Gun range proposed for interior of vacant site
An indoor gun range is being eyed for an empty building in San Jose, a proposal that is being floated by a veteran firearms expert and protection agent, documents on file with city officials show.
The project would redevelop a building at the corner of Bascom and Fruitdale avenues, a few blocks south of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.
The project site is a building at 902 S. Bascom Ave. that previously was used to store medical tools, according to the city planning documents.
The proposal is being floated by Kyle Manzano, owner and principal executive of Manzano Tactical, an outdoor shooting range in Morgan Hill at the Coyote Valley Sporting Clays complex.
“We intend to use this property as an indoor shooting range to teach new firearm owners how to safely operate and store their firearm,” Manzano Tactical Training stated in a preliminary filing with city planners.
The building totals 14,700 square feet and includes a twostory office area as well as a one-story warehouse section, according to Ritchie Commercial, a real estate firm that has circulated a flyer to market the building.
The project would add walls in the warehouse area to accommodate the shooting range and ensure that no projectiles exit the building.
In addition, the proposal states, the project would remove temporary walls in the first-floor lobby area, relocate the bathrooms and extend the size and security of the vault in the building. The second floor is expected to be renovated. The location of the front door will be moved.
The shooting range's anticipated hours of operation would likely be 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., the preliminary proposal states.
The proposal cited reports that indicated firearm ownership is on the rise in California.
“Per a UC Davis study, in 2018 there were 4.2 million adults in California who owned at least one firearm,” Manzano Tactical stated in the preliminary proposal. “In 2022, there were estimated to be over 11 million adults in California who owned at least one firearm.”
The proposed shooting range might have access to a significant customer base within the city limits of San Jose, according to a January 2022 study by Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation that was posted on the city's website.
“We estimate that between 50,000 and 55,000 households in San Jose own guns,” according to the report.
Gunfire kills or injures about 200 people in San Jose per year, the report estimated.
“We intend to open this facility so we can do our part in lowering the amount of injuries by promoting safe firearm handling through education,” Manzano Tactical stated in the preliminary proposal.