Local media can be a mixed bag when it comes to stories involving gun owners. I think local TV stations and newspapers generally do a decent job in covering armed citizen stories, but it’s also not unheard of for local media outlets to try to create a controversy where none exists. I’ve seen plenty of pieces over the years that breathlessly report on volunteer fire departments or youth athletic leagues running fundraising raffles with firearms as prizes, for instance, and even though there might only be one or two people in the community who have a problem with that, they get plenty of time on camera to air their complaints.
I think we’re seeing an attempt to manufacture a controversy in the Baltimore suburb of Owings Mills, home to a high-end range called The Guntry Club. As it turns out, the range has a contract allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to train at the facility, and Baltimore CBS affiliate WJZ has decided this is somehow newsworthy… even though they couldn’t find anyone willing to go on camera to complain about it.
“We came just to do some target practice. One of my friend’s birthdays just passed, so we all met up here just to shoot some guns,” Guntry customer Fernando Escobar said.
Escobar said he had a great time at Guntry in Owings Mills.
He said he isn’t bothered that the range is one of the facilities the Department of Homeland Security contracts with for ICE agents to use for firearms training.
“As a Hispanic male, people would probably say I shouldn’t support it, but at the end of the day, I’ve got to get my training in as well. So whether it’s a place that they train at or a place that they don’t, I still got to go,” Escobar said.
That’s the thing. Whether you’re okay with ICE being in your community or ticked off about their presence, I think we can all agree that we want our law enforcement agents to have some firearms training (unless you’re opposed to them having firearms at all, I suppose). The same is true for gun owners. Training is good. Heck, according to gun control activists training should be mandatory before we can even keep a gun in our home.
So if the vast majority of us can agree that training is a good thing, why should ICE training at a commercial range be controversial?
WJZ received tips from concerned Guntry members who said they dropped out of the club after learning about the contract.
… The people who contacted WJZ with concerns did not want to speak on camera.
These people, whoever and however many there are (and I’m guessing not more than a few) are cowards. If you have such a problem with ICE training at your local range that you end your membership and go running to the media to complain, at least have the courage of your convictions to go on camera and make your case.
WJZ also reported that the contract between The Guntry Club’s owners and ICE states that the range “is the only facility identified within a 30-mile radius of the field office that provides all required training capabilities at a single location.” If these ICE employees aren’t training there, where should they be training?
I love the fact that the only person who was apparently willing to go on camera with WJZ is a Hispanic guy who doesn’t take issue with ICE using the same range that he does. Despite the best efforts of these unnamed disgruntled former members and the local CBS affiliate to create a controversy, I think they’ve really shown that this is a non-issue for most people.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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