While there are a number of indoor gun ranges in the Metro Atlanta area, there are none actually within the city limits of Atlanta. WSB reports that Michael Halbreich wants to change that. He has plans to convert an old building in an industrial area near Atlantic Station into a range that “would employ around 30 people and keep tax dollars in the city limits.” They hope to “cater to law enforcement officers” and there would also be a “huge retail component that would supply police holsters, belts, boots and accessories.” (Note the absence of guns in that list.) So what’s not to like about a business that will increase the number of law enforcement officers visiting the neighborhood? . . .
Although the range will be open to the public, Halbreich “expects a presence from the 2,000 Atlanta officers, the college police force, FBI, Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration.” Having all that po-po power concentrated in one neighborhood is a good thing, right? Not when NIMBY, fueled by disinformation, comes into the picture. One resident of the neighborhood the building abuts is worried “where there are gun sales, there are drug sales” and the proximity to a nearby liquor store “appears to be a cocktail for crime and a haven for trafficking.”
The facts that Halbreich said nothing about selling guns at this location and that very few drug dealers get their guns through a licensed gun dealer because of that pesky background check thing don’t seem to matter much to her. Neither does the fact that scuzzballs like drug dealers tend to avoid areas where there’s a high concentration of LEO traffic. It looks like she’d prefer an “old, run-down building … covered with weeds and graffiti” in her neighborhood rather than have anything related to guns anywhere near her.
The anti-gun propaganda machine has already scored at least one win on this one, and the battle is just beginning. It’ll be interesting to see whether the “it’s for the LEOs” factor prevails over the “think of the children” mindset.