New public gun range opens in rural slice of Osceola
HOLOPAW — After burglars tried to break through Ron Clark’s front door in rural Delaware, the decision to arm himself was easy.
“When I realized all I had were golf clubs in the house, that’s not enough to protect me and my family,” said Clark, who has since moved to a home near Walt Disney World.
In search of a place to practice shooting, he drove about an hour Saturday to test out a new shooting range operated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on its opening day.
The Triple N Shooting Range is the 10th public shooting facility FWC operates but is its first in Orange, Seminole, Lake or Osceola counties.
Spanning 350 acres at the Triple N Ranch Wildlife Management Area, it sits on an old orange grove off U.S. Highway 441 southeast of Kissimmee.
The site has about 150 stations for shooters, including a 50-foot range for handguns and another that extends 200 yards for rifles. There is also a shop where customers can buy targets and sign up for the state’s hunting safety program.
Done shooting for the day, Clark packed up his 9mm Glock handgun, happy with his work on the 25-yard station and already planning his next trip.
“I called my wife already and said we need to come out this week to shoot,” Clark said.
Bill Cline, who oversees FWC’s public shooting ranges, said he hopes the new facility will bring more people to the state’s safety program, which teaches responsible shooting and hunting ethics.
By state law, hunters born after June 1, 1975, who are at least 16 years old must pass the program before they can purchase a license. To date, more than 500,000 people have completed the safety lessons.
“Before you’re a hunter, you’ve got to be a shooter,” Cline said. “We like wild things and wild places, and we need to teach the next generation that.”
He added, “We want to teach
them to be good stewards of the land and to respect the land.”
More than 1.8 million Floridians have concealed-weapons permits, the highest of any state, creating a need for more places to practice shooting, wildlife officials said.
The state approved the gun range’s opening in 2012. At the time, the conservation group Audubon Florida opposed the plan because the land is frequented by “imperiled animals,” such as white-tailed deer, birds and butterflies.
But Osceola County Commissioner Fred Hawkins Jr. said the rural part of the county 28 miles southeast of Kissimmee is a good fit for the shooting range, which he called “the premier facility in the state.”
Hawkins thinks the facility will draw kids outside and teach them important lessons about gun safety.
“They’re going to know how to load it and how to clean it, but also the damage it can do, so they’ll know how to respect it,” Hawkins said.
The $3 million complex was mostly paid for with a federal tax on firearms, ammunition and archery equipment. The National Rifle Association, Osceola County and the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida also provided funds.
The supervised range has a 19-station sporting clays course, each with a machine that flings clay discs into the sky. The targets burst into a cloud of dust when shot.
FWC charges $12 per day to use the rifle and handgun ranges, but it’s free for children 15 or younger who come with an adult. The skeet shooting course costs $38 per 100 clays, and kids receive a 15 percent discount.
Jacquelyn Lopez of Kissimmee said her two young children have begun to enjoy the outdoors after she enrolled them in 4-H, a youth development and mentoring organization.
She said all week they were excited about their next outdoor adventure — a Saturday morning trip to the new shooting range. There, they took turns learning from an instructor how to shoot a bow and arrow at a station set up for children’s archery.
Lily, 8, looked back at her mother and smiled after firing her last arrow past the target.
“I think it’s great. They put safety first, and that’s a plus,” Lopez said. “It beats video games and TV.”