By Bob Kingsley
Last April, the gun club I had been a member of for 20 years closed abruptly after having a panic attack related to the Covid-19 virus. The club had a 24/7 access system and members could use the facility whenever it was convenient.
While it would have been understandable to cancel group activities, there was no reason individuals couldn’t have continued to using the facility while observing virus protocols. Even President Trump had declared shooting ranges to be “essential.” No matter, my club’s “leadership” made the decision to close without input from the membership. (The story of how this originally unfolded here.)
So here we are nine months later with an update on what has happened since.
Inexplicably, the club re-opened in fits and starts in the summer of 2020 and even allowed leagues, unwisely encouraging exactly the kind of activity that involves close contact. Why would this be OK when individuals using the facility one or two at a time were banned? Oh, but the league shooters pay additional fees. Hard to imagine that profit should take precedence over members’ safety, but bills have to be paid, right?
September is the renewal month for all club members. For the twentieth year in a row, I dutifully and promptly paid my membership renewal fee. About a week later, I received a certified letter from the club. Club leadership had voted not to renew my membership.
After protesting to the point of involving my attorney, the club not only refused to relent and accept my renewal, they doubled down by assailing my character, writing that I had, “… not abided by the bylaws which prohibit disparaging comments to the Binghamton Rifle Club, the Executive Committee and the members at large.”
They further wrote, “…we have seen other posts of Mr. Kingsley’s on his Facebook page and other media sites and find some of them offensive, misogynistic and not in character of a responsible gun owner.”
After long deliberation, I ended my two decades’ relationship with the club with this letter:
To the members of the Executive Committee:
In response to your letter of 12-03-20 I offer the following opinions.
My comments of 03-22-20 were prophetic. I was in the wrong club.
I am sickened by. . . the pettiness [of] small-minded people [who] profess to rally around the celebration of our 2nd Amendment while simultaneously employing the tools of tyranny, censorship and expulsion as a cover for their own lack of fortitude.
A 15-lane shooting range with 24/7 member access could have easily conformed to the most stringent of Covid protocols. The President of the United States even singled out shooting ranges as essential. Yet instead of entrusting members to decide our own individual level of comfort in either using or not using the facility, you decided unilaterally for clos[ure]. When I began asking questions, “leadership” stopped responding and when I took my concerns to the club’s Facebook page, that same leadership took the posts down and censored me from further communications.
Instead of demonstrating real leadership, you put your finger to the wind, checked to see what other clubs were doing and then, comforted by the safety of group-think, you rationalized your decision by proclaiming that everyone else is doing the same thing.
That’s called “leading from behind.”
Leadership censored me from the club Facebook page because you were afraid that the membership would agree with my position. If any group of people ought to be particularly insulted by censorship, it would be those who cherish our 2nd Amendment.
How shameful.
It is truly a sad day in America when the leadership of a rifle club in existence for over 100 years believes it is OK to use censorship and expulsion in order to squelch debate with a 20 year member. Your unilateral and draconian measures removed decision making from the members because you didn’t believe we were smart enough to decide for ourselves. I happily distance myself from such a group of petty tyrants who are the very antithesis of the patriots that envisioned the necessity of a 2nd Amendment in the first place.
Not the way I would have preferred this relationship to end, but hey, things don’t stay the same forever.
What I never would have guessed is that a group of gun owners would so willingly embrace censorship, group think, oppressiveness and bullying against someone simply because they disagree. Tactics that are routinely used to vilify and attack gun owners are apparently OK to be used by gun owners against gun owners when they have the tyranny of of official positions to wield.
I for one have no desire to be a member of any organization that inflicts “progressive” cancel culture. I didn’t imagine such a thing could happen among gun owners, but in today’s America I guess nothing is a surprise. God help us.
Bob Kingsley is a private investigator and writer from New York. He is a Life Member of the NRA, a certified handgun instructor and an educator for the program, “Refuse to be a Victim.” He blogs at BobKingsley.com.
This article was originally published at drgo.us and is reprinted here with permission.
Got to do what you got to do, brother. My guess is Birmingham is large enough for you to find a different range. Not what you might want, but you may be better off.
You are correct. Birmingham likely has a bunch of shooting outlets, but they would all be about a 14hr drive from Binghamton, New Commiork, where the entitled Mr. Kingsley lives.
To the self-righteous Mr. Kingsley, I offer the following:
GFY, you entitled, self-absorbed twatch.
Right, wrong, indifferent, or downright ugly, the leadership of a club you joined made a decision and you talked shite about them in public. They didn’t want you any more than they needed you, and the sand that was chaffing you vag made you tone-deaf to their (real or perceived) situation.
If you want to shoot, and get all puffy about “muh secund menmint” buy some farking land, and shut the feek up.
I haven’t shot with the peasants in years because I don’t like to, I don’t want to get shot, and, conveniently, because I no longer have to. I already have to risk my own body-hole count by shooting with so-called professionals like Michael Arnold (don’t get me started on that fuddtard, he’s completely unsafe on the range, and shouldn’t be trusted with a Nerf gun). I don’t intend to put myself at risk of perforation by yum-yums I’m not paid to associate with.
So, TLDR: STFU, buy land, quit being a whiny bitch.
Y’all got called out for a poor decision and responded by kicking him out for wrongthink. You people are a confederacy of morons
Who’s “y’all”?
You and the gerbil in Michael Arnold’s b-hole?
I got nothing to do with the Binghamton Poser-Patriot Klub. I have far too much self-respect to live in NY. The states are States for a reason, and that’s not one I care to live in, or lament… or gripe from while I soapbox about how I was “done wrong” by my fellow jelly-spined, poo-dicked communist sympathizers.
Great another idiot prog in the house.
Kamala, quit posting under your hood name.
You, sir, have mistaken me with MajMooseKnuckle, and I, frankly, do not appreciate it.
Whatever you take to control your impulsive outbursts it’s not working.
From what I gather coming from a member of a club for 20 years most people appreciate a heads-up before wasting time and money to learn the hard way. Those that do not appreciate what certainly appears to be a viable heads-up can stfu…Ring a bell?
Wait, I’m lost.
Who was supposed to be given a little heads-up?
Was Kingsley supposed to give the klub warning before he publicly talked shit about them on the internet?
Or were they supposed to give him notice before they told him to pay someone else to let them shoot on their land?
You sound like someone who rents a studio apt. Take your own advice, peasant.
Why, I do rent a studio apartment. Your are uncannily observant.
I live at home in the middle of nowhere, but I keep the rent on the apartment at the insistence of yermom. She requires 9 1/2 feet of dick per day, so she can’t afford to spend too much time in transit between seats on the carousel. I have to drive to town everyday if I want to keep driving her.
Adults do not speak this way.
If one can not use the written word without vile language then there is no point.
Bit on an intelligence test.
Well, you are reprehensable.
Does your mother know you are on the computer? You know you are supposed to have supervision and not get on adult sites.
“I haven’t shot with the peasants in years…”
H’mmm.
Sounds like the one with ‘sand in his vag’ is the one who refers to himself as an actual vag.
There’s something to be said for truth in advertising, I suppose… 🙂
“twatch”
“shite”
“vag”
“farking”
“feek”
“fuddtard”
What kind of whiney twat talks shit online and uses fake swear words? Are you afraid your mommy will catch you saying naughty words?
TLDR: Fuck off, bitch.
Speaking of cancel culture this nitwit seems ripe for a red flag call. He is clearly emotionally overwrought and mentally unstable. I’m seriously concerned he might hurt himself and/or others.
TLDR: you are a jackass and your parents did a poor job raising you. Go away and feel bad about yourself.
Somebody snuck into mommy and daddies room to play on the computer.
And that, Ladies & Gentlemen, is an example of why the 2nd Amendment is doomed. The very people that should naturally be fellow warriors in defense of the 2nd instead turn on each other in a nanosecond over a discussion of Covid protocols.
By the way CamelToe (no – not creative – just filth) – you are a peasant. We all are. You just like to pretend your not to feed your own narcissism.
Ole Camel….. I have not used this term in forever…..but you are just a “dick”….it is “his” story, not yours…..stop drinking so much when you do not think, then post …your “target” acquisition, I hope, is better than this………it goes a long way to something constructive…..
Looks like someone found their mom’s meth stash.
you call people entitled and refer to others as peasants in the same sentece. You seem like a real shitty person, best if you do keep to yourself and shoot alone it seems.
Kingsley should end his affiliation with the NRA for strikingly similar reasons. Join a real gun rights organization. A few still exist.
“After protesting to the point of involving my attorney, the club not only refused to relent and accept my renewal… Flabbergasted, I posted a picture of the club with the words “Frozen by Fear” photo shopped onto the building. The club took down the photo and blocked me from posting to my own club’s Facebook page. ”
This is sort of like a guy banging on an ex’s door at 3AM demanding that she take him back “or else” and then wondering why girls don’t go for nice guys
This sounds less like “cancel culture” and more like “this guy’s money isn’t worth the headache he’s constantly causing and we, as a private organization, don’t want to deal with his crap anymore.”
Move on, she’s just not interested.
His only mistake was renewing his membership. A club having the unbridled audacity to take your money while simultaneously banning members from using the damn place is beyond ridiculous.
On that, I agree.
It’s literally nothing like that.
I am not surprised. Human nature has not changed in 2000 years.
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Abraham Lincoln
Gun owners are no more, nor less ethical or of high character than the average person. We just like to think they are because they agree with us on a single point.
Great lesson for us all in the coming times. Not all your gun buddies will stand by/up for you when SHTF. One must look deeper at the character of a person, not a single trait or shared interest.
Character! You either have it or you don’t.
Be careful who you trust.
“Not all your gun buddies will stand by/up for you when SHTF.”
Say it ain’t so, Joe.
“I’m shocked, shocked that there is gambling going on here.”.
I got a letter from a gun club demanding that I explain why I broke some archaic rule that I never heard of I ripped up the letter and returned it to them with my resignation letter. Clubs run by fudd are useless
While Mr. Kingsley would have my sympathies if this were all true, this really is just another one-sided one-viewpoint diatribe that gets immediately believed by the sheep on this site.
so prove it.
I’m sure if the club wanted to rebuke this Mr. Z. Would oblige I am sure.
“…this really is just another one-sided one-viewpoint diatribe that gets immediately believed by the sheep on this site.”
So, what’s that say about you hanging around here then, f you’re so superior to the chimps that hang out in TTAG? 🙂
Glad you provided all those details and cleared that up for me! Ok, now tell me what I should believe…please type slowly.
Clubs s near me have all kinds of membership rituals, high fees, and they aren’t that close anyway. Fortunately there is a public range that’s acceptable for a 10 dollar daily fee.
Wish there was a good club with comradory I could meet like minded individuals but not really. I used to shoot trap at a good club but moved from the area years ago.
Mr. Kinsley should have not renewed membership or bothered with the club. The snubs said it all.
Geez why is this even on TTAG? The apocalypse is coming and you criticise your club. Our business was damaged by all the closures. We could have whined but after 25 years of selling antiques we’ve learned to roll with the vagaries of our meager “livelihood”…unless you run things you’re a peon!
How’s that go old saying go? ,,,It’s better to be a peon then a peed on.
“…,,,It’s better to be a peon then a peed on.”
{The sound of a massive Chines Gong}
More wisdom from the burrow of the Marsupial One… 🙂
As the gun club and some of the commenters on this thread demonstrate, gun owners can be surprisingly myopic about their rights beyond their personal enthusiasms. We’re doomed.
Which rights are we shortsighted to?
The right to shoot on land someone else owns, even after you publicly talk shit about them?
I’ve never called that one, so I’m admittedly a little rusty on it.
Short-sightedness Exhibit A.
To expand:
Your view represents a moral regressiveness so profound that I hardly know where to begin.
Freedom of speech isn’t only a good idea when applied to government control, it is a positive good throughout society.
The government’s promotion of freedom of speech was intended to be an example for how we ought to conduct our private lives, not an exception to it.
Madison believed that the Constitution was only fit to govern a moral people, and he was right, because a moral people realized that freedom of speech was a moral good that needed to extend into the private sector.
Our constitution assumed that a moral people could be trusted with their right of freedom of association to not abuse that right to chill speech, that a moral people could navigate amongst competing rights, because government trying to compel private behavior is *also* a moral evil.
The author didn’t “talk shit” about the club. He disagreed. How people act in their private associations will inevitably spread to how they act when in positions of government power.
The idea that because, legally, the first amendment only protects freedom of speech from abridgment by government that, therefore, freedom of speech doesn’t need to be protected in private represents profound moral retardation.
Pungent and excellent. Or put another way, per Ben Franklin, if we don’t hang together we will surely hang separately.
BTW yesterday the NRA filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy in Texas, with a move I assume to eliminate any dischargeable pending liabilities and to reconstitute itself in TX and leave the old shell in NY for that crap state Atty Gen to feast on. I hope this has been well thought out, they get a sympathetic BK judge and it all works out. BK can be something of a craps shoot.
I’m done. This isn’t The Truth About Guns, it’s a women’s tea club. This website has devolved into a little whiny bitch session every single day. “Boo hoo, I’m being censored!” “Boo hoo, we lost the election and now they’re gonna take all my guns!” Just non stop bitching and whining about the entire F’ing world being against you. It’s no wonder, you’re self victimizing PUSSIES! I’m done with your stupid paranoia, your pathetic woe is me BS, all of it. Unsubscribing, possibly even selling my collection. I’ve finally realized I’m not one of you anymore. I have too much self respect to be so pathetic and lame.
Uh huh, yep. Troll on, troll.
Buh Bye Felicia…
No longer seeing posts by someone called Dusty Kneuster just ruins my day. Take a few other trolls with you.
Dusty, you never were “one of us”. Your life is empty, meaningless and no one likes you. Worst of all it’s all your own fault. The only decent decision you’ve made for a long time was to stop frequenting this site.
Don’t let the door hit your dusty bottom on the way out.
Rick Green and Front Sight have been taking a very pro-2A stance throughout this whole COVID scamdemic. I’m proud to be associated with them.
At this point in time this post seems like whistling past the graveyard.
That said, if the story is as the poster claims, the club seems unreasonable and leaving is the best option available.
I agree, but the worst part is their use of the “red flag” shit.
Where in the article is that?
They used his Facebook posts and commented on his unbecoming nature not being something a gun owner should be. It’s basically highlighted.
Boohoo, cry me a river. That was a couple minutes I’ll never get back, thanks douchebag!
Like HOAs, PTAs, country clubs, or other low-level democracies, you’ll encounter some run by busybodies, good-ol-boy networks, or people drunk on their limited power. Some clubs are businesses with no democracy for the membership. You didn’t like the policies of the club. You should have accepted them, resigned, run to replace them, or supported someone else to replace them. Instead, you chose to air their dirty laundry to people not in the club and unable to change it. You gave them an excuse to get rid of a troublemaker. This isn’t cancel culture — your actions were related to the club.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
That’s human nature, sadly.
UMM , RIGHT TO HAVE A GUN RANGE OPEN , YES WE DO . YEP OBAY THA RULES , LUCKY TO HAVE TWO INDOOR WITH IN 15 MILE AREA . OPEN , MUST WEAR MASK , OK BY ME , IF VIRUS ON PAPER TARGET PLEASE SHOOT IT .
That’s enough nitrous oxide for today.
Well there yah go again, putting shit up on Facebook, when you kids gonna learn?
I recommend a change of scene to the Intermountain West.
I have always lived at the junction between the high desert and the forested mountains, with thousands of acres of public land to choose from. My father never took us to a “gun club” while we were growing up. We simply drove someplace where we could pull off the road and blast away at targets, skeets, or game. We rarely drove longer than an hour to get where we needed to go. That hasn’t really changed, even though my hometown has gotten a lot more crowded than it used to be.
I don’t blast away at game anymore. I’m not morally opposed, it’s just that the fun is over once you pull the trigger, and after that it’s just a lot of very messy work. But I’ll happily eat an elk steak at my Dad’s place, and I still very much enjoy perforating paper perpetrators.
Almost forgot. If you do come out here, feel free to shoot some whistle pigs and/or jackrabbits, but I wouldn’t eat them. Whistle pigs have been known to carry Bubonic Plague in these parts, and jackrabbits can carry Tularemia. You will also most likely encounter a rattlesnake at some point if you spend lots of time in the desert. You can kill or capture them live with a hunting license within some legal limits, but I like to leave them alone. They keep the rodent population down.
I’ve killed numerous rattlesnakes in my yard over the years. No license needed in SoCal to eradicate anything considered “vermin” on your property.
Can’t count how many rabbits & ground squirrels. A few of those destructive raccoons, too.
No possums, tho. They get a free pass because eat grubs.
And occasionally post funny comments to help lighten things up.
I wholeheartedly agree with killing rattlesnakes in your yard, and I believe it is OK to do that here as well. But all the rattlesnakes in my city were eradicated long ago, and the relatively lush river valley is not really their preferred habitat. I was referring only to snakes in the wild.
Assuming the article is accurate with no omissions or embellishments, I’d kick the guy out too. You dont belong to a group and then publicly attack them, then expect to be embraced with open arms. At some point you become enough of a pain in the arse that your insignificant fees are not worth the hassle.
Its like the places with complaint hotlines and the same knuckleheads call time after time, or a boss says he has an “open door” policy and some idiot employee actually believes it; over and over. Nobody cares about your stupid opinion. We all have our own stupid opinions to worry about.
Like everyone else on this thread, you ignore that he stated he tried to contact the club leadership by email, privately, and they ignored and snubbed him. Then he posted on the facebook page, seeking to learn if other members might agree with him on the matter and the club leaders blocked him, censoring an inter-club communication and actively preventing club members from hearing any side but the “Master’s” side.
So what else would you think would be okay for this club? What if someone runs against the club leadership over this matter and they ban him from the facebook page to stop the members from hearing anything from a different side? So I guess you’re okay with Trump being banned and removed from the internet to stop him from communicating with the American people?
“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”
― Groucho Marx
😂😂😂😂
Their stupid rona fit should have been the canary in the coal mine that you needed to discontinue your relationship.
“Cleanup needed in the comments aisle. Cleanup needed in the comments aisle.”
When cancel culture becomes convenient to club politics.
Ok, so we’ve heard from the plaintiff. Is the defendant in the room? Anybody?
*crickets*
Oh, you’re right, this isn’t a courtroom. It’s a forum for folks who want to discuss gun related topics. The rules of evidence don’t apply here. But the rules of debate should.
Mr. Kingsley’s argument smacks of the same cancel culture tactics he claims to be a victim of, and we’ve heard only his side and his representation of the other. If they are playing the cancel card, better to walk away from the table and let them cancel each other out, than to get into a mouth fight and whine about the injustice of it all. Even if you win, you lose. They’ll either straighten up or collapse, time will tell. Or, maybe they had a good reason for yanking his card, and chose to take the high road by not taking it public until forced. I don’t know Mr. Kingsley, and I haven’t heard the other side’s story.
This is one side of this story and I’d be interested to see transcripts of your initial conversations.
the whole thing seems like a logical progression.
fecebuch:good thinkin’. taking the tartness out of sour grapes.
Bunch of fuddy-duds.
Why would anyone belong to such a monstrosity.
HOA anyone?
B E S I D E S , I D O N ‘ T C A R E……
Sounds like you rattled a lot of feathers on social media (I can’t opine as to whether you did this diplomatically or haphazardly) and they didn’t like that.
As a private club, they can do what they want.
Join a different club.
I ended my long standing membership at the Tri County Gun Club in Oregon many years ago because the range safety officers were getting too oppressive. I understand the need for range safety. The club is in a once rural area that is being urbanized. Noise is a public relations problem. The potential for stray bullets leaving the range is a public relations nightmare. The few known incidents of projectiles leaving club property have been cases of LEOs being reckless.
All of the respectable Fudds shooting Trap and Skeet are a potential problem. Mistakenly loading buckshot or slugs to shoot at aerial targets will ensure that projectiles will leave the range unless the club owns an enormous property. It is easy to mistakenly load the wrong ammo in a shotgun. Most shotgun ammo uses hulls that are opaque. Most markings on factory ammo after illegible except for the company logo. I know of few handloaders who reload only the same projectiles that the hull is marked for. People make mistakes even with transparent hulls. I have never seen a table safety officer checking to ensure that the trap and Skeet shooters are loosing the right ammo.
Interestingly; I was banned for shooting .50 BMG on a controlled, aimed, flat trajectory. If these imbeciles were cognizant of Journees’ formulae (or could write Ballistics programs to calculate trajectories), they would know that maximum projectile take of .50 BMG is less than half again the range of a .338 Win Mag. I suspect a bit of freudian anxiety was involved.
I also understand that when a range gets crowded, a range safety officer to coordinate activities helps to insure safety. However; when the entire club property is almost desserted and one related group of people are the only people at the range, they don’t need to have a range safety officer suddenly appear to give them shit because there is only one adult to “supervise” two teenagers. Both teenagers in question were experienced shooters and one was a nationally ranked practical pistol shooter.
Of course given the new regime, it is advisable to attempt to maintain a club membership in case gun ownership becomes restricted to people who are members of a club. Just shoot elsewhere.
I apologise for my spell checker being overly assertive. The programs are getting so overbearing that they substitute the most common words for correctly spelled words that are more obscure. Next, Google will have its servers check every communication and delete anything that the internet oligarchs deem subversive.
I do have a membership at the local public range and I enjoy it, but I never found a gun club worth joining.
The problem with clubs — any clubs in any walk of life — is the politics. Every officer is a potential tinpot dictator, and every member is a potential Quisling or Karen. That’s the human condition.
This is why, for many years, I just went out in the middle of nowhere. The problem with clubs and even with public ranges is a subset of the other people, which I found tiresome.
95% of them are fine. It’s the 5% of wannabe dictators, Karens or just unsafe idiots that ruin it.
How is it that club officers became so. I would assume via being elected to office. Should their actions prove offensive to club membership, they can also be “unelected”, right?
Very similar situation to what occured here in Pueblo, CO. In spite of and in violation of the President’s decision, the city/county Health Department (and our club board) shut us completely down. I live within only a couple of blocks from the facility, and can hear when it”s in use, so I know this was violated (I suspect by board members), in spite of their claim that it was universally enforced.
Unfortunately, there is no second facility in the area. The other range has a 3 year wait for membership, very limited public access (none at all during the shut down), and is a right pain in the butt to get too.
To make matters worse, our board decided to raise membership fees for the next year as well, in spite of the fact that we’re denied service that was paid for, for nearly 6 months.
I’m angry about it, but there’s very little that can be done about it
Scamdemic not a Pandemic.
There is a good chance that Biden will shut down the entire country asap for however long. There is an even better chance that gun stores and ranges will be deemed non-essential by presidential ukase. There’s probably not a chance in Hell that more than five governors, if any, will say FU to the federal government and leave 2A intact in their states. States’ compliance will be extorted via threat of withheld funds.
Better get your practice and purchases in by noon, 01-20-2021.
Closet Democrats are finally coming into the sunlight, and many are not “clean”. Petty tyranny is common (my condo association in particular), and Biden/Harris appear poised to support such. I know too many Democrats who are reasonable, but to some extent disagree with conservatives. We remain civil and vote our individual consciences. But here in the West, our RESPONSIBLE gun culture still supports 2A as my ancestors have all the way back to 1637 when they first came over to Virginia. Revolutionary War they supported democracy. Civil War, they fought on both sides. WWI Grandpa fought on Pershing’s staff. WWII, dad earned the Silver Star, and post-Vietnam gave us 4 respect for what guns are, and how people are: good and not-so-good. So “government” (I have 44 man years in State and Military) isn’t the only skunk in the woodpile. Let’s hope we can survive 4 years of socialism and regain both intelligence and wisdom then….. BTW, Trump is his own worst enemy.
“After long deliberation, I ended my two decades’ relationship with the club with this letter:”
Mr. Kingsley, technically the club ended your relationship with it…not you.
CONvid 1984 is a scam of a hoax of a ruse.
Only morons and idiots and willing commies let themselves be treated like a sick person when they do not have a mild flu variant that is less lethal than the regular flu.
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