Could've been SOOO much worse...

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MrBorland

MrBorland

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I stumbled on this, and it made my eyes bulge. A guy downrange as an active shooter's going through the stage. :eek:

Thankfully, I've never witnessed anything similar myself. And thankfully, no one was hurt. Still, a powerful reminder to be sure the range is clear.

 
I know exactly what you mean. Years ago we had a backpacker wander out on to our range during a match. He was probably 100 yds. downrange and had no idea he was even on a range as he was deaf. We had signs posted all along the property line and he missed all of them.
 
wow!

a lot of things had to fail for that to happen. the RO should probably be banned for a year if not life.
 
I've seen this circulating heavily on social media .. it's definitely the RO's responsibility to make sure the range is safe before going hot.

Taliv is right, a whole trainwreck of things went wrong for that situation to evolve.

As far as "why didn't the guy know he was getting shot at"... If the club had pits next to each other, and he was wearing good ear protection, he may not have even realized that a gun was being fired at him. Maybe just assumed that shots were being fired 'next door'.

The RO is the primary culpable person here BUT.. it's on everyone's shoulders to make sure that things are safe.

The cameraman didn't call a cease fire when he saw the guy - probably had tunnel vision on his subject.

The other shooters didn't keep track of their squadmates.

And the guy downrange? He got lucky.. and also should have kept his head up and wits about him. Picking up brass or patching targets, whatever the hell he was doing, he should have been paying attention to what is going on around him too.
 
Mmmmmmm?

The RSO yells 'Oh Stop'.....?????

That's a Fur Sure need for a Command voice, yelling
'CEASE FIRE' 'CEASE FIRE' repeated at 1/2 second intervals, as loud as you can scream it, until you run out of air.

On any Army range I have ever run.

But then again.

There wouldn't be people wandering around down range.
Because we never set up 180 degree shooting ranges, with targets behind them, screened by Stuff the shooters and RO's can't see through.

IMO:
Stupid range set-up.
Stupid match.

And stupider RSO command voice & command!!!

rc
 
The range command to stop is "stop". There is no cease fire command in USPSA or IDPA.

The range setup and match are fine. It was an RO fail. And not just him, the guy holding the clipboard is also an RO so he is equally to blame (although you can't see him in the video)
 
NRA range command is cease fire, too, RC. I've gone hoarse yelling it before at a match - you get a bunch of old guys with rifles with hearing aids off, and hearing protection on, and they just DO NOT HEAR YOU!

When I run my safety briefings I train my shooters "if you hear cease fire you WILL repeat it as loud as you can" just so it echos better to both ends of the line.

Of course I have a couple dozen shooters on the line at once, not just one guy, and they're shooting noisy centerfire rifles. :)

I also take time to confirm no one is downrange and double check with RSO's at both ends of the line just to make sure I'm not missing something. ("ready on the left.." and so on).

There's been a lot of USPSA / IDPA events run without ever having a problem; this is a one in a million deal. But I'm not a big fan of these no-visibility courses. I know it's more exciting to "engage targets as they appear" but it unnerves me because depending on how the stage is set up it can easily violate the "know your target, and what is beyond."

Whether or not the guy got shot downrange, he still got muzzle swept with a gun that had a round in the pipe and finger on the trigger, how many times as that shooter transitioned from left to right and back again?
 
The guy downrange HAD to be hearing/seeing
rounds impacting from shot-1... even w/ muffs on.
What was he thinking in not hitting the dirt ?
 
I have seen this vid on a couple of gun blogs. Like talive said, a mess of things went wrong here.

Although I am not officially an RSO, I have stepped in a few times (extreme circumstances) and view myself as partway responsible for the folks in my squad with me.

If you are shooting a match, you have to, HAVE TO, be aware of the other people in your squad.
That guy is lucky to have not been hit.
 
The recommendation of NROI (which certainly wasn't followed here) is that the RO goes downrange with the squad as they're pasting/resetting. You check as you walk back up and you're the last man out of the bay.

The range setup isn't a problem, nor was the shooter at fault. The RO failed plain and simple.

Other research on this issue has shown that the guy on the timer isn't an officially NROI certified RO. It may be worth clubs looking into requiring that those running the timer be certified in the future.

Though the situation isn't his fault (again - responsibility of the RO), it is worth noting that the guy was not pasting or resetting - he had a brass wheel collecting brass. People dawdling around downrange getting brass after everyone else is done resetting is rude and disrupts the flow of the match. Again, the range should never have gone hot with him down there, but in general people also should attempt to *quickly* score, reset, and get back uprange.
 
"and you're the last man out of the bay."

yep. that's the way i always did it, though i was never certified

i generally prefer to have one guy responsible for safety. he owns calling the bay hot and cold, and staying on the shooter's ass so he can intervene immediately if there is a 180 violation or something similar.
and then you can have as many other people as you need scoring or doing whatever.

in a way, "everyone is an RO" and "everyone's responsible for safety" etc. but ultimately i think ONE GUY owns it. if you have two safety ROs, then when people get lazy, you get the, "oh i thought the other guy did it" crap
 
The RO bears the most, but I place some level of responsibility on every single person in the bay with the possible exception of the shooter. And the guy downrange isn't near the bottom of the list. Safety is everyone's responsibility.

I would not be in favor of banning opaque walls or any nonsense like that. Getting to targets around a non-see-through wall is a different challenge than a see through wall. I'd be in favor of the squad doing their job as they do 99.9999+% of the time.

The see-through walls further down range didn't help guy out much did they? Again, I expect the shooter to have complete tunnel vision on the current target, because I know that is how it goes. but the guy is in view for SECONDS without the RO, the score keeper, the camera guy, saying anything.

Also, the guy downrange is so oblivious 6 ways from Sunday as to anything going on around him, he shouldn't be at the match, period.

156k views now. Boss.
 
The guy was down range collecting brass on an active stage.

THAT idiot should have been escorted off the range, for a very long time.

The RO is very lucky that guy wasnt shot, but I put more responsibility on the idiot brass collector. He was totally out of touch with the group shooting.

The RO is still responsible at the end of the day.

be safe.
 
Do you know what could have prevented this? An elevated range officer platform. If they're going to be using obstructed targets like this, they should have someone in an elevated position so they can look down on the range.
 
WardenWolf said:
Do you know what could have prevented this? An elevated range officer platform.
Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with this match or stage setup. These matches have successfully been running for a long time because shooters and ROs strictly follow safety protocols. The video is a strong reminder that safety is everyone's responsibility and demonstrates what happens when ROs and others get complacent.

You can add elevated safety stations, downrange motion detectors, monitored downrange cameras, personal GPS devices linked to the RO's clipboard, etc, but like guns themselves, the real safety's between the ears.
 
It would be an insult to brain dead retards to call the brass collector a brain dead retard. That said, when I was ROing I would start at the backstop and work my way forward, ensuring there was no one on the range before 'load and make ready'.
 
Range Officers , take note of video.

One born every day. Seen a shot fired down range while a person was at the same 100 yds targets. He was :cuss:
 
There WAS a club member that would move in front of the firing line to pick up brass. Several of us complained to the club officers and he had a safety hearing. His membership was cancelled and told he will never be a member again. he made a lot of noise about suing but nothing came of it.
 
Safety is everybodies responsibility.

Dumb all the way around.
 
got an email from IDPA. They video got around to them and they were quick to point out that was not a sanctioned IDPA event.

Please be safe.
 
I think he's just too old to do that job anymore, sorry to be the one to say it, but he missed everything. And when he did see it, he didn't react properly.
 
1. Brass collecting should only be an end of the day thing.
2. The RO did not, by definition, have control of his range
3. The RO did not respond appropriately to the situation.
4. The folks running this event clearly were not on the ball enough to have a range setup with visual barriers.

It is sad that this is not as rare as it should be, this time just happened to be recorded and posted on the web.
 
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