infinite9: Well, I just experienced an objective case of misleading advertising. I had looked up info about rental gun ranges in the surrounding counties and many had specifically stated that in order to rent a gun, a customer either had to have a gun with him/her or be in a party of at least two. I had figured it had to do with some strange liability reasons but I found what I thought was a decent shooting range at a gun store that did not have such requirements. It featured rental rifles with actual rifle calibers instead of rifles with pistol calibers like the ones normally available at the range I normally visited. I was excited.
I drove there this morning after a half hour drive only to find out the damn place had the same damn requirements. The guy at the counter told me that it had to do with some fucked up statistic that claimed that people who rent guns and shoot at the range in groups or bring their own guns are less likely to commit suicide with a rental gun. I bet this has more to do with insurance BS but I just said that they should update the website so that it states the requirement as other websites do and then left. It is horrible how other people's fun and access to training gets undermined by excessively selfish assholes who probably swallowed the wrong psychiatric drugs and then decide to do a Kurt Cobain at a rental gun range instead of having the decency of hanging themselves in a private setting or overdosing or letting gravity do the work. It is also pathetic how we let misleading statistics and the wrongful assumption of "causation = correlation" make life worse for the living. Fuck it.
The only good news about that misadventure is that I got to stop by at a country store and diner operated by Amish women and I got to eat some homemade Amish ice cream (Mississippi mud slide flavor) and sample some Amish cheese.
Do you have any friends that own property and/or live in the rural areas? Shooting becomes much more fun and relaxing out in the country. Cheaper, better acoustics, plus without the long list of arbitrary rules and waivers. I understand the need for gun ranges in urban places, but honestly I don't like them.