Gun Club disbands a year after achieving range goal

Gun Club President Paul Clark said the decision came down to reasons of practicality; simply put, the club no longer had a reason to continue.

Originally, the club envisioned privately operating the range with limited public hours, but there ended up being a major catch: to secure the federal funding required to complete such an ambitious project, the range had to be made totally public.

That meant the Recreation Department of Union County Government would run the facility, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and Georgia Department of Natural Resources – leaving no room for the Gun Club to manage the range as initially planned.

Therefore, since the club had achieved its ultimate aim of acquiring a local range, and without club-specific benefits such as private shooting matches due to the public nature of the facility, an overwhelming majority of members who attended the meeting last week resolved that it was time to disband.

“We accomplished something that’s great, and we do have an exceptionally wonderful range,” Clark said.

Figuratively speaking, the Gun Club and its dedicated Board of Directors moved mountains to establish the range, despite starting with little more than a hope, a prayer and plenty of doubts from onlookers that such a task could be accomplished.

The club created bylaws, elected true servant-leaders, set up a well-organized and highly effective outreach campaign, and raised tens of thousands of dollars toward achieving its goal.

And the Gun Club succeeded in spectacular fashion, with the final product serving as an extraordinary testament to what can be accomplished when ordinary, civic-minded people come together in common cause.

It all began when then-Sheriff Mason put out a call to local Second Amendment enthusiasts on July 10, 2017, asking people to join him in pursuing a range.

For years, Mason and others had been looking to find a place for locals to shoot. At the time, deputies and officers were having to rely on a gracious private property owner to practice for state-mandated firearm qualifications, and residents had to drive to other counties to shoot.

With the formation of the Gun Club, the idea was to create a dedicated space for all kinds of shooters, from beginners to seasoned practitioners – a place for individuals to hone their skills, for families to learn together, and for local law enforcement to drill and certify their expertise.

At the outset, the club imagined something similar to the neighboring Chatuge Gun Club Range, which sits on Forest Service land in Towns County and features a 10-position covered shed for shooting at distances of 7 to 100 yards.

Through the course of the club’s outreach, first to the Commissioner’s Office and then to state and federal elected officials and agencies, the concept grew beyond all expectations.

Thanks to the outsized vision of then-Commissioner Lamar Paris, in concert with Mason as Gun Club Adviser and the club’s Board of Directors, the initial, humble idea became a multimillion-dollar project backed by 90% federal funding, with the remainder paid for in SPLOST.

Mason and the Gun Club Board acquired the federal funding through diligent networking and good old-fashioned sticktoitiveness, partnering with the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to receive the funds to build the county range.

Now a year on from opening, the local facility features a 25-yard pistol range with 10 shooting benches and a 150-yard rifle range with 14 benches. There’s also a main office and instructional building to offer classes, bathrooms, shooting supplies and other amenities on the property.

Of course, the project came with numerous challenges. For starters, while the club enjoyed an auspicious beginning with more than 200 members and $1,600 raised the same evening it was founded, the effort commenced with no land and relatively little money, albeit plenty of grit.

The club had no initial prospects for a range location, and many people thought it would be impossible to find a suitable property, either for reasons of affordability or because there would be too much red tape to secure a federal lease.

Fortunately, then-Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue – himself a Second Amendment enthusiast after whom the road leading into the Gun Range was eventually named – and USDA State Director for Georgia Joyce White, appointed by President Trump, showed a willingness to work with Mason and the Gun Club, culminating in the county leasing a 14-acre parcel of Forest Service land for the range off Georgia 180.

Still, there were many hoops to jump through – public commenting, multiple sound tests, laborious land-use negotiations, extensive engineering, construction challenges, etc. – but club members had faith in the effort and saw the range through to completion.

Last year, the club presented the Commissioner’s Office a $90,000 check accounting for dues collected from its members over the years in exchange for three-year memberships at the Gun Range, which is actively managed by county-employed range professionals who ensure safety on the property.

That means former club members in good standing – there were 353 when the range finally opened – still have two years left to shoot before having to purchase their own memberships with the county.

Looking back, Club President Clark described the experience as both fulfilling and bittersweet, given how range management turned out.

After all, the board put in tremendous amounts of work to make the range dream a reality, committing countless hours to planning, making phone calls, scheduling and attending meetings, writing emails and much else besides, only for the club to be excluded from running the range.

But he admitted all was worth it in the end, because the Gun Club has an incredible legacy of its own, something tangible to be proud of.

Board Members were Clark, Caroline Pirie, Lamar Franklin, Wayne Roshaven, Gene Cooley, Susanne Johnson and Joan Moody, with Club Advisers Mack and Rhonda Mason.

After the vote to disband, Mason succinctly described his feelings regarding the club’s legacy.

“I’m just grateful and humbled that people came together – stepped out on faith with a common mission to get a place to shoot,” Mason said, highlighting the formation of the Gun Club and “the great interest that we had with up to 500 members at one time sticking with us.”

“In unity, there is strength, and that’s what helped us in every aspect of getting this range secured,” Mason continued. “I just thank everyone that stayed with us so long. We’ve got a beautiful range that we can all be proud of, everybody that had just a small part in it – it took everybody.”

Mason also thanked former Commissioner Paris for allowing the county to lease the land from the Forest Service; for picking up the idea and running with it to create “the beautiful facility that he wanted us to have”; and for his willingness to have the county operate the range.

“There were things we had to concede in order to get the land and (millions of dollars in federal funding),” Mason said. “Had we not made those concessions, which were brought about by the Department of Natural Resources and the Forest Service, we would not have had the land.

“So, everything just kind of fit together. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but again, everyone that had a part in it should take pride in people having a place to shoot now, and for families and others to have a place to go for future generations.”

As for future generations, Mason pictures young people utilizing the range to get interested in shooting, potentially developing skills right here at home that could help them should they ever be “deployed on foreign soil defending this nation” or go on to serve in law enforcement.

“That’s one of the biggies to me,” Mason said. “We want people interested in shooting.”

Today, tomorrow and years from now, individual men and women; families; law enforcement officers and any other Union Countian with a desire to shoot can head on over to their local gun range to practice in a safe environment, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Gun Club.

For more information on the Gun Range, visit https://georgiawildlife.com/union-county-gun-range.