TargetTalk

I'm back with more problems with my club about club owned guns. At present, if one of our juniors qualifies for JOs in April, I will have to tell them they can't go because there is only one way under our club policies for a club gun to make it out to the OTC: a club "Armorer" must accompany the gun. There are only 3 of us, none of whom would be able to make it out there. I really don't find this acceptable on our club's part.

How does everyone do this? Every other junior club I know of gets this done without too much hassle. I have a feeling most tell the kid "Great Job Qualifying, do well out there" and send them on their way. Let me know too if that's what your club does.

Thanks in advance.

This was posted by me, didn't notice I wasn't signed in.

I was wondering what the concern is.

If the concern is related to possible damage to the gun or someone not returning the gun, we have a form for checking out equipment. The form lists all of the equipment that they are checking out and the condition of the equipment. They sign the form that they will return the equipment in the condition that they received it. I also require a signed, personal check from them for the replacement value of the equipment. I put this check in my gun safe and return it when the equipment is returned. I have not had anyone that would not give me a check.

If the concern is related to liability, the parents sign a "Release of Claims, Waiver of Liability and Indemnity" form. We believe that this form covers us. Also, as noted above, we check the equipment out to the parents, not the junior. The parent accepts responsibility for the safe use of the equipment.

We have the parents sign out the rifle if the shooter is under age 18, otherwise the shooter is qualified to sign it out. Any damage or loss is the responsibility of the signator.

The worry is more liability than the rifle disappearing or breaking. Paperwork between the parents and the club does not make our BOD feel secure, it's all about the insurance. What will that cost? What will happen if the kid shoots someone or someone steals it and shoots someone (I'm not kidding on this, comes up every time)?

We have the equipment check out too (had a broken spotting scope last week and the family has no problems replacing it). We also check everything out to the parents like is stated.

Since our club went on this crazy liability trip, it's been all about everything being covered by insurance and everything that might not be covered will lead to the end of the Gun Club.

This is a really silly situation. Is your club BOD REALLY interested in youth shooting?

Some questions ....
1) Male or Female would qualify?
I'll be up there for the women's events
2) What type of gun do they shoot? (Air or SBR)(RH or LH)?
If they shoot a 1903 or something like that, we can see what we can scrounge and I'll bring it up with me. My club has extra CM-2's and Marlin 2000's, but as I said, I can probably borrow a 1903 or 1907. I can borrow almost any type of air rifle.

My initial opinion is your board needs a change and if the club cannot manage that don't have your kids shoot the qualifiers. What kind of message does that send to a kid? Work your a__ off, but we're not going to reward you???? They should be paying the cost of getting the kid(s) out there ... including the "excess baggage" charge that the gun would cost to get it out there as well.

Oh yeah... that's my $0.02

In our club, a precision shooter is assigned a rifle, and it is their responsibility to take care of it. If they are shooting precision, they are most probably MUCH safer shooters than any of your board members.
If they qualify, we'll jump thru hoops to get them there ... another $0.02 ... any club should do that.

let me know if you need help on the rifle(s)

The club has probably a better chance of getting sued if someone runs over another in the parking lot .... how are they going to handle that possibility?

(Note I'm not ranting at you, but I absolutely cannot believe they would do that to a kid)

Soupy44 wrote:The worry is more liability than the rifle disappearing or breaking. Paperwork between the parents and the club does not make our BOD feel secure, it's all about the insurance. What will that cost? What will happen if the kid shoots someone or someone steals it and shoots someone (I'm not kidding on this, comes up every time)?

We have the equipment check out too (had a broken spotting scope last week and the family has no problems replacing it). We also check everything out to the parents like is stated.

Since our club went on this crazy liability trip, it's been all about everything being covered by insurance and everything that might not be covered will lead to the end of the Gun Club.

I am on the BOD of our club and understand the problem. We live in a society where people sue over anything and courts tend to not be supportive of the shooting community. Liability issues have changed our club in the past couple of years. Some things we used to allow at our club are not allowed anymore. It would take just one lawsuit and the club would likely be shut down and lose all of its assets. In addition, the members of the BOD may have personal liability due to any actions they take, like allowing "unqualified" individuals to checkout guns.

One thing that could help is to have the parents that would be going to JOs to become NRA Rifle Instructors, Coaches and/or Range Officers. By doing this, it helps limit liability by showing that the individuals checking out the equipment are qualified to handle guns and supervise those with guns.

Thank you for the offer to loan out some rifles, but at the moment the juniors that have qualified have their own gear. Our next closest juniors around 5-10 points below last year's cutoff scores. I feel the cutoff scores will be lower this year due to the economy, so I started working on this now just in case. It's not going to go away.

As for the question of whether our BOD cares about our juniors, a number of us ask the same thing every meeting. Other than the name and the range, we receive no financial support from the gun club. We raise about $25k a year ourselves. 6/9 BOD members have no affiliation to our Jr program. We went from no JO invites ever as of 3 years ago to a J3 Champ and 5 invites in the last 3 years and likely 5 invites for 2011. It has been an uphill battle ever since I got seriously involved.

Surely your club has insurance, if so does that not cover you for anything you mention ? If it doesn't then you need to find a form of cover that does. In the UK when we join our national association as individual members we get individual insurance cover included, and my club as an affiliate also gets it's insurance that way.

If I were in your situation, I'd discuss with the relevant governing body to see what they suggest.

Rob.

GT Wrote:

One thing that could help is to have the parents that would be going to JOs to become NRA Rifle Instructors, Coaches and/or Range Officers. By doing this, it helps limit liability by showing that the individuals checking out the equipment are qualified to handle guns and supervise those with guns.

I'm not at all tootin' my own horn here ... I work where Lindsay/Nicole tells me to.

The RO's at the JO's are some of the most professional group of folks you'll ever want supervising these athletes. The "qualifications" range from NRA officals, USA Shooting officials, International quals, and a few college coaches thrown in too. While there is room for coaches during the air competitions, they are really not all that welcome in the range during the smallbore portion ... it's just too darned crowded ... even as RO's we're kinda crammed in the back. These kids really don't need a babysitter with them.

Another thought process here on a solution.
Have the parents purchase the club rifle for $X amount with a bill of sale.
The club can be slow depositing the check
When the kids get back have the club re-purchase the rifle.
Club returns the check.

As an aside .... for my own amusement ....
1) Are the majority of your BOD:
A) Rifle Shooters
B) Pistol Shooters
C) Trap Shooters
D) Skeet Shooters

2) Do any of them "volunteer" to help out the youth?

Sounds to me like those 6 of the 9 BOD members need replacing.

Our club BOD also has been having long winded discussions about insurance and liability. There are so many permutations to consider that the BOD just kind of gives up, because they want to do everything and have everything covered, which ain't gonna happen. My question is why the appropriate divisions of NRA, USAS, ATA, NSSA and NSSF don't get together and figure out what will work best for the thousands of affiliated clubs that they have and then work with insurance companies to provide policies that provide what we need. NRA sponsored insurance has always been severely lacking in its overall coverage (only club members being covered does not do much for competitions, classes and public events). I have never talked to anyone that was really comfortable with their club insurance, or with the waivers or other liability protections that they have in place. It seems that we tend to buy what seems to be the best that we can afford and then keep our fingers crossed.

4-H seems to have pretty good coverage, both overall and for specific events. I have seen what their coverage does after a covered "incident" but I am not sure exactly how it works even though I have been a 30 year volunteer. Fortunately, the 4-H agents and other professionals take care of this so the volunteers don't have to. Anyone with experience with 4-H know how their insurance works?

Anyone out there convinced that their club's policy(s) is "really good" and covers "everything". Want to share what you have?

When I took over the advanced portion of our program, the club rifles weren't even allowed off the club property. It was a two month battle f ew years back to allow them to be taken to our weekly practice range, and else where such as Perry and Palmyra.

Our BOD has 2 IPSC shooters, 3 skeet shooters, 2 smallbore shooters, and 2 life long plinkers (one of whom used to run the junior program). One of the IPSC shooters is very supportive of our program and allows us to sell food at the monthly IPSC matches (upwards of 100-120 shooters a month). Only the smallbore shooters and the former jr program director volunteer for the junior program, but they are also the only ones with the knowledge to do so.

This BOD was elected last month and is, amazingly, an improvement for us.

I came up with 3 ideas in my write-up for the BOD and the lawyer they will likely consult:

1. We transfer the rifle through an FFL to the family with some other paperwork concerning if it breaks, disappears, etc. We take out an insuance rider to cover it. When they get back, we transfer it back.

2. We ship the rifle to an FFL at OTC. The OTC receives, stores, and return ships the rifle. Still need an insurance rider, and the OTC's cooperation.

3. One of our club armorers or deputy armorers takes the rifle out there. The club reimburses him/her for his/her expenses and we classify it as a training expense.


Number two is the leading idea. Number 3 is a stretch of some of our policies, but I figured might be possible (plus I could go if we can do this). Initial reactions to number one were negative. It's obviously the easiest thing to do.

Soupy44 wrote:

2. We ship the rifle to an FFL at OTC. The OTC receives, stores, and return ships the rifle. Still need an insurance rider, and the OTC's cooperation.

I'm not sure that the OTC is setup to do something like that.
NealJ's is closed, but there may be another option.

One of the friendliest gun stores in the Springs, Specialty Sports & Supply is not that far from the center and is on the way from the airport. I had discussed something like this with the owner/manager (don't know which he was) when I was up there for the State Games and American Legion in July/August.
They seemed willing to do this, and maybe for youth stuff would not charge you a transfer fee. Would not hurt to call and ask. (719) 355-8845
http://www.specialtysportsandsupply.com/

Also, this is a "candy store" if you need reloading components, firearms, and stuff like that, so better to leave your wallet in the car.....I came home from the American Legion match with enough reloading components to last me a year ... stuff I could not find in NM
(Can't wait to get back up there for Spring Airgun)

jhmartin wrote: While there is room for coaches during the air competitions, they are really not all that welcome in the range during the smallbore portion ... it's just too darned crowded ... even as RO's we're kinda crammed in the back. These kids really don't need a babysitter with them.

Don't misunderstand my thoughts on having the parents become qualified. It was not my suggestion that they needed to be on the range, right behind the junior at all times, so that nothing would happen. My only thought was related to liability. Your insurance company is not going to be happy if you check the gun out to someone (the parent) with no training in the handling of firearms. If the parents have been through some type of class, then the BOD of the club might be more willing to checkout the gun to them.

There are lots of assumptions on what liability insurance policies will and will not allow. The only way to know for sure is to sit down with the agent and have them show you, in the policy, where anything is excluded. You will generally find that the things you are worried about are not excluded. The companies do not have the ability to make policies extremely exclusive because they must meet state guidelines.

The best thing you can do after meeting your agent, is to have your club attorney answer your specific questions regarding vicarious liability (where you are liable for misdeeds of a third party). Most states have strict rules about this.

Personal background: just retired after thirty-three years as an insurance agent.

Our BOD is more concerned with member/non-member. Our membership is limited to 300. The vast majority of our junior program are non-members. Members are covered by our general insurance policy. In fact, if a member's kid qualified, we'd have no problems. But that still leaves out 90% of our juniors.

Hi

I'd be interested in any stories of a gun that never came back, came back so badly broken as to be unusable, or was confiscated by law enforcement, ANDDDDDD, what the club and borrower did. Really, that's the list of worst case scenarios.

We loan 888's, Daisy BB Guns, and Tau-7 Air Pistols, and SO FAR, (knock, knock, knock on wood) we haven't had a problem. We don't own or loan any firearms under the Gun Control Act of 1968. We also own spotting scopes, stands, mats, and kneeling rolls. We usually buy 5 new kneeling rolls a year and that mystifies me to NO END. We had mats that are 25 years old and some that are new, but ALL OF the kneeling rolls are new.

Later

Mike
Wichita KS

I'm a Soupy Supporter...same club, same junior program. Things are interesting from where we sit! Yes, liability seems to be the big issue. One of the biggest problems has to do with the lack of understanding of our program, and why we do what we do. Our treasurer even questioned why we would pay travel expenses for the NRA Coach class instructor! While this sounds assinine (and it is), there are some areas that are becoming better understood within the club. Many are standing by "facts" although they are not "facts" and are indeed supposition or a misunderstanding of the actual facts.

Ironically, I have been asked to assist our newly re-formed Training Committee on developing a policy for training. Right now, no outside trainers are allowed to teach at our club without the explicit approval of the board. Furthermore, all training has to be volunteer-based. No board members can provide any for-fee training anywhere else! Why? Because of a possible misunderstanding of what liability risks actually are, and how our insurance covers that liability. Yet we have no way to verify that our USPSA action pistol match participants have any safety training at all, and yet we allow them to literally run around courses with loaded pistols! And yes, we did have one injury last year that required medical assistance - long story, but the lesson learned was "don't try to catch your live .45ACP round by stupidly holding your hand over the half-open chamber as the primer hits the feed ramp".

One of the latest smokescreens on Soupy's issue has to do with the actual gun this particular youth uses. A recently-released board member told me that it was bought with CMP funds, and CMP forbids transfers of such guns under their purchasing agreements. Well, it turns out that this particular rifle was NOT purchased from CMP nor with any CMP-derived funding. So the arguement that certain board members are standing on why this rifle cannot be transferred is false.

Although Soupy has been incredibly successful in his endeavor to challenge junior shooters and coach them to help them realize their potential, his enthusiasm isn't spreading to the non-competitor board members and those who do not have any appreciation for a junior contingent. At one point, it was stated that perhaps more money and attention should be given to our Boy Scout program since we run about 350 Scouts a year through our Rifle and Shotgun merit badge classes. They felt that reaching so many more youth (albeit just one instruction) was more important than continuing to coach 65 youth 10-20 years of age, with a handful of them reaching the JOs and two "graduates" actually holding national records or national junior championships while they were in our program. But don't lend a rifle to a parent, we'll get sued!!!!

Pat McCoy, if you would be so kind, please drop me a note offline at tellis1@nc.rr.com as I would like to ask you what we should be looking for in our insurance policies.