Went to a public range this AM, with my son. Out in a rural area, pretty low-key. At the 10 yd pistol range, an older guy had a modern Colt Single-Action Army that he was playing around with, shooting up some old handloads. There was also a woman in her early 30's down at the end, pounding away with her Glock 22, obviously a LEO. And at the other end was a younger guy shooting off hand with AR carbine with a break on it. Looked like he could hold a 6" group at 10 yards....congrats on that I guess....but the blast wave was no fun. Good thing he ran out of ammo.

Anyhow, got to talking to the guy with the Colt after we'd finished shooting and the lady had left. He said when he first got there, he recognized the lady cop as one from a nearby city who had written him up for driving 45 in a 45 zone. No typo there, and he tried to talk her out of the ticket, but she wasn't having any of it. So he took a day off from work, went to traffic court, where the judge said..."hey that's a 45 zone what gives?" to an empty chair, as the cop didn't bother to show. Case dismissed, but geeze.

He's a local guy to the range I think, and he told another story about how a week earlier at the 100 yd section a guy was dumping mag after mag of hot brass onto the shooters on the adjacent benches. Most guys understand the deal with autoloaders, and there's only so many benches down at the right end of the line. And ranges are busy these days. But one of the adjacent shooters apparently wasn't ready for the cascade of hot brass and said "hey buddy do you mind, maybe a heads-up first?" which got some blowback about rights, etc. Most people at ranges are extremely civil and cooperative, for obvious reasons, but apparently not this guy. So someone says (unwisely IMO) "should we call the cops?" to which the mag-dumper replies by pulling out his shield and saying "I AM the cops!".

At that point the Colt SAA guy (who is telling me the story) pipes up by saying, "hey buddy, if you're wondering why relations between police and the public are a bit strained these days, this moment right here is a good example". Perhaps chagrined, the cop dumped a couple more mags then cleared out, leaving it for someone else to police up his targets and his brass. The guy telling me these stories puts it to ego, the idea that once you get the shield, you can't admit to being wrong. It's a plausible theory, but in my book the best plan is to just get the traffic stop over ASAP with minimal damage. Arguing only makes it worse. On the other hand, if you're off-duty, then just be a normal guy.

Oh and on the way from the pistol line back to the parking lot, there was a group (not social distancing) of young people waving their pistols out of the cases, not bothering to get to the line before uncasing their weapons. One of the nice things about private ranges is that people have to follow the rules or lose privileges. But this is a public range in the boon docks with no supervision so anything goes.

BTW, the Yugo M57 is a sweet pistol! Inexpensive, accurate, easy to control, but the 7.62 Tokarev ammo is a bit hard to come by right now.