[wogpotter]

Unfortunately there's always a lunatic fringe that will feel justified in doing anything they feel like "because they're right". Add a dash of wilfull ignorance & it gets worse.

I've had the police called while I was shooting a bolt action rifle on a private range. It was another member of the club who only shots skeet, trap & sporting clays.
His reason?
I was "Shooting an army machine gun, just like the Garand he had in the war" How did he know? "Because the wood went all the way to the end, just like a Garand machine gun"

I've had the police called because I was "shooting a machine gun which is illegal' when I was doing sighting in of new optics on a FN-FAL, because such guns "should be banned so I dont have to give up hunting"! The police checked it out & it was a perfectly legal semi-automatic rifle & I wasn't doing rapid fire. The complainant "Knew it was a machine gun because of the 'thing on the end of the barel' because only machine guns have them".

I've been threatened at a gas station on a public street because after chasing me from the location (a private piece of land where we were shooting responsibly) he got frustrated when we didn't pull over.
We called the police, had to go 40 miles to the local station to file a complaint. It was one of "several dozen" filed against him for similar events. They "Hoped this time something would happen so they didn't have to bother with him & waste time repeatedly"

I now avoid hunting season & public ranges during the weeks prior as it seems that the percentage of galloping lunatics at the range increases sharply during that time.