Man Shot To Death At SW Idaho Gun Range

A recent story from my neck of woods: "One dead in accidental shooting at Nampa gun range"--KIVI. From the article:

    At 5 p.m. on July 5, officers with the Canyon County Sheriff's Office responded to a report of an accidental shooting at the George Nourse Gun Range just south of Nampa.

    When CCSO deputies arrived at the range, they found 26-year-old Evan Michael Chase of Nampa who had been shot accidentally in the abdomen.

    According to CCSO, a rifle discharged an hit Chase as another man at the range was unloading it.

    Life-saving measures were performed, but the victim succumbed to his injury at the scene.

And that is all the information about the shooting in the article. 

    The gun range in question is south of Nampa, Idaho, and "operated" by Canyon County if memory serves me right (it's been years since I was last out there). I put "operated" in quotes because it is an open range--no fees, no range officer, no targets or target stands--where you can just go and leave as you please. You literally just pull your car up to where you are going to shoot and unload your gear. I've even seen people back a truck up to a lane and shoot out the back of the truck while laying down in the bed. 

    The fact that there is no charge or fee makes it a popular range with people teaching firearm safety classes or classes for concealed carry licenses. Consequently, it is so crowded on weekends that it is hard to get a spot to shoot. It's the primary reason I stopped traveling out to that range.

    On the other side of the coin, with no supervision, it means that there are no set periods for loading/unloading/shooting or checking on targets. You just have to rely on the cooperation of anyone else using the lane to stop shooting when you signal that you want to go check or move a target; and that they will exercise common sense when handling their firearms.

    There are berms between lanes, but some of the lanes are so wide that you can easily have 3 or 4 groups using the same lane. In fact, the only single lanes as best as I can remember are the ones at each end of the range. These are also the only lanes that actually stretch out 100 yards--most of the others are only about 80 yards deep.

    But the timber boxes set up as tables and shooting positions are past the berms--there is nothing between them. 

    So, this could have been a case where the weapon was pointed crosswise to the lanes when the man handling the rifle touched off the round; or the man that was shot could have gone down range while the man with the rifle was (mis)handling his weapon; or the man with the rifle was unloading his rifle at or around his vehicle and pointing in who knows what direction. 

    As I said, I haven't been out there in years, mostly because of how crowded it had become. With so many people moving into the area from blue states, I suspect that the range has become much less safe and friendly.