I belong to a small rural club of about 500 members. Last year a new rule was put into place requiring all members (both new and current) to complete a "range safety course". As you can imagine there was some grumbling from long time members about that, but still a good thing in my opinion and we all completed it.
The range does not have an RSO, other than for certain events where the public can come and shoot, such as rifle "Sight-In Days" before deer season (a fund raiser). I have volunteered a number of times to help with that event, what an eye opening experience that is! It is truly scary, how little many long time hunters know about safe gun handling or even how their own rifle works. Just an example - last year I had an older man show up with a Rem 742 "he hadn't shot in years", he wasn't sure if he had the right ammo (he did), didn't know how to load the magazine, didn't know where the safety was, didn't know how to unload the gun and wanted me to sight it in for him, because "he wasn't a very good shot". Yet he intended to go to camp and hunt - like I said, scary!
