“I’m 81, but I can outshoot most people,” says certified 81-year-old revolver, rifle, shotgun and automatic handgun safety instructor John Poynter of Cypress. And then, just so we don’t get the wrong idea and play this one all John Wayne, the United States Navy veteran throws a damper on our rootin’, tootin’, high-falutin’ shootin’ fantasies.

“If I’m out on the range and I see somebody doing something wrong, I’ll call ’em out on it—either do it right or leave,” Poytner says. “Safety is the first thing.”

Safety at the range means not twirling your chrome, pearl-handled six-shooter like Annie Oakley. It means not practicing your Quick Draw McGraw draw. It means not making the Dirty Harry speech; they’ve heard it. And it definitely means not pointing your .45-caliber Colt 1911 at your buddy and screaming, “I’m acting professional! You’re acting like a first-year fucking thief!”

“Always point the muzzle in a safe direction,” Poynter says. “You never point a muzzle at anything you’re not willing to shoot or destroy.” That’s his first rule, and it’s also part of the general policy of most ranges, which typically require you to bring in any gun you want to shoot unloaded—either in a case, or out in the open, manifestly devoid of shells, for all to see. (Any legal gun, naturally. If you have an AK, we don’t want to hear about it, Ice Cube.)

“The second rule is to keep your finger out of the trigger area until you’re ready to shoot,” says Poynter, who mandates his students keep their weapons unloaded in the stall at the shooting range when they’re not actually taking target practice. That’s his third rule: Keep the gun unloaded until you’re ready to shoot it.

“If you stop shooting, you unload it and put the gun down,” Poynter says. “There’ve been people hurt by backing out of the stall with a loaded gun and firing at a target.” The way he says it, you know it’s true, which is probably part of the reason why if you ask the folks at Insight Shooting Range in Artesia to recommend an instructor, they’ll refer you to Poynter.

A safe range is a happy range, which means also not waving the gun around after your first bull’s-eye—and if it jams, or if you hit a dud round, stop shooting immediately.

“Take a pencil or a dowel to make sure there’s not a round lodged in the barrel,” Poynter says. “A round that only has primer and no powder, it can push the bullet out into the barrel. You fire another round and you can blow the gun up or shoot yourself.” Nobody wants that.

“A gun is fun,” Poynter says, “but you’ve got to know what you’re doing.”

To which we can only add: Ammunition is expensive, so choose your targets wisely.

INSIGHT SHOOTING RANGE 17020 ALBURTIS AVE | ARTESIA CA 90701 | 562.860.4365 | INSIGHTRANGEINC.COM | CONTACT JOHN POYNTER AT 714.742.3253

Tags: artesia, guns, shooting range