The Family Day at the Range event was held on Sept. 14 at the Bridgeville Rifle & Pistol Club on Rifle Range Road. Open to the public, family day encouraged shooters of all experiences, or lack thereof, to come participate and learn how to use firearms safely, participate in an auction, and meet with local vendors and state representatives. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the work of one man; Bruce Smith, the director of the Family Day at the Range event.
A resident of Bridgeville, Smith is a martial arts instructor of kempo karate, a board member of the Bridgeville Rifle & Pistol Club as well as the Delaware State Sportsman Association, and the head and founder of the Delaware Association of Federal Firearm Licensees. On top of all this, Smith also teaches concealed carry courses for Delaware and Maryland, teaching out of his karate school before going to the range for live practice. When it comes to the Family Day, Smith has been helping manage it for five years now.
Family Day at the Range took place on Sept. 14 at the Bridgeville Rifle & Pistol Club. Photo by Carson Williamson
“We usually on average have around 450 to 600 people come in for it,” Smith said. “It’s a full day of shooting and camaraderie. We have vendors, food trucks and ice cream trucks, and I provide the firearms.”
According to Smith, there are a number of local organizations that help in their own ways during the day. “We have the cowboys in bay one and demonstrate and let people try (those guns),” Smith said, “In bay two I have the pistols on one side of it and 9mm carbines on the other side, which I provide also.” The pistols in particular are provided by a Turkey-based firearms manufacturer known as Canik, a subsidiary of Century Arms in Vermont, who Smith came in contact with over the years. Delaware Tactical put on a woman’s self-defense course in one of the other firing bays, and IDPA put on some scenarios in bay four for people to practice with, while bay five was reserved for .22 rifles. Smith says that safety is the number one priority during the event, and there are a number of safety officers in every bay to explain safety rules and otherwise watch over the ongoings.
Smith also spoke about how he got in contact with Century Arms as well as a number of other contacts in the firearms industry. “I go to what’s called the Shot Show every year, out in Las Vegas,” Smith explained. “It’s the largest gun show in the world, and it’s basically 820,000 square feet held in the Venetian and Caesar’s Forum convention centers. It’s nothing but guns, firearms, accessories, manufacturers, distributors – everything. In fact, in this last January, we walked 34 miles in four days and still didn’t see it all.”
Shot Show is strictly for firearms related industries, requiring participants to be part of the industry in some way. Smith met with some people from Century Arms and discussed demonstrating some firearms with them, which Century Arms agreed to do and even drove down from Vermont themselves to show off the pistols. Unfortunately, the company has been unable to visit personally for the last couple of family day events, though they still provide the firearms through Smith. Additionally, they’ve provided firearms for auctions held by the Delaware State Sportsman Association.
Of course, Century Arms and Delaware Tactical aren’t the only organizations involved during the event. The Apple Scrapple committee took the opportunity to sell raffle tickets for their gun raffle that is being drawn at their October event, the National Shooting Sports Foundation provided merchandise such as bags and hats and other items of swag to be given out, in addition to some swag that Smith brings back from the Shot Show.
“At the range we also have something called the Glock match,” Smith mentioned.“We have it every March or April, and it’s a three-day event. They donate or giveaway certain firearms to winners and things like that, but I also work with other distributors to have things donated to the event to give away.”
The Woodbridge JROTC assists with parking, range duties, trash pick-up and other areas in need of extra helping hands. There are also a variety of other vendors present selling merchandise or promoting their groups.
Besides working with different distributors and people that Smith has met at the Shot Show, Smith talked about the Rifle & Pistol Club as a venue. “It’s an excellent, excellent venue,” Smith said. “We have a 1,000 yard range, a 600 yard range, a 100-300 multi-purpose range, (and) several pistol bays.”
Smith mentioned that a number of state championships are held at the range, as well as being open for use by various police departments in Delaware. For more information on how you can become a member of the Rifle & Pistol Club, you can visit their website at www.brpc-de.com. If you’d like to get involved with next year’s family day event, or with any of the competitions and other events put on by the range and/or Bruce Smith, you can contact him via his email:
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