Lower Providence Rod & Gun Club?

[dgg9]

How far should they bend over for you?

You are phrasing it as if they are making a reasonable request and I am asking for unreasonable special treatment. This is 100% false. Rather, I am perfectly willing to fulfill any reasonable request. Their policies, however, are offensively unreasonable.

So, no, I don't want them to "bend over" just for me. I want them to scrap wholesale their stupid policy in general -- for everyone.

I don't want an exception for me. I want a sane policy for everyone.

You seem to be confused about what we're discussing. This is a business transaction. They're trying to sell memberships. As such, they need a membership policy that is not offensively stupid, nor counter-productive, nor a blatant rip-off. Their "you must take our beginner class, regardless of where you are on the training curve" is stupid and counter-prodcutive, since it manifestly fails to work, even on its own terms. It's a policy that claims to mandate skill levels, but has the empirically observable effect of keeping away highly trained members.

[PisnNapalm]

I'll give a straighforward analogy. You have a PhD in English Lit. You apply for a job that requires a high school level of English reading/writing skills.

If your prospective employer is reasonable, your college PhD diploma should be a credential taken at face value, since it represents evidence that your skill levels at English are far, far beyond what the job calls for.

If your prospective employer is less reasonable but has angst, then they can put together some sort of quick equivalency test that proves your have the high school level of English. It would be a quick test, whose results are definitive.

If your prospective employer is completely unreasonable, he'll demand that you take high school English all over again, at great time and expense, at his own school.

If you were that PhD, what would YOUR response be at the third option? Probably a contemptuous obscenity, right?

Well, many of us feel the same way, since the analogy is spot-on.



No, because time is money, and also, time is life. I'm not going to throw away any significant amount of time on nonsense I already know, and have already demonstrated many times over. I might take a short test, but no more than that.

That's a ridiculous analogy. If someone next to me mishandles a pen chances are good that no one is going to be hurt or killed.

How about this analogy.... You're licensed to drive a school bus. You apply for a job but they make you take a recertification course anyway even though yours is still valid. Why do they put you through this time consuming class? Because lives are at stake. They need to know for sure that you are competent.



You've made it clear that you dislike the club and it's policies. I joined this club because I liked it's policies. I feel safer shooting there than any other range I've been to.

[dgg9]

That's a ridiculous analogy. If someone next to me mishandles a pen chances are good that no one is going to be hurt or killed.

It's a perfect analogy, in that it shows their inability to properly assess skill levels.

How about this analogy.... You're licensed to drive a school bus. You apply for a job but they make you take a recertification course anyway even though yours is still valid. Why do they put you through this time consuming class? Because lives are at stake. They need to know for sure that you are competent.

But they don't make you take high school Driver's Ed all over again, do they? They're recerting a high level for those few who need a high level. They're not making you retake driving lessons miles below the recert level.

Sorry, bad analogy. You have failed to give an analogy that shows the relative skill levels in question. We're not talking about a bus driver to bus driver lateral move. We're talking about forcing a beginner class on people who have taken multiple, much higher level classes.

Also, bus driver is the wrong analogy. "Normal driver of a car on the open road" is the right analogy, by far. When I came to PA, and went to get a PA driver's license, I did not have to take my high school Driver's Ed course all over again. I took a written test, and got my PA DL. Why? Because the DMV had a rational sense of what is proper equivalency: since I'd been driving for years without losing my license, all they needed to verify is my knowledge of PA-specific laws.

Thus, when joining a range, a brief indoctrination to their specific rules is ok, and a brief proficiency test is also fine -- exactly as they do for DLs. No matter what their ostensible excuse is, forcing an experienced and well-trained shooter to take a beginner's course is an unjustifiable rip-off.

I joined this club because I liked it's policies. I feel safer shooting there than any other range I've been to.

That's completely irrelevant to what we're talking about. The fact that they mandate training for BEGINNERS is what makes you safe. Mandating beginner training for those who don't need it does not make you safe. All it does is make sure those safer shooters don't join your club.

Look, it's plainly obvious that this is a club that likes to recruit beginners, sell them expensive training, and thus you end up with a pretty safe, homogenous group of safe mid-level shooters. For whatever reason, they obviously don't want trained, experienced shooters to join. As a business model, that's fine. More power to them. Just don't be surprised when the more experienced people contemptuously reject this ploy, that's all.

[PisnNapalm]

Whatever man...

I visited several clubs within a reasonable distance of my home. This is the one that I chose. You've obviously got an agenda of some kind against the club.

[dgg9]

You've obviously got an agenda of some kind against the club.

An "agenda of some kind??" Haven't I stated my "agenda" about 100 times in this thread? There's no mystery and no "agenda." I'll come right out and state, yet again, that my "agenda" is not to be ripped off and not to have my time wasted, by being forced to wait the better part of a year to take expensive, useless (to me) classes for no reason.

Maybe to you that's an "agenda." Whatever man...

[PisnNapalm]

So... Why not stop wasting your time posting about the club and do something constructive?

[dgg9]

So... Why not stop wasting your time posting about the club and do something constructive?

Um, because this thread -- you know, the one we're all posting in -- is ABOUT this very club. Check the thread title if in doubt. So your advice is I should post about some other subject in a thread about a specific range?

In point of fact, people are posting here, and I am responding to them. That's called "discussion." If you want to drop out of that discussion, feel free. But it sounds to me like you want to continue presenting your position, but no one else should.

[PisnNapalm]

You're right! I do want to drop out of this discussion. You can continue bashing the club all you want. I'm headed there now to go shoot. That's a better use of my time on this gorgeous day. Toodles!

[MarcS]

What is your other alternative?

Out of curiosity... would you take their classes to shoot Action if they didn't cost you anything?

I offered to take their final test cold, on the spot, they denied me. One guy told me that they only ever did that once and the person they let do that was a retired army ranger. I offered to shoot the final test against his score. They denied me.

[MarcS]

You seem to be confused about what we're discussing. This is a business transaction. They're trying to sell memberships. As such, they need a membership policy that is not offensively stupid, nor counter-productive, nor a blatant rip-off. Their "you must take our beginner class, regardless of where you are on the training curve" is stupid and counter-prodcutive, since it manifestly fails to work, even on its own terms. It's a policy that claims to mandate skill levels, but has the empirically observable effect of keeping away highly trained members.

I can cite 3 examples.