Last Friday, an HK MP5 machine gun was stolen from LoneStar Handgun, a shooting range in Bexar (that’s pronounced “bear,” like the furry animal that poops in the woods and flies space ships with Han Solo in Star Wars) County, Texas. According to the KENS5 news video below, “the [shooting range] owner fears it could end up in the wrong hands.” Um, yes, I think that ship has sailed with the person who knowingly stole the gun when the range employee’s back was turned.

The female shooting range customer rented a handgun, did a little shooting, then came back to the counter and asked to rent the MP5. She then apparently left with it.

Having paid cash for the rentals and such, the range didn’t even have a record of who the customer was. I think it’s fair to say they’ll be making some policy changes.

Obviously if you know who the woman in the video is, LoneStar Handgun and the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office would love to know as well.

 

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88 COMMENTS

  1. Jeebus. I’ve used a lot of rental ranges in different states. Every one required that they hold your license and in some cases your car keys at the counter to use their firearms.

      • That type of theft takes some chutzpah.

        I imagine she will be caught.

        By the way, I thought an MP5 was considered a “submachine gun”.

        • The ATF considers all full auto weapons “machineguns” no matter what everyone else calls them. It is due to the language in the NFA that makes no distinction between a sub gun, assault rifle, or beltfed.

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      • There are two ranges near me here in SoCal. One requires you to sign your first born child as collateral and leave your ID with the desk. The staff are super rude, and – amazingly – super ignorant of both Federal and California gun laws. I stopped going there before COVID hit.

        The other requires no ID and is a superior location, albeit a 20-minute drive away. Worth it, tho. Range officers for safety, but nobody hanging over your shoulder trying to see if your gat is legal.

    • The only one I’ve seen that didn’t need ID was in a town in Alaska… No roads out so I guess they figured they could get you at the dock or the airport.

    • Yeah but requiring someone to have a drivers license is racist….

      Seriously though, EVERY range has always required and has held on to my Drivers License.

  3. HAVE TO HAVE VALID DRIVER ID , GETS RECORDED IN TO SYSTEM , TO RENT . TARGET SHOOT , PURCHASE AND SO ON …
    IS WHAT THE PLACE DOES WHERE I SHOOT AT .
    A NO BRAINER
    HOPE FIND THIEF AND LOCKUP THROW AWAY THA KEY..

  4. This article is missing some important information. 1. She rented the gun using the ID of a woman that looked like her who had died in a fire last year I think. Also company policy was to have all gun rentals paid for with a credit card, but for some reason the employee took cash from the woman.

    • “1. She rented the gun using the ID of a woman that looked like her who had died in a fire last year I think.”

      The plot thickens.

      Yeah, if caught, she’s in a heap-O federal prison time trouble…

  5. Safe to say the weapon left the accident waiting to happen range in the wrong hands. Offer a reward and someone will talk.

  6. I could see a pistol rental they may not give too much supervision, but restricted items like a full auto machine gun should be on a pretty tight leash. One they usually prevent you from using your own ammo, they probably don’t want you to stick a couple mags of steel case ammo in it.

    And liability, there’s a lot that could go wrong if someone goofs up with full auto, it’s hard to imagine the employee being more than arms reach away from this lady.

    Unless this is just semi-auto only but it would still be an SBR, anyway seems crazy.
    Maybe she is a secret shopper ATF inspector, now they will get zero tolerance license yanked.

  8. That guy can probably kiss his licenses goodbye. I have no sympathy.

    • Agreed. Handing over a $35,000, full auto weapon with no ID or security?

      Two words: In-sane.

      Heck, most places I’ve seen that rent things with a giggle switch, a handler brings it out and stands behind you the entire time. And given the lack of muzzle discipline common to rental ranges, that’s a good thing.

      • … pretty sure that’s three words, as a dash inserted in the middle of a non hyphenated word usually denotes an unspoken f-bomb

      • “Heck, most places I’ve seen that rent things with a giggle switch, a handler brings it out and stands behind you the entire time. And given the lack of muzzle discipline common to rental ranges, that’s a good thing.”

        That’s exactly what DCF does in Colorado.

      • Originally posted dby John up above. Changes things a bit if accurate. However given ATFs no tolerance policy these days they will likely pull the license regardless

        “John
        May 8, 2023 At 16:10
        This article is missing some important information. 1. She rented the gun using the ID of a woman that looked like her who had died in a fire last year I think. Also company policy was to have all gun rentals paid for with a credit card, but for some reason the employee took cash from the woman.

        Reply”

      • It was probably a post-86 non-transferable gun, so more like $5k, or whatever HK charges a government agency. Still, not a good business plan.

    • Poor asset management and tracking for a start.

      Downunder a mentally ill woman lied on a form and was able to slip out of a range with a handgun and then did what the voices told her to do and she then murdered members of her family with the pistol.

      When I was the range officer at an air rifle and air pistol club, the assets were tracked and visitors were supervised by a club official.

      • When gun rental suicide started taking off, the ranges here had a simple solution :

        If you rent a gun, you had to bring someone in the shooting lane with you. No extra charge for the guest…

        • Target Masters in Milpitas, CA (now closed) had the policy that renters needed either to bring their own gun or a companion. A clerk told me they had an Asian woman come in with her family. She promptly used a rental handgun to end her life. Apparently, she had a failed engagement, and her family knew what she had planned.

    • Which, in a loose sense, she kinda did… 🙂

    • When I worked at an equipment rental shop, we got a picture, made copies of IDs, and took a security deposit And this was in the 70’s.

  10. Whoa that’s a pathetic range! When asked about her new machine gun she said “it fell off a truck”🙄😮🙃

  11. I don’t know. I’ve borrowed a firearm. I’ve loaned a firearm. I’ve gifted and been given firearms. I don’t think I’ve ever rented one. That seems, strange.

    • When you don’t have a particular NFA weapon (like an MP5) and would like to play with one for a spell (and don’t know someone personally who has one), what the hell is wrong or strange with renting one for a spell?

      Not everyone knows folks with NFA ‘toys’… 🙁

      • I used rental ranges to check out firearms that I was interested in but wanted a hands on experience with before I bought.

        And being a resident of CA I cannot own some toys that others can. So I go to ranges in Utah that have those toys and enjoy them there.

    • Well, when I was trying to decide on a new carry piece years ago, being able to comparison shoot several candidates (HK v. Sig v. Walther) by renting them at the same time was a good idea.

      Of course, the ne plus ultra (short of Range Day at SHOT) for that was the much-missed TTAG-sponsored Texas International Firearms Festival (which used to be held at the even more-missed Best of the West Shooting Center in Liberty Hill, Texas (north of Austin)).

      You paid a cover charge of $50 or so, and dozens of vendors and manufacturers were set up at the various tactical bays and range slots. You stood in line for, say, the Walther booth, and when your turn came up, you picked out a weapon and they gave you a 10 rounds in a mag (for centerfire bolt action stuff, usually 3 rounds) and let you blast away on a safe outdoor range setup. So for $50 bucks (plus what you spent on food and nonalcoholic drinks), you could shoot all day, including suppressed weapons and SBR’s. Great way to comparison shop and shoot stuff you’d usually never get to.

      The final year, they even had a VIP-level “full auto Friday,” which included a Ma Deuce and a minigun (OK, for those you definitely had to pay for your ammo).

      And they had FFL’s and other vendors (like a gun show) where you could buy whichever one you liked best (NFA stuff excluded, of course).

      But the political winds blew, and like Best of the West Shooting Center, now we can’t have nice things any more . . . .

      • Nice things. That’s what happens when zipped lipped Gun Owning slackers failed to Define Gun Control by its history of rot. And 110% because of that failure you have useful idiots marching around begging big government for an agenda History Confirms is Rooted in Racism and Genocide…If such failure describes you…Take a bow.

        • Get real.

          The political winds were that the event agency that provided the personnel for TIFF decided to get politically correct to please the “cool kids” in the Austin event scene, and pulled out at the last minute. That crippled the event so much that it was no longer economically viable.

          BotW fell victim to a crooked nearby developer and an even slimier attorney who managed to get a preliminary injunction against it operating, which similarly destroyed its economic viability. (They were later sanctioned by another court for their bad faith antics, but that was too late to save BotW.)

          But like the DEI and CRT acolytes who define everything they see as due to “systemic racism” (including the weather), you just keep riding the same one trick pony.

  12. The County name is NOT pronounced “bear.” The actual pronunciation is closer to “bay are” with no separation in the word sound. I am not aware of any regional accent that would conflate the sound of Bexar (Behar) County, Texas and a hirsute bear.

    • Thank you. I was about to say the same thing. I dont know what upset me more the theft or the wrong description on how to pronounce Bexar.

      • In the South, we often pronounce one-syllable words as two-syllable words.

        “do-ah” = door

        “bay-er” = bear

        … and so on.

        • “In the South, we often pronounce one-syllable words as two-syllable words.”

          “flow-err” = floor
          “bo-we” = boy
          “illa-no-we” = illinois

          Just stick a “W” in the middle of a two syllable word, and you’re good to go.

          Now, “rot chaandar” is its own thing; related to usage of the word “yonder”.

        • hoosier…supposedly the response for people ka nocking on your door in injiana.

        • But if you grew up in Texas (I did) and spent a lot of time with people, both TexMex and Anglo, who spent their lives correctly pronouncing Bexar, then you would never – not ever – pronounce the County’s name like some dandy from New York who is pretending to be from the south. I don’t remember anyone actually born and raised in Texas ever saying, “I’m from the south.” Or mispronouncing Bexar to sound like “bear.”

          Just for the sake of accuracy, Texicans and Texans are not “from the South.” We are from Texas. If you want to generalize the area, then we are from the Southwest. In fact, in Texas most of the native Texans would tend to say we are from “the Hill Country,” or “Piney Woods,” or “Caprock,” or “Upper Trinity,” or “Chihuahuan Desert,” or “the Coast,” instead of just saying Texas. That helps explain our various accents and gives context to our expressions.

          And yes, I am GeorgiaBob because this Texan lives quite comfortably in Georgia.

        • Concur with GeorgiaBob (I’m a native Texan, and my family’s been here since before the Revolution).

          Local pronunciation is BAY-her, often slurred together such that it kinda sounds like “Bear.” (As folks have pointed out, X in Spanish is pronounced like a very soft h.)

          But speaking the Texan dialect isn’t always about pronouncing Spanish names according to their correct Spanish phonemes. Case in point: San Jacinto (as in “Battle of”). Proper Spanish pronunciation would be “san ha CIN toe,” just like “La Jolla” is pronounced “la HOY ya,” not “la JOE la” or “la JAH la.” But every Texas knows that in Texas, San Jacinto is pronounced just like it is spelled in English: “san jah CIN toe.”

          And Sam Houston, Edward Burleson, Sydney Sherman, Mirabeau Lamar, Deaf Smith, and the rest of the crowd kicked Santa Anna’s ass in that battle (Texans outnumbered 2-1 but still won it in 18 minutes!), so we’ve earned the right to pronounce it however we damn well want to!

      • The pronunciation of Bexar in Texas has been in common use there for at least 75yrs (my lifetime). Although, sometimes people would have fun with the word and use “becks are”.

        For you linguists, “bear” is a colloquialism; perfectly legit as such.

    • GeorgiaBob,

      Yeah, but them damn yankees think think “Taliaferro” is pronounced “Tal – e – ah – ferro” – ignorant. Don’t hold it against them, their mommas shoulda raised them better.

      It is two syllables, and the “x” is pronounced as an unvoiced “h” (as you said).

      Yankees don’t know s***, but they THINK they know everything.

      • … holds true up North too. I lived for about 20 years in Purr, South Dakota.
        Yes, Purr… spelled P-i-e-r-r-e.
        It’s east of Oohtah.

        • “Yes, Purr… spelled P-i-e-r-r-e.”

          Always learning.

          When living in Minot, we heard Pierre (the town), pronounced as Pier.

        • “Of course everyone knows that all southerners are illiterate drunken wife beaters.”

          Not all of us; my wife was trained in Kung Fu. I learned quickly to restrict my conversations to three-word sentences: “Of course, dear”; “Right away, dear”; “You’re right, dear”; “My mistake, dear”.

      • “Texas has regional accents,…”

        Knew a couple who legally immigrated from Deutschland (Germany). Their last name was “Bayer”* (just like the aspirin). The couple pronounced their last name “Buy-er”, but “Bayer” was so entrenched in American language, everyone called them “Bay-er”.

        *There is great controversy over “Bayer” aspirin. The Bayer company in Germany produced Zyklon-B gas. The Bayer company has long claimed that they are not the original Bayer company, but other knowledgeable researchers say Bayer is Bayer is Bayer.

  13. Someone recognized a weakness in their process and took full advantage of it. Apparently this woman wants to spend the next 20 years in a publicly funded gated community. What a moron, the gun is worth $25k, even a crappy job pays that a year, 20 years, that’s half a million dollars. Gota be hood rat, y’all know that street cred worth lots a benji’s

  15. an mp5 is a sub-machine gun, a**holes. a machine gun has a tripod and is crew-served. anything is possible in bizarre county, tx.

    • Lighten up Francis. A sub-machinegun is a pistol caliber version of machinegun. Rifle caliber machineguns such as M4 and AK-47 versions are man portable. Crew served and belt feds, such as a SAW are classified as Heavy Machine Guns. Assholes are what shit comes out of, or persons posting under a new handle in a disparaging fashion.

    • skmyverga,

      Well, if we are going to start being pedantic, there are LOTS of nuances to different types of fully-automatic weapons, and, yes, there are usually fairly specific terms for each. The easy default is to refer to any weapon capable of automatic fire as either “automatic” or “capable of automatic” fire. And, yeah, if we’re gong to beef the ignoranuses about using correct nomenclature, we should, too.

      So, I “get it” (for certain values of “get it”), but, as another commenter said, “Lighten up, Francis”. We are (theoretically) among friends here, and most folks on here know what we mean (and few posters on this blog (dacian the demented and MajorLiar and Prince Albert the Ponce being obvious exceptions) actually abuse the terminology – it’s usually ‘shorthand’ for something we all kinda understand.

      Should we use the “CORRECT” terminology? Sure. Now I’ll pick a nit with you – there are “machine guns” that are not crew served, they are DESIGNED to be used by a single soldier. An M-240 is a machine gun, because it isn’t CAPABLE of semi-auto fire. An M-4 is an “assault rifle” because it IS capable of semi-auto, burst, or full auto. Some machine guns are belt-fed (or box fed), some use magazines. No semi-auto I know of uses belt fed.

      Now that you’ve exercised your inner grammar Nazi, was there a SUBSTANTIVE problem with the comments?

      Nah, didn’t think so.

      • @Lamp
        “Should we use the “CORRECT” terminology?”

        We should use the correct terminology of the environment with which we are dealing: weapons discussions – use formal nomenclature/description; legal discussions – use legal terms.

        BTW, the US govt was already pushing equity and inclusiveness when enacting the NFA: “machine gun” includes any and all versions of firearms that fire a continuous stream of bullets with a single pull of the trigger; dispenses with eternal modifications of law, as types of auto-fire weapons are created.

      • “Pedantic?” “Correct terminology?” “Grammar Nazi?”

        As a pedant, I must insist on the proper descriptor — it’s “linguistic authoritarian.”

        Respect my authoritah!

    • M60 is considered crew served and has a bipod and tripod. During training we shoulder fired it.

    • Relevant US law classifies it as a “machinegun” while there is no such thing as a ‘submachinegun’ in that same law.

      Given the circumstances, the actual law and ATF definitions are a lot more important than what some overly semantic internet poster thinks.

      • +1. That’s the key.

        A Glock 18 (or other Glock with a giggle switch installed) is a “machine gun” under the NFA, notwithstanding that it would hardly be considered a “machine gun” under military terminology. (Indeed, other than the full auto variant of the Mauser C-96 (the “Broomhandle Mauser”), has any military ever fielded FA handguns?)

  16. LOL. I’ve rented full autos, in Texas and Las Vegas, NV, for a couple of birthday parties. We were ALWAYS accompanied and supervised on the range by a staff member. The guy who runs this place is gonna lose his FFL.

  17. No one at the range profiled that bimbo? Looks like a fatty gangbanger chick to me. Hat pulled low over face? NO you can’t rent a subgun.

  18. POWERFUL!!!!!!! You could blow a lot of lungs out with that thing.

    I know I rented a Colt SMG and while fun I certainly couldn’t have gotten out the door with it.

  19. “…(that’s pronounced “bear,”…)”

    FWIW –
    In the foreign nations that surround Texas, the pronunciation is closer to “ba-har”, or “bay-har”; the letter “x” in Spanish has a sound closer to “h” in English. But since Texas is “a whole ‘nuther country”, residents can pronounce words any way they like.

  20. It will be found at a crime scene in the cold, dead hands of a gangsta’ with a 33-round Glock mag jammed into the mag well.

  21. tough s**t. this kind of headline/reporting produced the “fully semiautomatic” description made famous by an obiden.

  22. Range near me rents auto guns. They take license, keys and plate number and an employee follows the gun everywhere it goes.

  23. Never rented a full-auto weapon before. The few I’ve shot were loaned to me by friends. But even when I was trying new “carry pistols” at my local range, they took my DL, and didn’t give it back until I gave the rented gun back to them. Just seems like good sense, to me.

    On the other hand, to steal a line from Kevin Kline in “Silverado”, “I always figure you should approach life like everybody’s your friend, or nobody is. Doesn’t make much difference.” I try to approach a stranger with the “presumption of good faith”, and assume they are good people until the prove otherwise. But Ronaldus Maximus taught us “Trust, but verify”. I think the gun shop seriously dropped the ball on this one.

  24. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but gun ranges and dealers should do a lot more profiling. Apply the Israeli model of security, if you will.

    That woman walks in an asks to rent an MP5 and I’m standing at the counter, she’s getting the McDonalds “our ice cream machine is broken currently” treatment from me… sorry.

  25. So they let that thing just walk in the door & rent a machine gun with out instruction about safety or it’s operation? Then turn their back on her? Think I’ll continue to stay away from any range.

    • right it has a serial number and it’s on a registry they should have found it before the ink was dry on this article WTF??

  27. Hate to say this, but the license to operate should probably be revoked. No WAY in Hades anyone should be able to walk out the door, without being apprehended before they even get close to the exit.

    In addition, cash or not, no way in Hades should anyone be allowed to shoot at the range, or rent a firearm without providing an ID, and being on record in their computer system.

    This is the kind of STUFF that will TRULY give responsible firearms owners a BLACK EYE!

  28. If they’re not worried about the ATF coming down on their heads, they should be.

  32. Man, Texas is fucken up big time right now… almost like the increase in migration and all those CA residents flocking there during the plandemic are starting to really take their toll on the state.

  33. The last time I was at a range that offered full auto was in Albuquerque. After paperwork a range employee came with you onto the firing line.

    Plus they had double airlock doors with electonic locks they could remotely close if someone went nuts.

    Just walking out shouldn’t be possible.

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