A New Place to Shoot
October 1, 2003
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Posted by Aubrey Turner
I received a copy of The Keller Citizen in the mail yesterday at my new house. There was an interesting article about a new gun range planned for Roanoke (which is only about 5 miles from the house). Unfortunately, the Keller paper doesn’t put their content online, so I had to type this in myself.
Council allows gun range planned for south Roanoke
By Linda TaylorRoanoke gun enthusiasts will have an indoor range at which to practice thieir sport in early 2004.
The City Council voted last week to approve a zoning change that will allow Mark Honish to open the shooting range and an associated retail business in a planned development at Parish Lane and U.S. 377.
The request had been recommended for approval by the Planning and Zoning Commission on Sept. 15.
Honish said the 11,000-square-foot building will be made of tilt-wall concrete. He added that his research had indicated a need for such a facility in the area.
“We expect this to be a family oriented facility,” Honish said. “The whole point is to teach young people how to shoot properly.”
Roanoke resident Bill Walker raised some questions about the suitability of a shooting range within the city.
“I’m concerned about our town and the image we are going to be presenting,” Walker said. “Are we ready for our young people to start going to a range and talking about what a good shot they are? I’m more concerned about what a good shot they are on the basketball court.”
Police Chief Gary Johnson told council members he did not anticipate the range presenting any problems for the city.
“I am biased here because it will be a good benefit to the Police Department to have a shooting range nearby,” Johnson said. “Mr. Honish has said it will be available to area police departments on a 24-hour basis. If it is operated as Mr. Honish has described, I don’t see any problems.”
The vote on the zoning change was 5-1, with Bryan Baas voting against.
The gun range will be constructed just outside the Watermark Apartments complex. Apartment spokeswoman Jennifer Sundquist said last week that the company had no comment on the zoning change.
It’s good news that we’ll have another range to use. However, it is annoying to see people like Bill Walker who think that there’s something wrong with young people learning to shoot. There’s a subtle assumption at work in his statement that guns are bad and that they’ll tarnish the town’s image. I’d also be curious to know why one council member voted against this. Did he have some legitimate objection to the zoning plan, or is he just an antigunner voting his prejudices?
Categories: Guns
I think that’s excellent news. I’m putting Roanoke a little higher on my list of north Texas towns to consider living in.
Preliminary platting of the property will be submitted for review by the Roanoke Planning & Zoning Commission at their 1 DEC 03 meeting. Construction loans have been approved pending private capitalization. Multiple private investor sources are being explored at present.
Among these is the Founding Member Lifetime Membership available now at $1500 discount from the planned post construction price of $5000. Lifetime membership includes significant other & all dependent children age 18 or younger. Benefits of lifetime membership include a free CHL course, one firearm purchase per year AT DEALER COST, a 10% discount on the services of our MASTER GUNSMITH, and other benefits listed on our web site at http://www.h3tacticaledge.com
The range will be a 25 yd indoor range capable of safely handling all cartridges up to and including the .50 BMG. Range ventilation will exceed the OSHA standards for air quality. This will not be your average grubby gunshop folks.
We plan to have a safe, clean, upscale environment where anyone regardless of gender will be comfortable coming to shoot or take a CHL class. We plan to offer the best range facilities and CHL classes at a fair price, with firearms & ammo sales at competitive discount prices that will make us your first choice for your shooting needs. We look forward to being your one stop shooting facility in the very near future.
A current update on this range was posted yesterday on our web site at http://www.h3tacticaledge.com
Long story short, we need $400K in private investment to qualify for the loans to make this happen. Would like to get it from other shooters
that want a bargain & exceptional benefits at the
best indoor range in the DFW area. Plan B is guys in suits that do investment capital for a living having partial control. In keeping with the plan A version, we are offering half price family memberships, four years for $1,000. If only a hundred astute shoppers snapped up this bargain we could start construction the next day.
Your $1,000 entitles you to more than just range use. All benefits are listed on our web site, but one firearm a year @ cost & a free CHL course
a year would pay for your membership.
I like your idea of the lifetime individual membership. I understand, I’m divorced myself. I’m surprised we had not thought of it sooner. Will work out the details with my brother & have info on it in the near future for you. Your excellent suggestion indicates a need for a suggestion box in the store when built, and on the web site. Guess we can’t think of everything and appreciate your thoughts on how to improve. We’ll try not to disappoint you.
Greetings! You and your readers may be impatient for this facility to open? As the manager of this facility, I assure you that nobody is more impatient to see this project up and running than myself, the owners, and investors. Quite a bit of time has passed, mostly due to the difficulty in securing investors to put up the capital needed to get the project rolling. We have made good use of that time to tweak the business plan as new information became available. The range has also doubled in size from the original proposed facility. Currently planned is a total of twenty four lanes indoors. Twenty of these lanes will be 25 yds in length for primarily handgun use, although the bullet traps on these lanes will be safety rated up to .308 WIN. Four lanes will be 100 yds in length, with bullet traps safety rated to .50 BMG. Action Target of Provo Utah will be the contractor for range systems, and Carey’s range ventilation specialists will work with them on the air flow system. Links to Action Target & photos of some of their installed systems can be found on our website at http://www.h3tacticaledge.com At present it is anticipated that the facility will be open in July of this year. The site is at the south edge of Roanoke on U.S. Highway 377, one quarter mile north of state highway 170, and one and one half miles south of state highway 114. We are looking forward to providing North TX with the finest indoor shooting experience that technology can provide.
David Honish