Eating our own
This weekend, I was out driving around and I decided to stop by Gunny’s Indoor Shooting Range. It’s not open yet but there was plenty of activity with them finishing the place up and stuff. They gave me a tour of the facility and their range. They’ll have (IIRC) eight pistol lanes and four lanes rated for rifles up to 30-06. And they explained to me how the fancy ventilation system works. Seems breathing lead is bad for you and they have put in all kinds of filters and stuff for that. They told me the total cost of just the range was about half a million. Also, if you join now before they open, you get a membership at $80 off the regular price. Membership includes range time, one handgun carry permit class, and your first firearm purchase at cost. They were all super nice, friendly, and helpful. I mean, the guy stopped what he was doing and gave me a tour and I just walked in from the street.
But this ain’t a post about that. It’s a post about this: A man who I assume was The Gunny was talking to another guy, who we will refer to as SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED happened to stop by that day to and got a tour. I’m not sure how the conversation got to that point but I heard The Gunny say something like Well, you can’t really carry a loaded weapon through the store to the range. The Gunny explained that that was a condition of his insurance policy. Well, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED got all SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED on The Gunny saying he thought it was ridiculous and he’d never be back and he would never patronize the store. Would you rather the guy not open up his shop? I’m pretty certain the rules for insurance are probably consistent at various ranges.
So, hats off to assholes like SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED for getting all GOA on a shop-owner over something he can’t control. Thank you for making this guy’s life hard. And thank you for ruining what was probably an otherwise fulfilling afternoon for the guy. I mean, it’s not like you can’t take your frustration out on the insurance folks be sending them a letter. It’s much better to attack a guy who happens to be on the same side of the gun issue as you. I mean, that makes sense, making life hard on people with like interests. I mean, Hell, if a gun range has rules about gun handling, it’s like the gun controllers have won!
Asshat.
April 4th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
That’s actually incorrect about bad risks. Rates don’t contemplate factors like litigation environment or non-fortuitous losses. Sure, in my neck of the woods we have no problem giving wind coverage, but in the south, insurers are canceling policies. That’s why there isn’t flood insurance available for the first $1,000,000 and why the government offers the NFIP. If there is too much risk of loss, it stops being insurance and becomes a transfer program.
I agree with your premise that since there isn’t enough data, there isn’t a basis for a rule to be created in the first place. That’s the point here, that I highly doubt that an insurer would be really enforcing a rule such as this, and at most it would be a suggestion. The rule really doesn’t limit the exposures at hand here because there are still members of the public with loaded firearms, except they are ok in this area but not in the other? I’m sure the operator could implement a don’t ask don’t tell policy also, or tell his agent that my customers don’t like this rule and tell the underwriter to drop it or start shopping for another company.
The main point of this thread it to voice your viewpoint, respectfully and ask for change and try to change people’s minds for the better.