paper encyclopedia, with two seperate pages, one on shooting ranges around the world, one on american shooting ranges. We should probably restructure this into a technical description section that links to the main article.

Outdoor shooting ranges are usually backed by a sandbagged barrier or specially-designed funnel-shaped traps to prevent bullets from ricocheting back at the shooters. Many older outdoor ranges only use an earthen berm, which is often composed of sand, and called the impact berm. Most outdoor ranges restrict the maximum caliber size, or have separate ranges devoted to use with rifles firing heavy caliber cartridges.  Many outdoor ranges do permit the use of automatic weapons on specially adapted Class III weapons ranges.

Most outdoor ranges restrict the maximum caliber size, or have separate ranges devoted to use with rifles firing heavy caliber cartridges.  Many outdoor ranges do permit the use of automatic weapons on specially adapted Class III weapons ranges. 
The largest problem currently with outdoor ranges is the lack of sufficient area behind and beside the impact berms. This area, usually called the Surface Danger Zone (SDZ), is a fan-shaped area that extends lengthwise to the ultimate ballistic distance of the round fired. 

Outdoor ranges often use baffles to contain fired rounds within the range, and, with proper design can reduce the surface danger zone area. Guidelines for surface danger zones vary widely. The National Rifle Association of America maintains guidelines for range design, but often the U.S. military range design guidelines are more prescriptive, specific and easier to use. 

DarmaniLink (talk) 13:53, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Cleanup and Future of the article

I have nominated this article for deletion, since I don't believe the topic is notable (WP:GNG).

If we removed all the generic information that is a duplicate of Shooting Range, and then all the instructional material (WP:NOTAGUIDE) the article would pretty much run to:

"There are shooting ranges in the USA. Some of them are public. Some of them are private. Some of the public ranges will rent guns to customers. The NRAofAmerica and DoD issue range construction guidance".

And... that's it. That's about the sum total of the US-specific content. But we could more or less copy-paste that into an article for every country on Earth. It doesn't infer notability. That's actually less US-specific than the main Shooting Range article - which currently has a Globalize tag on it (which I put there. Full disclosure).

• Specialised classes - Extremely generic, feels like a list of services/advocacy (WP:ADVOCACY/WP:NOTPROMO - note that it is possible for wording to present a positive, non-neutral or promotional position without advertising for a specific outlet)
• Locations - There is some US-specific content, comparing the number of ranges to state populations. I'm struggling to see why this shouldn't be moved into Gun culture in the United States#Ownership levels and blanked. It's not a reason for keeping the article. Also, the title - "Locations" is almost an invitation for people to come in and start listing individual ranges (WP:NOTADIRECTORY) as has happened in the past.
• Outdoor Ranges - Literally all generic. Clay layouts are the same across the world. yes, rifle ranges are 100-300yds or longer. Handgun ranges are 15-100yard. What of it?
• Indoor Ranges - There are 16-18k in the US. Okay, fair. What else? There is nothing unique in there that isn't also true of French/German/Indian ranges. There's some content on Lead safety which isn't in Shooting Range and probably should be... at which point it doesn't need to be here.
• Common Safety Practices - Guns are guns. What here is US-specific that you won't find in Spain or Australia?

FWIW I'm not just picking on America here. I think Shooting ranges in Norway is pretty tenuous too. I just haven't err... turned my sights on that article yet. The topic of Shooting ranges in Switzerland might be notable on account of their militia structure and having some weird and wonderful range designs (across public roads, etc). It's unfortunate that the article is garbage as it stands and doesn't touch on any of that.

But as it stands this article has been knocking around for 15 years, has 3 references (one of which is dead, another of which relates to whether one specific range permits foreign nationals to shoot...) and doesn't really make sense on its own. It needs to shape up or stop cluttering up the namespace. It's not as though this is a new discussion. People have had concerns forever. Even the first Talk topic states "This is the first draft of this article and is based on moving the formerly US-centric Shooting range article over and editing slightly." I'm sure there were good intentions, but this has just turned into a manual of how some US ranges operate. It's not representative of all US ranges, and it's not really adding anything useful to the encyclopedia.

In the meantime, I have removed "Cost of Shooting" (which can never be useful because costs will vary across the US, Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, and also WP:NOTAGUIDE). I've chopped anything with a $-sign in front of it and added templates as appropriate to highlight lack of citations and avoid readers being confused or misled by possibly local or inaccurate material. Hemmers (talk) 14:37, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

There's going to be factual trivia in general, especially in something like this. Whether or not something is purely promotional depends on if it is de facto promoting something, vs simply stating the existence of something using promotional language. There is a fine line, but it seems more like the latter. That being said, I do think it (and much of the article) should be changed from guidespeak to wiki prose. DarmaniLink (talk) 14:55, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I have removed the section on pistol grips and magazine capacities in California. This could not be less relevant to an article on Shooting Ranges in the US! There are like, at least four other articles that would be more appropriate in. We don't need to duplicate Gun politics in the United States or Gun law in the United States or Gun laws in the United States by state or Gun laws in California in the article about shooting ranges. Honestly, how many duplicative, overlapping articles do we need? I can see where you're trying to go with that. Maybe there are some special laws that regulate shooting ranges differently in California differently to the rest of the US? Hemmers (talk) 15:30, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, because you can check out and use an AR-15 and other """assault""" rifles at CA ranges that are otherwise banned in the state DarmaniLink (talk) 16:03, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

i tried to recenter the language around shooting ranges to set a precedent that allows other state-specific range information to be added DarmaniLink (talk) 02:59, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll be honest, I've changed my mind - I don't think state-specific information on ranges is a reason for a separate article, nor particularly DUE. This could quite easily go in Gun laws in California - the same gun laws that broadly prohibit things like AR-15s also permit their ownership by range businesses. None of this is actually relevant to the range itself. That's just steel and sand. A range in California is not physically any different to a range in Ohio - the guns you can shoot there might be. But that's a function of the business/regulation, not the range itself. Some ranges have pro-shops behind them. Some are a space in the desert with a backstop. It's like spinning off a separate article for "Theatres in Thailand" on the basis that it's not allowed to run plays that criticise the Thai Royal Family. A theatre is a theatre. The fact some the permissible content or expression is restricted is a separate matter ("Freedom of speech in..."). And that's basically analogous to this, since this material can happily sit in "Gun laws in <state>" in a "ranges" section. Moreover, if any of these rules change, then they need to be updated in Gun laws in the United States by state, "Gun laws in <state>" and possible [Gun laws in the United States]]. Adding the range-adjacent bits to a fourth article seems excessively duplicative. We do not need the same content in four heavily-overlapping articles. For a couple, sure. But four? This honestly feels a bit clutching-at-straws. What value is this adding?

Also, if we're adding new content, can we PLEASE reference it. This article only has like, 3 references. It's been flagged as an issue for a decade. We should not be adding new material without it being referenced. I'm strongly tempted to remove all new uncited content just out of principle. The article isn't going to get any better if we can't cite new statements. Hemmers (talk) 08:36, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll look for some sources.

Biggest issue I see with this article in general is that when you have a nation with the sheer size of the US and the scope of legal differences between the states it becomes very difficult to treat it aｓ a monolith.

If you look at a lot of articles in the historical sphere they will have tons of cross referencing and overlapping info that ties things into other things, and I think this acts more of a tie-in than something that stands in its own right. Not everyone reads every single article, nor can you really expect them to on a topic. Really, this article can serve to bridge that gap, as well as stand on its own weight of describing shooting ranges in the US, where are namely different from shooting ranges outside the US in the lower regulation, (outside of california, where being different and far more regulated makes it notablely different. Outside of CA some ranges let you shoot drum mags out of automatic weapons or 250 round clips from an m249) . DarmaniLink (talk) 22:42, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Biggest issue I see with this article in general is that when you have a nation with the sheer size of the US and the scope of legal differences between the states it becomes very difficult to treat it aｓ a monolith.

I don't disagree - but the thing is, this applies to laws, not really ranges. Which is why there is literally an article for every US state "Gun laws in <state>", tied together by Gun laws in the United States and Gun laws in the United States by state.

where are namely different from shooting ranges outside the US in the lower regulation,

I'm not sure this is actually true. Ranges in the US are subject to OSHA regs, zoning, local bylaws and ordinances just the same as every country in Europe is subject to it's own local Health & Safety regs. I live in the UK. I can set up a range in my back garden in the middle of town if I like. Perhaps surprisingly, I don't even need a license for that. The are outdoor shooting ranges in London literally hemmed in by housing. It's more gun friendly than NYC!

And this is the issue with some of what's been included. For instance, where you've added in the "California" section the statement: "Magazines in California shooting ranges have only up to a 10-round maximum capacity."

This... isn't really true. Magazines are limited to 10rounds in California. Even if you keep your gun at home for self-defence and never take it on a range. This is general firearms law, already covered by Gun laws in California. It is not shooting-range specific. It's not like it's legal to have a 30rd magazine at home for self-defence but you can only take the 10rd magazine to the range. So it's needlessly duplicating material from Gun laws in California, but in a more confusing manner.

Which loops us back to "Really, this article can serve to bridge that gap".

I'm still not seeing the gap. We have dozens of articles covering gun laws in every US state, plus (at least) two summary/general articles tying them together and adding in the Federal law angle. This article is adding absolutely nothing to any of that. And I think that is emphasised by the fact that whilst there is a "Gun laws in <country>" for most nations, there are only 3 "Shooting ranges in <country>" articles and they're all extremely tenuous as to their notability. It's just not a topic which needs its own article. If there are range-specific laws on the books, they probably belong in the "Gun laws in <country>" article. I'm open to the idea that a country may have unique and special ranges, the likes of which are found nowhere else in the world. But nobody has provided any evidence of that yet, and I don't believe the US is such a case. There's nothing in the US that you won't find the equivalent of in Europe or Canada or Australia or South Africa. There might be more ranges. But there's nothing US-specific about them. Hemmers (talk) 15:03, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

There is though, guns that are illegal in europe can be rented, fired, or even purchased from the range in certain parts of america. Shooting ranges in [state] may not be relevant enough but shooting ranges in america as a whole requires differentiating state laws. More or less, its the level of freedom in non coastal america that makes this more notable than the non american gun ranges. But discussing the freedom vs non american gun ranges requires tying into other countries outside of america, which would look stupid as a focus in this article. So, we write on the freedom in some states, and the restrictions in others, and let the level of freedom speak for itself. That's why i tried to start a precedent. :) DarmaniLink (talk) 17:33, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

There is though, guns that are illegal in europe can be rented, fired, or even purchased from the range in certain parts of america.

Like what? There are no guns that are illegal in "Europe" which can be - uniquely or especially - used on ranges in the US. Prague is a common European tourist destination for people to visit commercial ranges and fire assault rifles and submachine guns (Shooting Range Prague, Prague Ranger, Outback Prague). The Czech commercial ranges are actually less inhibited than US ranges since they can own modern assault rifles and not just ones grandfathered in under the NFA. Likewise Switzerland has at least one "tourist range" open to the general public. So does Vienna, so does Berlin.

But discussing the freedom vs non american gun ranges requires tying into other countries outside of america, which would look stupid as a focus in this article.

I agree entirely. Except this is not a freedom of ranges. It is a freedom of firearm ownership, possession and usage - which is a result of the firearm laws in those states. States with less regulation tend to have more tourist ranges. But to state that would be to duplicate the existing articles.

So, we write on the freedom in some states, and the restrictions in others, and let the level of freedom speak for itself.

The differences between ranges in different states will be a result of the laws in those states. And there are already many articles covering all those, plus summary articles. I can see what you were trying to do with the California example, but it is wrong and confusing to say "rifles must have fin grips on ranges in California" when in fact that rule has nothing to do with ranges - it's just California firearms law, which equally applies to firearms used for hunting and defence. It's not like a Californian can have a 30round magazine at home but only take a 10round magazine to a range! The high-capacity magazine legislation operates state-wide. Hemmers (talk) 10:53, 7 September 2023 (UTC)