Public Access to City PD Range

Craig Westerman · Dec 9, 2011

Our city has just past a resolution making our city PD range into a city park so that it would fall under the city's liability insurance umbrella. I believe it is within the city limits. They intent to then open it up on a restricted/supervised basis for the public to shoot.

They are in the beginning stages of setting this up and have no clue as to how they will do it. They mentioned having a paid on duty police officer there part or all day Saturdays to supervise and have shooters make reservations in advance and pay $20 per hour to shoot. I told one of the City Commissioners, a long time friend and shooter that few would participate. The Police Chief is all in favor of opening the range, but he doesn't want it to impact negatively on his budget in any way. Public shooting has to pay for itself.

I would like to see a 2 to 4 hour supervised period like they propose, one day a week. Probably Saturday for the guy that rarely shoots or has had no training. Maybe $10 per hour. I would then like to see the range open during the week to those that take a safety class and pass a written and shooting test. Much like a CCW course. These trained, experienced shooters would pay a reasonable annual fee and have unsupervised daylight access when the range was not in use by LE or the supervised shooter time period.

I know Coffeyville. KS has a police range right next to town with some form of public access. I suggested to the City Commissioner that our City Manager get in contact with the Coffeyville PD and find out how they organize public access to their range.

As of now the ball has been hiked, but no one knows where to run with it. I want to at least be able to propose some options that are being used by other cities around the area. I see no point in reinventing the wheel here.

Does anyone here know of any other City PDs that allow some form of public access that we can contact to see how they structured their public access and to get ideas?

Know anyone I can contact that has "been there, done that"?

I welcome your thoughts.

Thanks Craig

PS, the range is only 10 blocks from my house. I really, really, really want this to happen.

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michaelclm · Dec 9, 2011

This sounds like an excellent opportunity for some retired fellow(s) to become certified by the PD as a Rangemaster and volunteer to open the range one or a few evenings a week. I would propose that they open it up to volunteers to be certified and then take applicants. Good on the city for doing what they've done already. Hopefully they do the rest wisely.

Craig Westerman · Dec 9, 2011

Michael Ray said:
This sounds like an excellent opportunity for some retired fellow(s) to become certified by the PD as a Rangemaster and volunteer to open the range one or a few evenings a week. I would propose that they open it up to volunteers to be certified and then take applicants. Good on the city for doing what they've done already. Hopefully they do the rest wisely.

They really have no clue and are open to suggestions. I mentioned that volunteer ROs would be an option and they thought the RO needed to be a paid city employee for insurance purposes.I plan on meeting with the City Manager to see if this is in fact true. Our city is rather small. 9000 pop or less. Not sure how many volunteers will be interested.
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TroyF · Dec 9, 2011

I know of no PD ranges in Oklahoma that do this. Lance? Chris?

ef9turbo · Dec 10, 2011

I can't think of any LE ranges in Oklahoma that allow public access. For sure none in the NE part of the state.

aeropb · Dec 10, 2011

sounds ridiculous

Eellis · Dec 10, 2011

I work for the city but not as a LE and me and the other non LE employees can use pds range unsupervised anytime we want as long as they are not using it . I don't know how the liability works on that but I guess they don't care . I don't really wanna start asking around either.

cheech_029 · Dec 10, 2011

I believe there is a condition of LE ranges who receive NRA subsidized funds to allow public (under range policy restrictions) to have access to the range as well as NRA approved training for the public. There aren't a lot of ranges that are funded this way, but it is still a probable example.