The Bonnyville Shooting Sports Association (BSSA) unveiled a new addition to their facility.
The local shooting range hosted an open house on Saturday, July 27, and showed off their new clubhouse.
“Hopefully, we’ll have it finished for the fall because our old one is tired and sagging,” explained James Miller, BSSA president.
Attendees, club members, and local dignitaries attended the ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the occasion.
The BSSA decided to host another open house after holding a similar one last summer to celebrate their 35th anniversary.
“We bring all the people out here, because lots of people don’t even know the club exists,” Miller noted.
One of the reasons Miller believes people in the area don’t know about the BSSA is because of the government requirements to be involved in shooting sports.
“You have to have a special license to have a handgun, you have to have a license to have a long gun, you’ve got to have permission to haul your guns from your home to the range… There’s all these hoops so not everybody gets into it.”
Local resident Roger Belknap used the open house as an opportunity to check out the facility and teach his nine-year-old son Ethan how to shoot a .22 rifle.
“I grew up in the country, and that’s what we did. We grabbed a .22 and went for target practice for fun. When we moved to Glendon, I started thinking, ‘we don’t have that.’ I didn’t want these guys growing up without learning how to shoot if they want to do it down that road,” he explained.
This was Belknap’s first time at an outdoor range. He was impressed with what the BSSA had to offer, and plans to become a member in the future.
The quarter-section of land features a shotgun range, three bays for pistol and rimfire, and an area for long distance shooting. An archery range is also on the property.
The BSSA plans to upgrade the facility. They’re looking at updating their pistol bays in order to continue hosting International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) events.
“We had a really good turnout for IPSC this year (on June 23). There were over 100 shooters in the bay for two days,” Miller recalled, adding they also hosted their youth and ladies shoots over the summer.
Safety is paramount for the association, and they take special care to make sure everyone keeps it in mind when they’re at the range.
“You never take a firearm for granted. You always say, ‘think it’s loaded even if you know it’s not.’ You never point it at a person, and you always have muzzle and trigger control. No matter what it is, if it’s a handgun, rifle, or shotgun, you’ve always got to know where it is because it’s a dangerous tool to be having around,”
