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Public Gun Range Coming Soon to Ft. Stockton
Public Gun Range Coming Soon to Ft. Stockton 10/30/12
jsamp@cbs7.com
CBS 7 News
October
Mario Martinez is one of the many officers benefiting from the new shooting range in Fort Stockton.
Before law enforcement in Fort Stockton, Monahans, Alpine, and even border patrol had to travel many miles to do their training.
“Its looking like a real success rather than what we had before, that was a real dump,” Martinez said.
“Training is your foundation on everything, everything is built on how you train,” said The City of Fort Stockton Chief of Police Art Fuentes. He says with the help of the Economic Development Center the range sitting on ten acres of land will soon be open to the public.
“We want to make sure the public is being educated the proper way,” he said, “Making sure the public has a place to shoot.”
The Chief says they've reached out to the NRA who has programs to show how this operation can be done and officers will be there to oversee the public area to ensure safety.
“There is going to be guidelines in what type of targets are here” Fuentes said, “We don't want people shooting at bottles and cans.”
There will also be a required safety training coarse before getting a membership to the range.
“We sure hate to put a lot of money to something like this and then you have one accident and shut everything down,” Fuentes said.
Chef Fuentes says they will eventually offer training courses such as what will you do if someone breaks in your home.
“We want to do it right and safe and we want people to enjoy themselves,” he said.
Fuentes says the range has not taken much time, equipment or money from the city. So far the city has spent $5,000 on the project, which will be done as early as next summer 2013.