Can anyone recommend a gun range in Tampa area ?

Murphy_The_Cat

poet123 wrote: »

While you are in the area don't miss the barrier islands, Captiva, and Sanibel A bit tamer than shooting(!) but they have crab racing, the kids will love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-gyahXSZ4I

thats a lovely idea.
When we're away we like to combine the conventional (enjoying the Gulf Coast), with the unconventional (not visiting Disney).

going crab racing looks like god fun.

poet123

You can also hire a self drive boat on Captiva and sail to an inn on the water where everyone who has ever been there has signed a dollar bill and pasted it to the ceiling/walls. Lots of famous people, fun to spot the dollar bills of those. You get to do your own too. Good food as well. http://www.cabbagekey.com/home/

Loads of non disney type stuff to do, On Marco Island you can do fishing trips and then you take you catch to a restaurant and watch them cook it for you. We loved it.

Gloomendoom

phatbear wrote: »

Im not into kids shooting either but they're your young'uns and you know best.

I suppose it depends on the circumstances.

Like many people my age, I was introduced to shooting at school. I can't think of a single negative repercussion. If anything, I would say the experience was wholly positive. Regular contact with firearms in a safe, controlled environment effectively demystified them and mentally put them on the same level as any other tool that deserves the utmost respect from its user. Like a chainsaw, for example.

Mr_Wang

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Ehm Murphy, I am rather surprised. What within your psyche makes you think it would be a good idea to take an 8 year old to a range like this, and why o' why do you need to see what it feels like to fire an M16? I can tell you what it feels like to see people out of uniform firing these things - bloody weird and rather more worrying than I would like

These weapons are about as remote as you can get from toys. So why are you posting along the lines of toying around with them? They are designed with only one purpose in mind - to kill people and to scare the sh|t out of people who see them being used. Anything other than official training to kill people or to scare the sh|t out of them is toying around.

I've met some strange civilians behind weapons of this type. Among them were the ones lobbying for the right to continue to keep F1s at home for "practical shooting" purposes after Hungerford.

To say I am surprised at this thread is actually an understatement.

In your opinion.

However, in the minds of most people one thing in this thread jumps right out.
That is...They are his children and as such he makes the decisions.

As the father of an 10 year old boy I can't think of many things that would excite him more than going onto the range with some big guns.
It's actually one of the things he has never done, and now - Thanks to this thread I will look into it next time I am in the States.

Cheers Murphy

Bob_the_Saver

I think that we should remember that the OP is talking about shooting in the USA. They look on things a little different over there,
heck the right to arm bears is even in their constitution.

Bob_the_Saver

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Yes indeed, Bob, and some right weird skewing effects that has on segments of their society, in the name of screwy organisations like the NRA. Can you imagine one of our much loved elders from the acting profession ever feeling the need to do a Charlton Heston ? (and I am not talking about the Ross Kemps of our acquaintance!)

Can you Imagine Paddington with an AK47

or Pooh with a pair of Purdeys?

Bob_the_Saver

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Right_to_Arm_Bears

Mr_Wang

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Well I think you need your heads testing.

America is the last place you are likely to encounter a range environment that instils any semblance of real control and respect for the enormous danger that exists at the pointy end, and frankly, exciting an 8 year old or even a 10 year old with the prospect of "having a go" is a ridiculous reason to let their hands hold and squeeze the trigger on a weapon of this type. I grew up in the country around farms and it was very unusual for kids under 11 to be firing anything at all and even when they were introduced to weapons it was air rifles first and maybe shotguns in their teens after they had learned not about the random destructive power but first how to keep the weapon safe at all times, then how to zero it and be accurate, then to hunt small game (and remain safe in the field with an air rifle), learning of the bloody mess that even an air rifle pellet makes when it hits a living thing, seeing what happens when you only wound some animal and cause it enormous pain and distress and then learning you have no choice but to track a wounded animal to end it's misery as soon as possible.

Only then, after some years, might you be introduced to firearms of the type described in this thread. First via perhaps .22 rifle shooting at a range or if you are a farmer maybe you might get a license to keep one to shoot rabbits.

And finally, after perhaps being a regular member of a small arms range where you will be trained and watched constantly by range officers and your peers until they learn to trust your safety, you might get to visit a bigger range with bigger pistols and rifles where you will be expected to know how to behave because someone they trust who knows you will have been trusted to brief you properly and vouch for you.

What on earth does it teach young children to short circuit the above and throw them in at the end of this steady learning process that so many of us have been through, other than the worst thing about playing with guns i.e. yes the bigger they are the bigger the random destruction as seen in the movies, especially if the dear little Quentin with the dear little PPK hasn't held it quite right, and/or turns slightly to see if his Dad is watching and ends up shooting lumps out of the target frame of the guy 3 positions down on the range?? Is that worth a laugh? And then a little later on another part of the range, we watch Dad obliterating some other target and everything in the general vicinity with an M16 ... another great laugh ??

For goodness sakes let these children grow up some more before corrupting their view of their own power.

Haven't the tragic shootings of Hungerford, Dunblane, Raoul Moat etc., the loss of so many of our teens on city streets, and numerous major incidents in America taught you anything? Or are they nothing to do with the risks you want to take in introducing your nearest and dearest?

I am sorry to rain on your parade, but I feel very strongly about these things, and the fact firearms tourism is now as easy as some posters make out is just indicative of the complete lack of control that has evolved in some places.

It was no quirk of fate in the UK that meant that the signatures of the likes of parish priests and GPs and headteachers or local village police sergeants were once the only way that shotgun certificates would be ever be countenanced. No sane range officer gives anyone a gun, let alone permits them to hold it even without ammunition in it unless he/she KNOWs them or KNOWs in person the sponsor of the visitor and trusts them with the same judgement they themselves would make. So why does a range in Florida give a visiting Brit an M16 and a trailing 8 year old a PPK?? For the promulgation of excitement??

I think the world can do without all that thank you.

PS A chainsaw cannot kill at a range of three miles unless fired from the barrel of some naval gun perhaps.

I think you're being a bit cynical and assuming that every kid that gets the feel of a gun will straight down to Moss Side with their dinner money and buy themselves an Uzi and go shoot up the Trafford Centre.

The flip side, and more realistic side is that the child will learn to appreciate not only the danger, but also the power that a gun harvests. Any child that has been brought up properly would approach the whole situation with maturity and understanding. And whilst feeling the enjoyment of shooting, would understand the dangers and implications involved.

There are numerous things that children do in the course of their maturity that can have deadly implications for themselves or others. I remember once being told that as parents we spend the first 16 years of a child's life protecting them from others, then the rest of their lives protecting them from themselves.

I really do think you are being cynical about the whole thing.

Gloomendoom

Murph, I may be able to help. How far from Tampa are you willing to travel?

bleepandbooster

Turn up at range choose weapon 9mm hand gun, pay $25 for 20 rounds. Stand inline for about an hour, chat with Tony the owner (get free T shirts !) Put on Ear/Eye protection, get taken into range ...... Shoot gun ! Nothing more nothing less, simple pimple. Instructor did find it amusing that none of us in the group had ever shot before.
Leave range and head off downtown to find the the Pawn shop featured in TV show "Pawnstars"

Cofion
David
PS Got to go now "American Guns" has just started on Discovery !!!