Plan to ban ranges stuns hobby shooters

TheStar.com - GTA - Plan to ban ranges stuns hobby shooters
Rifle club members express anger at being targeted by mayor as part of campaign to stop gun violence
May 28, 2008
Jim Byers
City Hall Bureau

In one part of the Don Montgomery Community Recreation Centre, a group of men and women are engaged in an innocent game of volleyball.

In another, fresh-faced children are taking a cartooning class. And, in the basement, a couple of dozen members of another club are doing what they love to do on a Tuesday night – firing guns.

Charlie Gulston, an 81-year-old who took up the sport in 1962 and reckons he's won 300 awards, is lying on his stomach and peering at a distant series of bull's-eye targets through the sights of his air rifle. On the back of his red and white jacket the words "Proud to be Canadian" are stitched in large letters.

There are 150 members of the Scarborough Rifle Club, give or take.

There are grandmothers and grandfathers, teenagers and even a 24-year-old woman, Sandy Chan, who alternates her weeknights between target shooting, ballroom and swing dancing, and horseback riding lessons.

To a man, and a woman, they're amazed – and more than a little bit angry – that politicians are looking to ban clubs from city property as part of a campaign to stop gun violence.

"I shouldn't say it," said Florence Morris, a shooting enthusiast who has brought her two grandsons and their bags of shooting medals to practise on this night, "but I think the mayor doesn't have the balls" to tackle the real issues.

Morris called the idea of banning the discharge of all firearms except those of public officials such as police "absolutely ridiculous."

"He (Mayor David Miller) is not going after the cause of the problem," she told the Star. "We're not the problem. Our guns are all locked up. They have trigger guards and they're in locked containers."

Steve Spinney, the firearms safety officer for the club, said members are only allowed to fire 22-calibre rifles that shoot "regular" bullets one at a time, as well as air rifles and air pistols that shoot small silver pellets. There are strict regulations, and the club is inspected.

"It takes 10 or 15 seconds to reload one of these," he said, showing a rifle to a reporter. "You don't go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And we fire at a target; usually 20 shots in 30 minutes.

"We're not doing a Rambo here," he said.

Spinney shows off another gun, this one an Anschutz 8002 air rifle. It's a heavy affair with a gleaming wooden stock and shoots small pellets.

"Who takes something like this into a store" to hurt someone, he asks.

Spinney said members of the club have to pass government tests and have to take a separate exam the club administers.

In some 40 years of operation, he said the only accident he can recall at the club is when a box fell off a shelf and chipped someone's tooth.

The club's setup looks pretty much like any sports organization. There's a bulletin board with club news in one corner and a large collection of trophies on the wall. There's also a poster with the words "Target Shooting is a Lifetime Sport."

Spinney said if the club were to go out of business, he and other long-time shooters would find other places to practise their sport.

But the casual members likely would have to give up their weekly nights at the range, not to mention the annual "Christmas Fun" shooting tournament and the annual fundraisers for the Canadian Cancer Society.

Chan said it would be a shame to lose the club.

"I had never used a gun before I joined last September," she said. "I really enjoy it. It's very relaxing."

Fifteen-year-old Jordan Akow, one of Morris's grandsons, said he likes the mental discipline it takes to shoot well.

"I think it helps me study for school," he said.

Spinney said members like to compete in a sport that demands extreme discipline and hand-eye co-ordination.

So why are politicians after them?

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe we're easy to find. We're in the phone book. We're visible. But don't go after us; go after the people who bring handguns into Canada."