Rio Salado Open House

Yesterday I drove up to Phoenix in order to have lunch with some Arizona bloggers and make a visit to the Usery Pass target range managed by the Rio Salado Sportsmen's Club and Arizona Game & Fish. Attendance at the restaurant was slight, but I did meet the lovely Vox and her significant other, and Papa Todd, so my list of "bloggers I've met" has grown a little.

After lunch we visited the range. The facilities boast:

• Covered shooting benches with target holders from 25 to 300 yards
• A Practical Pistol range with 4 lighted bays from 25 to 50 yards
• A lighted, covered 40-position Smallbore Range to 100 meters
• Covered long range rifle and pistol silhouette ranges to 500 meters
• High power rifle range to 500 yards
• Sporting Clays Range - 12 stations, cart accessible, card based activation
• 5-Stand, Trap, Wobble Trap facility with lights and voice activation
• Indoor Air Rifle Range coordinated by our Junior Division
• Restrooms, Activity Center, and Training Classrooms

They had it all set up for visitors to try, most of them for free, and the turnout looked pretty good. This is something I think I'll bring up at the next Tucson Rifle Club board meeting.

I took a few pictures and shot a little video, nothing worth posting unfortunately, except this sign:

I doubt seriously anyone was killed or injured at the range yesterday, or on any range in Arizona. Gun ban control SAFETY advocates so often complain about how dangerous guns are, and they can be. They are, after all, designed to hurl small metal projectiles at high velocity, but that sign says why, in the overwhelming majority, the several billion rounds fired recreationally in this country each year harm no one.

On the other hand, while driving the 120 miles back home, traffic on I-10 East slowed to a crawl at one point. After about ten minutes of creeping along at about 10-15 mph tops, there were several lumps of clothing scattered down the right shoulder:

That was just a couple. There were at least five or six like those. Then there was obvious evidence that someone had lost control, and gone from the right shoulder into the median, and shortly after that, the scene of the accident:

A couple of miles further down the road in a closed rest area were a couple of ambulances and a Life Flight helicopter spooling up to take off. I didn't get a shot of that.

Hopefully no one got ejected from the vehicle, but those lumps of clothing that looked like the were spilled from luggage makes me wonder.

I've never felt unsafe on a target range, but driving in traffic at highway speeds? And people think GUNS are dangerous?