Shooting Range Locations
In most states in the United States, there are numerous public-access shooting ranges, ranging for example from 144 in Florida with a population in excess of 18.2 million to 9 in Hawaii with a population of 1.3 million (numbers taken as of October 2008). Exceptions include cities in the states of Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Washington, DC, all known for gun control policies in general, where the numbers of ranges may be only one for every few hundred thousand people, or none at all, such as in the Washington, DC case.
Throughout much of the rest of the United States, though, especially in areas where the dominant side of the gun politics debate leans towards gun rights, and where no license is usually required to own a handgun or rifle or shotgun, the typical number of ranges often surpasses one for every 100,000 residents.
Of particular interest to international tourists interested in public access shooting ranges in the United States while on holiday, especially gun-friendly states include Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, New Hampshire, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah, among others. All of these typically have public access shooting ranges with rental guns available at a modest fee. Ammunition costs for rental guns varies, of course, but 9 mm Luger (usually the cheapest service caliber round) is often available for around $19 per 100 at Walmart, or slightly higher ($22–25) at most public access shooting ranges. Costs of .22 LR cartridges often run less than $0.02 per round.
Private or restricted-access shooting ranges are also owned and used by police departments, private companies, private membership shooting clubs, and the military for qualification and/or continued firearms practice and training. These private ranges typically have more-specialized features not seen in public ranges, e.g., large caliber rifle and automatic weapons ranges.
There are several types of shooting ranges, each catering to different classes of firearms, and meeting different needs. Some are inside buildings; others are outdoors and cover many acres.
Read more about this topic: Shooting Ranges In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words shooting and/or range:
“Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The Canadians of those days, at least, possessed a roving spirit of adventure which carried them further, in exposure to hardship and danger, than ever the New England colonist went, and led them, though not to clear and colonize the wilderness, yet to range over it as coureurs de bois, or runners of the woods, or, as Hontan prefers to call them, coureurs de risques, runners of risks; to say nothing of their enterprising priesthood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)