http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Apr11/0,4670,FiringRangeGuns,00.html
Gun Rentals Are Easy at Firing Ranges
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
By ADAM GORLICK, Associated Press Writer
WORCESTER, Mass. — The 35-year-old woman handled her 9 mm Glock with ease. For three straight days, she honed her aim and hit bull's-eye after bull's-eye from the firing line at the Boston Gun Range.
Then she put the gun to her head and killed herself.
Like countless others who have rented guns at ranges across the country, she did not have a firearm license. And as a convicted felon with a restraining order against her, she wouldn't have been able to get one.
Even in a state known for some of the nation's toughest gun control laws, unlicensed shooters in Massachusetts have to do little more than swear they are not criminals, drunk or mentally unstable to fire their choice of pistols or rifles.
While federal law requires background checks on anyone who wants to buy a gun, no such review is necessary for someone who wants to rent one at a shooting range.
"The rules are all up to the states," said Jim McNally, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "There is no federal regulation of ranges."
Many ranges have gun renters sign forms attesting to their clean backgrounds, but liars rarely face consequences. The ATF and local police chiefs may occasionally review the paperwork, but they are not required to. Some ranges shred the forms after a few days; others keep them for years.
A spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said tighter shooting range regulations are not a high priority for the organization. And few people have brought as much attention to the issue as Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme.
The chief is pushing for a city law requiring anyone who wants to rent a gun to have a firearm license. He said such a rule would weed out people with criminal backgrounds and mental illness, like the woman who committed suicide at the Boston Gun Range in Worcester last October. She was convicted in 1999 of passing a forged check. She also had a restraining order against her because of a domestic dispute, which also disqualified her from obtaining a firearm license.
"If you're going to shoot on a range with a rented gun, you should have your license," Gemme said. "That's the only way to know if a person has a clean background."
Gemme said the forms that unlicensed shooters fill out are useless because they are not routinely checked by state or federal authorities. Of the 367 customers who signed those forms at the Worcester range in January, 22 were felons, he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Association of Shooting Ranges do not keep statistics on shooting deaths at ranges.
More than half of the country's 32,000 suicides were committed with guns in 2004, the most recent year such statistics were compiled by the CDC.
Rick Patterson, executive director of the National Association of Shooting Ranges, said shooting-range suicides are rare.
"Ranges are the places where Americans can learn and practice firearm safety," he said. And renting a gun gives people a chance to make sure they are comfortable handling a firearm before they decide to buy one, he said.
The National Rifle Association referred questions about shooting ranges to Patterson's organization.
Range owners call suicides an unavoidable business risk, and there have been reports of them in Florida, Arizona, California and Washington in the past few years.
"All gun ranges have suicides as a possibility," said Bob Irwin, owner of the Gun Store in Las Vegas. "If they haven't had one, they're going to have one."
He said the three suicides at his range over the past 25 years "don't mean anything statistically," and said his employees turn people away if they seem drunk or otherwise problematic.
Barbara O'Connell said she does the same thing at the Marksman Pistol Institute, the range she owns in Tucson, Ariz., where a man shot himself with a rented 9 mm a few days before last Christmas.
"I've been in this business for about two years, and they say this happens every three or four years," O'Connell said.
Irwin and O'Connell said they realize some customers lie when they sign forms swearing they have no criminal history or mental illness. "Short of running fingerprint checks on everyone, what can we do," Irwin said. "We have tourists from all over the world come in here."
As a safeguard, Irwin and O'Connell said, they have employees watch customers while they shoot.
Owner Mark Tashjian said he follows a similar policy at the Boston Gun Range but allows some customers to be on the range alone if they look like competent shooters.
That was how he described the woman who committed suicide at his range. Police will not identify her because of the way she died, but Tashjian said she was an occasional customer who seemed happy when she came in. She was being watched by an employee but was sometimes left alone.
"We knew she was being safe, persistent and accurate," Tashjian said. "With a person like that, we give them a feeling of privacy. We might step off the range for a bite to eat."
John Rosenthal, founder of the Boston-based Stop Handgun Violence, said people should have a safe place to learn how to shoot. And he said making sure a person has a clean background won't guarantee safety on a range.
"You're never going to stop all the horrific things that happen with guns," he said.
Last edited:
![[rolleyes]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/042.gif "Roll Eyes [rolleyes]")
idea when a gun-grabber can't even get the Brady Campaign and John Rosenthal to support his cause.
![[thinking]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/010.gif "Thinking [thinking]")
To clear up some confusion...or make it more soupy...![[hmmm]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/009.gif "Hmm [hmmm]")
