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| - Ben Avery, a 1600+ acre shooting range in desert Arizona outside of Phoenix, appears to be one of the more popular destinations on a Sunday afternoon, and among the highest that do not involve any kind of alcohol or controlled chemical substances. For the susprisingly low price of $7/shooter (targets around $1 or less) and the cost of one's own ammo, weapon, ear and eye protection, and after watching a five minute safety video, one too can let out one's aggression and/or boredom with lethal force in a legal fashion.
Call me a city slicker (an ironic descripton since I am more often derided as a dweller of suburbia) but, despite firing off about ten chambers worth of a family-owned .38 Special, and since talking is almost impossible over the sounds of gunfire during the shooting rounds, by far the most interesting thing here was the people watching. Besides a general feeling of having stumbled upon a casting call for extras for Red Dawn:
- The goth woman accompanied by the long haired hippie toting what appeared to be an assualt shotgun that I would have expected illegal and whose choice of target was simply a wooden board with no sheet that didn't stand a chance
- The jolly older man with a .44 magnum who joked about using it as an anti road-rage deterrent from a moving vehicle
- The hardcore sniper shooting at a target 500 yards away who needed to use a scope to see the results of his firing
- Blonde, blue-eyed All-American children that couldn't have been over 10 firing pistols with a smile (and hopefully the gravity of the situation)
- The ultimate hipster toting his rifle in a guitar case
- The announcer who continuously reminded people over loudspeaker to stay away from the firearm tables during the ceasefire break which, after about the ten-thousandth time, must get old for them
- Walter Sobchak (... not really on this one, but I was holding out hope)
I'll admit I don't have much experience with these facilities, but for an outdoor range with many other ranges to cater to competitive shooting, especially in ideal outdoor weather, Ben Avery seemed like a good place to spend a few hours for those averse to physical exercise (recoil-induced wrist-stretching notwithstanding) and for some father-son bonding. I'd implore you to be safe - but the friendly NRA-approved range master will remind you of that at least five times during the course of a normal visit.
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