Tag: Premier Shooting

Tommie’s Place in West Chester: A super secret treasure hidden in plain view

It’s not such a well-kept secret that I have been using the VIP room at Premier Shooting as my super-secret meeting place for political activity for a number of years. It was great for me; I could shoot at the magnificent range they have at Premier, which is in West Chester near Port Union. Then I could meet with various political figures without worrying about strange people snooping in on our conversation. When I meet people for lunch, this is often the problem, which I still do. But going to Premier, anybody who went into the VIP room would have to badge in, which greatly limited the variables which might come by and provide a security risk. And additionally, it was just a nice, convenient location with a beautiful view of the lake. It had a country club feel to it, but it was still a center of combat training. They taught a lot more than just shooting at Premier. But you could learn a lot regarding lethal and non-lethal combat scenarios. I’ve loved Premier since Tommie and her family built it, and I consider it one of the great treasures of West Chester. So it was my favorite place to do the kind of clandestine work that I do behind the scenes to make cake, political cake, which can sometimes be very tricky business. I tend to get a lot of attention when I get out and about, so minimizing that curiosity was very beneficial until some of the meetings started getting quite large, with ten people at a time and more. So over the last year or two, I have had to move those super-secret meeting locations to other places. I had heard about their plans for the VIP room from the family but hadn’t had a chance until recently to see the construction updates.

Tommie had told me that she was planning a bar at the shooting range, which seemed an exotic idea to me then. I know other luxury ranges around the country were discussing experimenting with the concept because guns and drinking are generally not good partners. But I was certainly interested. Even more so, the tone of the bar was going to be more like a speakeasy from the 1920s, kind of a backroom kind of thing that was secret to the world. Well, that made sense because that is precisely how I had been using the VIP room for quite a while. That was actually the appeal. Shortly after I changed my secret location meeting place, Premier began constructing their new idea, just as the new Harley Davidson dealership went in next door to the shooting facility. It was quite something to admire, that little corner of West Chester right off 747, which has heavy traffic. People could come and shoot, learn martial arts, buy motorcycles, guns, go fishing, hike around the really nice lake, that area really represented the best of government from the trustees in attracting these kinds of investments for the public to enjoy and it was all very beneficial to people who enjoy those kinds of things. But to add a night spot, a speakeasy with a full bar on the upper scale of things. That was certainly interesting. Recently that construction was completed, and they are calling the effort Tommie’s Place, with a speakeasy slant to it and to announce its opening to the public; we had a super-secret meeting there with some very high profile politicians where everyone could talk, sip on a beverage and conduct a conversation with a large group of people that we couldn’t have had if we rented a room at a local restaurant.

As I arrived for this event, Jim caught me in the parking lot and showed me where the parking for the speakeasy was; it was behind the building near the Harley dealership. From there, you could get into the place through a special back door they had just built where you could badge in from there. Or, you could go through the front, cross the lobby of Premier itself, and they had just built a special entrance to the speakeasy where the old VIP door used to be. I went into the back entrance and immediately noticed they had added a lot to the back of the building. And in going in, there was a small hallway with a desk where they checked to ensure you didn’t bring firearms into the bar area. I could see how they had rearranged the VIP area to incorporate this new feature. They still had a badge access VIP area where people could get away and relax with the same country club feel. But this time, it was all in glass so the public could see what was happening. And the speakeasy itself was built where the outside porch used to be, but now it was all enclosed into a very exotic bar that likely no speakeasy in America was so luxurious. But it had a fantastic view of the lake and felt like it was a million miles from everywhere. Yet 747 was still only a few feet away. You’d never know it. It reminded me a lot of the lounge area of Jags and certainly had a touch of class to it. 

We had a great meeting, good people all wanting to do good things. The drinks were great. The atmosphere was just fantastic. And this place is open to the public. I can’t think of a better place to catch an after-work drink or even a during-the-day stopover with friends and partners. It was very private but could accommodate a crowd. You could make it part of your shooting experience, or you could just stop by, park in the back, walk from your car to the speakeasy without many complications, and step away from the noise of life for a bit. It was very clever how they set it all up. The lake and the parking in the back are the fundamental tricks to removing you from the pressures of the outside world, then entering through a back door that takes you into the warm embrace of elegant surroundings where you could be social, or not, as you’d like to be. If you just wanted to get away and have a quiet drink, this was the place to do it. It all told a good story of remembering a period of American history where the law was too much, and people wanted to get away from the far-reach of the law with a speakeasy. Yet this was a safe place from the world’s concerns and was designed to keep the ugliness of a bad day from contaminating a good evening. It had all the elements I enjoyed from all those super-secret political meetings, but now it had the added elegance of the best West Chester had to offer, all in one place. And I was very impressed with the new addition to the Premier Shooting facility offerings. It was classy, convenient, and practical and a real treasure to those who have come to know about it. 

 Tommie’s Place – A Prohibition Era Cocktail Lounge (tommies.place)

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Best Option for Dry Fire Practice: Having a great relationship with your firearm

Not to take anything away from one of the most incredible people in the world, Tommie, the owner of Premier Shooting in West Chester, but I am excited to report on a great new dry fire technology that many people may not know about. I mention Tommie because she told me about her exciting new dry fire range at Premier, the latest craze in shooting, for a good reason. Much of the time, dry firing involves a laser in the gun instead of a bullet and can be measured against a target by some electronic method. It’s becoming more common to use a smartphone for dry fire action. More sophisticated dry fire can be utilized like they do at Premier. There is still nothing like live fire with a real bullet striking a real target. But dry fire can be a great way to stay proficient with a gun without all the expense of firing live ammunition and can be every bit as enjoyable. Well, I have found that practicing for my Cowboy Fast Draw events a wonderful invention sold by the Cowboy Fast Draw Association called the Gunslinger Mark IV laser targeting system that I finally treated myself to, and I’m in love with it. It has been around in the fast draw community for several years but has only recently been perfected to a near-perfect system, as shown in the video above. I can’t think of anything better than this as a dry fire option for people looking for a home dry fire solution to their shooting needs. Practicing with one of these dry fire systems makes the range time much more valuable. I’m certainly not saying gun enthusiasts should replace range time for dry fire time. But that dry fire will make that range time much more useful. 

As I say all the time, especially these days, it’s essential to have a relationship with our Constitution, specifically the Second Amendment. Some people lose touch with the Constitution because they live in areas where they get used to concessions to utilize Constitutional rights in favor of collective need. For instance, in urban areas where it’s almost impossible to shoot every day in the backyard, it’s hard to maintain a relationship with your favorite firearms because they stay locked up all the time. One of the things that I like most about Cowboy Fast Draw is that it allows me to have a wax firing range in my workshop that makes it possible to shoot every day. When I want to fire real lead bullets, I go down and see Tommie at the range. But it’s not possible to shoot every day for me, because of time really, so having a range in my home makes it that much more practical. For many years now, I have enjoyed going into my shop and shooting at my strike plate range. But, for me, that wasn’t enough. I want to shoot while sitting in my reading chair and watching movies and football games. So I had been looking to get one of these Mark IV laser targeting systems, which essentially does everything my strike plate range does, except fire actual primers. Firing live fire rounds in the house and having wax bullets explode all over the living room just was not possible. But with a laser, I can shoot all day and all night long, as much as I want without the expense of using up rounds of ammunition. 

This particular unit is unique because it was invented by the Cowboy Fast Draw Association for the specific problem of fast fire and the need to register the hit in thousands of a second. Much dry fire activity is specific to just hitting a target and seeing how you do from shot to shot. The added element of speed is something special. Whenever the laser hits within the 8″ circle on the target system, it picks up a hit and measures it within fractions of a second. The light blinks three times in practice mode to let you know that your shot is coming. Then the light comes on solid and counts the time it takes you to hit the target. I not only use my target system for fast draw for all types of target shooting. I shoot from 30′, 21′, 15′ down to 5′ like I did in the video, up close so that the camera could pick up the gun and the hit in the same frame and still see the indicator. Even better, the unit is free from an internet connection, so nobody is snooping around on you while you are target shooting. It’s free of internet control, leaving target shooting the personal relationship between you and the practice and nobody else. Other types of dry fire where the smartphone is involved are giving vast amounts of information on all of us to some data collection company. So while convenient and neat, there is a cost to the technology. The Cowboy Fast Draw Association people make the Mark IV advance the sport. So, it’s a trusted source of shooting applications that makes using the Mark IV a much better experience. 

Best yet, the Mark IV Laser system allows shooters to have that daily relationship with their guns. It takes away a lot of the taboo that politics has placed on guns over the years and will enable users to use their firearms more for sport than just self-defense. Practicing with dry fire lasers has the feel of shooting baskets in the driveway. Shooting is a sport just like basketball or football—even golf. But until dry fire technology evolved to the level it is now; it wasn’t possible to practice with firearms virtually anywhere at any time of day. With the Mark IV, as I showed I was using inside my RV, shooting can be done anywhere. Even in a McDonald’s parking lot in Vail, Colorado, while you are waiting for the grandkids to get a Happy Meal and use the restroom. And the system is so reliable that it works perfectly every time. Once you have one of the Laser Training Cartridges that ignite the laser and allow the shot to fire down the barrel, you can shoot all the time, with the only cost being batteries for the cartridge. The total cost of the whole setup is around $800 for the laser and the targeting system and can all be purchased from CowboyFastDraw.com. I buy from them all the time, and they are always good about delivering high-quality items. I even recently ordered from them on New Year’s Eve, and they fulfilled the order that very night. They are like dealing with the way America used to be, always attentive to the customer’s needs, and competent. So overall, I can’t recommend one of these dry fire units more for all the reasons I mentioned and more. The best thing about it is that it takes shooting into the realm of every day and allows shooters to become much more proficient with copious amounts of practice than they could get otherwise. And making better shooters with much more handling only helps everything, from Constitutional consideration to the advancement of shooting sports, because more people can now participate. There is no downside, and for shooters everywhere, knowing that something like this is out there is something that could be life-changing in a good way.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Vote For Mark Welch: Shooting guns, solving problems and making the world a better place

Vote for Mark Welch

If West Chester wasn’t one of the best places in the world which demonstrates what small government looks like and how much prosperity can occur when proper management at the level of government is applied, I can’t imagine what it would be.  West Chester, Ohio, has the population density to make it a city, but over the years, it has stayed small, where just Trustees run the community’s needs, and it has flourished.  What started as a kind of Tea Party dream, with two members getting elected to the Board of Trustees and applying fiscal responsibility and limited government concepts to the day-to-day business, George Lang and Mark Welch, West Chester has been proof of what good government looks like.  Even during the government-induced pandemic over coronavirus.  Even as many businesses struggled to stay open all across the country or find employees to fill their vacancies, West Chester has managed to see astonishing growth in some ways.  Much of that points back at the policy set by the conservative trustees who have been running things in West Chester for over a decade.  Lowering the cost of doing business, reducing bureaucracy so that things can happen, West Chester would be, for me, the example of what good governments everywhere in the world should look like.  When we debate about government so much, we could always offer West Chester an example of where the government goes right.   

A lot of that credit goes to Mark Welch, who has been with the trustees in West Chester for a while now, a few terms. He’s been that critical second vote when George Lang set the stage for much of West Chester’s success.  Then as George moved on to a position in the Senate, Mark carried the torch for the next generation and continued the policies that made West Chester wonderful.  Mark has been great at the significant and minor issues, so much so that often you never even hear about the things he is doing.  I often say, especially in management positions, that if you are good people won’t even know you are there doing a good job.  Its when managers in government make themselves part of the story that things start going wrong.  Then, the more people you add to a process, the worse it gets.  And thus, that’s how you get a bad government.  The federal government that we are always talking about is just such an example.  It’s big, nobody takes responsibility for anything, and they always make themselves part of the story on everything.  Their goals are usually to make themselves known by looting off the efforts of others, while Mark has always been a facilitator of other people’s dreams and needs.  He doesn’t get in the way of some big project that wants to come into West Chester.  Instead, he finds a way to get rid of the obstacles so that something new could be born.  Whether the project is a significant new company or a hot new entertainment venue, West Chester has thrived because Mark and other conservatives have created an environment where productive output wasn’t penalized but rather encouraged. I’ve been all over the United States, and you’d be hard-pressed anywhere to see four highway exits that are better than the ones in West Chester with a diversity of options, per capita income, and future opportunities.

Shooting with Mark Welch

Mark Welch is up for re-election this year, which he should have no problem with.  But for many of the new residents of West Chester who don’t hear much drama from their trustees, especially with a community with such a high population density, they wouldn’t know about it because the government isn’t in their face about every little thing.  Yet I think it would only be wise to pull back the curtain a bit and share with everyone what I know of Mark Welch, a guy who goes shooting with me often at Premier in West Chester, a great gun range at Port Union off RT 747.  Included here are a few video clips of our last trip just to let people be a bit of a fly on the wall.  I go to Premier often to shoot various guns and to blow off some steam.  I enjoy almost everything in West Chester, from the steaks at Jags to the fine dining and shopping options at Voice of America.  And I love Voice of America Park, another great story that we could write books about.  But commercially, I spend most of my time at Premier, and often Mark is there too where we manage stress at the gun range and often contemplate the origin of the universe.  The other day, it occurred to me that people don’t get to see that side of Mark, and they should because it’s what makes him unique in government. 

When Premier Shooting first opened, Mark and I were there for the grand tour, which was very special.  To have a classy gun range in such an elegant town with so many business and residential options was such a treat, and we’ve enjoyed it now for several years.  They have added a nice walking trail around the big fishing lake and turned the whole property into a country club setting that is great for escaping from business during a lunch break. That’s how I use Premier Shooting as a place of stress management.  And now, primarily because of the policies Mark has nurtured and a small government approach, Harley Davidson is building a new superstore next to Premier.  Adding this business to the rest of the options in that area is an incredible achievement. It is just another example of what can be done when the government doesn’t make itself the story but gets out of the way.  Mark likes to see new things being built as much as I do, but he’s as far away from the type of intrusive politician who always wants to stick their nose in everyone’s business.  That is precisely why Harley Davidson is building such a large store that will be a great gift to the community. 

Shooting the Colt .45

Talking to Mark the other day while we were up at Premier shooting the guns in the videos shown here, we talked about the new Harley Davidson store as we watched an excavation team work machinery leveling the site for a foundation.  Mark was like a kid brimming with excitement at what such a place would mean, and I sort of thought for a moment how unusual it was for a politician to have that kind of attitude. I’ve been around many politicians over the years who would look at a situation like that and find some way to insert themselves into the story and try to take credit for all Harley Davidson’s efforts.  But not Mark.  In an actual small government, conservative fashion, he likes seeing things happen.  If he can help them along, he’s happy to do it.  Yet, it never crosses his mind to loot off the efforts of others.  He wants to help make things happen, which is one of the premier ways in which West Chester has remained one of the best places to live in the world, even as economic downturns have hurt communities elsewhere.  West Chester is lucky to have Mark Welch.  But to Mark’s mind, he truly wants what is best for West Chester in the ways good management always does, by getting out of the way of those who make things happen in the world.

Rich Hoffman

The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business
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A Saturday at Premier Shooting; Training in West Chester: There are few more Pro Second Amendment than George Lang and Mark Welch

It was really irritating me over this past weekend that everywhere people were overacting to the coronavirus. All the stores were being ransacked for toilet paper and people were already too far gone to think logically. The media scares had soaked into their thoughts and they were in survival mode and unable to come out of it. Since there wasn’t anything on television worth watching and I had a free Saturday more or less, I signed up for a Tactical 88 class at Premier Shooting & Training Center in West Chester and spent the day at the gun range stepping away from the panic for a bit and enjoyed being around people who had not gone crazy. And much to my relief, they had toilet paper on the shelf, and all was right with the world. But much to my surprise, they were very busy on a Saturday (much more than usual) and they reported more gun sales that weekend than they had on Black Friday. People were coming in and buying guns and ammunition like the world was coming to an end, and for those who were watching the news, it would be easy to think why they would think that. It didn’t take long for me to realize that going to Premier Shooting & Training during the coronavirus outbreak was a good decision, it was a good day to get away from the insanity of the world and a very hard reminder how lucky we are to have such a great facility in West Chester, Ohio.

I never go to Premier without thinking of George Lang, who as a trustee was instrumental in attracting the investment of a top tier gun range into West Chester just a few years ago. I was invited to tour the facility before it opened with Mark Welch—both men are now in position after the Tuesday primary to move on politically to state seats. But few know them as I do, as shooters who were active in the opening days of Premier Shooting & Training. I go there to shoot when I have time, its my favorite range in the Cincinnati area and I think one of the best in the country. But the store and gun range is only part of the story, what they do very well at the West Chester gun range is teach people firearms handling and some of the more advanced aspects of tactical training. With the Tactical 88 instructions that are done at that facility, participants get a chance to learn the same types of things that only advance police and military officers get by way of training. And they certainly have the classrooms for that level of participation.

I spent about 10 hours there on Saturday, had lunch, shot a bit, took the classes, but mostly observed behavior. It was obvious that the people coming there were looking for some sense of normalcy to their life, or some level of empowerment. Buying a gun for them was a punch back at the victimization that they were feeling from the news reports that virtually everything was shut down out of panic over the coronavirus. Even Disney World was shut down, so there was nothing much going on television, the NCAA March Madness brackets were gone this year, baseball season is being pushed out, even James Bond’s new movie coming up has been pushed out as Hollywood looks to lose around 20 billion dollars due to coronavirus. What was happening around the world smelled a lot like an attack on the American economy and people wanted to take action, so they came to Premier Shooting to get control of things from their perspective, and buying a new gun and hitting the range to learn how to use it was the most proactive thing they could do. But it was a running joke at Premier that day for everyone who saw the display of toilet paper that at least the gun range was stocked where Kroger, Walmart and Walgreens were ransacked by panic driven customers to stock their shelves at home for the apocalypse that was to come next.

Spending that extra time there Saturday I was able to work with much of the staff on hand that day and I can only say that I am really happy they are there. They do such a good job at every level at Premier that even as I think often how wonderful it is that they are in West Chester, many people take it for granted just how much. They are top notch on a good day, but on a day where the stock market was on course for depression like numbers and the entertainment world was shut down over panic, it was good to see that Butler County residents had somewhere to go that wasn’t terrified of the coronavirus, and they could feel empowered to participate in something instead of hiding in their homes waiting for the news reports to tell them how next they might die. The staff at Premier was under control and ready for anything, and people could feel that coming into the door, which is likely why they were swarming there to begin with, to go someplace where they could still see America and enjoy the freedom to gather without fear of death. No wonder gun sales were up. Perhaps with the economic hit that losing all the sports and entertainment venues this spring will bring, toilet paper sales and the sale of guns and ammo will offset those losses. Watching the cash register at Premier gave me great hope that the same thing was happening all over the country and it said a lot about the resolution of the human race when a crises had pushed people to the brink. They didn’t run to hide in some cave, they went to the gun store and took action to protect themselves and others.

Yet with the primary election looming, I thought of George Lang and Mark Welch all day, as they were a part of the early days of Premier coming to West Chester to begin with, and few know to what degree they support the Second Amendment as mainstream politicians very loyal to the Trump administration in Butler County. I was at the announcement ceremony for George Lang this past summer when he declared himself to run for the 4th District Senate Seat in Ohio that was coming up this year and I saw many people there who I have also seen often at Premier Shooting & Training in West Chester at various events, especially at their own grand opening where Mark Welch and I were given a private tour before one shot had ever been fired there.

I’ll admit, I went to Premier for the same reasons as everyone else that rainy Saturday. I sat at the window and looked out at the lake on breaks in our training schedule and enjoyed the warm blanket of Americana as only a gun range can tell the story while the world outside was in a panicked heap. Guns have a way of calming people down and letting them know they can still defend themselves when the governments of the world get it wrong and let loose a panic like the coronavirus. But as the primary election comes on Tuesday remember that it was George Lang and Mark Welch who were there in the beginning of it all, and it is one of the best reasons to vote for them, which is barely something that has come up during the election season. Very few mainstream politicians are as pro Second Amendment as those two, and voters need to remember that as they vote on Tuesday March 17th.

Rich Hoffman

Take All Their Security Clearances: Can’t trust the government, can’t trust the media, but you can trust the gun

Let’s get something straight, John Brennan, Bruce Ohr, and many, many others are losing their security clearance not as some form of censorship to a media looking for the next leak coming from them, it’s because they can’t be trusted. We do not have a free press if they are all pulling for one political party and are working in conjunction with villains who want to destroy the concept of American independence. Trump is the head of the executive branch of government and he was elected to drain the swamp and by looking at the list of people he is considering revoking their security clearance especially those attached to the government case against him, every one of them would be justified. The media and their leakers are not part of any resistance that I want to be a part of. I voted for Trump to resist them and they should consider themselves lucky, because they wouldn’t have liked the alternative.

I had a very nice visit to the Premier Shooting range this past week with my son-in-law so that he could get a chance to shoot my Desert Eagle. The people working at Premier are always good to talk to and the general environment is very representative of the type of gun enthusiasts that are pretty common in the county that I live in, mostly conservative, mostly affluent, and extremely family friendly. Premier Shooting in West Chester is more of a country club for shooters where the traditional venue for that kind of thing is golf. They have a very nice lounge area with a fishing lake to go along with their various classroom settings and sales floor. But shooting is their business and the range was very busy on a Thursday in the middle of the day during my lunch hour. So busy in fact that there was only one lane open for us to shoot on.

The people attending are not a bunch of slack-jawed hippies or tattooed freaks. They were nice, clean-shaven affluent West Chester, Fairfield, and Liberty Township residents enjoying their firearms in what I think is the best range of its kind in southern Ohio. Everything is clean and well-lit, as well as safe. It’s the perfect venue for my .50 caliber Desert Eagle which always provokes a lot of discussion these days whenever I get it out. It’s hard to believe that I’ve only had the gun since May and by August I had already put 1000 rounds through it. But that was a bit of cause for celebration. Going there during my workday with people who I share my day with often is my way of managing stress, so I use the place often for that purpose and it doesn’t take long to go through 50 boxes of ammunition in a three-month period. My son-in-law and I went through two boxes in just twenty minutes so it doesn’t take long. The other people around us were in similar situations, shooting for them was part sport, part philosophy. It was the joining together of a lifestyle that mattered which made the whole Premier experience part of the magic.

We don’t go shooting thinking about killing anybody. I go, and I know that the other West Chester people who share those lanes with me often do the same to enjoy the ballistics of the craft, of a finely tuned gun dispensing a lead projectile toward a target at a distance appropriate to the effort. But always under the layers of endeavor is the reminder that the gun is key to the Second Amendment and that means private ownership and possible militia gathering should it become necessary. Having a gun on your hip or in your bag at the range is a distinct reminder that you are a free person in charge of your life. The government isn’t there to rule you, it’s there to manage affairs on our behalf and if they get out of control then we as people have the means to reel them back in to a properly managed society. Getting to know your firearms is part of the fun, but having them is part of a philosophy of independence that keeps the government from getting out of control.

Over several years of thinking about it now I realize that the NRA isn’t enough. I love them, they do good work, but just their very existence is a kind of appeasement toward the big government gun control lobby. I am of a mind that the government has no business in the regulation of firearms in any manner, because the purpose ultimately of them is to prevent the kind of corruption that we have witnessed as a direct result of the Trump presidency, where massive corruption has been revealed because he was in office to expose it. It was always there, but it was hidden from us by a corrupt media, and many corrupt officials. It has been stunning to learn just how many high-level intelligence officials are part of a culture within the Beltway that have involved relationships with the press. It reminds me of the kind of relationships that form at Premier where people of alike mind join to enjoy shooting, only the like-minded behavior of the advocates of more state control are joined for the opposite intentions.

We do not have a free press with the corporate media types. I am not one who dislikes corporations, but the big names in media have hired and evolved along the lines of big government state controls, likely because they all went to the same type of schools and learned the same values which have evolved on the coastal regions of America. But in the Midwest a different culture exists that does not like all that proposed state control. We put Donald Trump in charge to fix it hoping that things wouldn’t have to get messy. But if they do, that is the next alternative. Giving more power to people like John Brennan was never part of our plan. Not that we wish to be a bunch of crazy radicals, we really just want to be left alone to run our businesses and families. We don’t want the state to assume they are doing anything for our benefit. They aren’t smarter than we are and they are not qualified to herd us all into little groups, to steal our money through taxation and regulate us into everything being such a pain in the ass that running companies isn’t even worth it.

Security clearances are not a right. Brennan lost his because he had a big mouth and acted in ways that were not conducive to traditional American values. His friends within the intelligence community are no better off, they should all lose their access to any security information. It’s not Trump doing these things because he wants to be mean, he’s doing them because he’s fulfilling the objectives that people who like to shoot guns at Premier Shooting in West Chester, Ohio voted for him to do so that they wouldn’t have to take up guns against a corrupt government selling itself to the public through a corrupt media. We know the difference. But by listening to the reaction of people on the other side responding to John Brennan’s loss of clearance, I don’t think they understand much of anything of what is going on in my neck of the woods. They don’t have a choice. Trump is doing exactly what we wanted. There wasn’t a single person at Premier Shooting that day who disagreed with anything that Trump was doing. We’d all give him an A+ on a report card. If there was anything different we’d have him do is to do it all faster. He has the power to shut down these expensive investigations that are only meant to attempt to hurt Republican majorities in the house and senate. Why would we want to help Democrats with that? Its time to kick all those people out of office and take away their security clearances. Its time to cut off the media from the nation’s secrets with their contacts in the intelligence community. I’m not sure we can trust any of them, let alone some of them. But we don’t have to trust them. In many cases we don’t even need them. Because we are gun owners and most of the time, that’s all we really need.

Rich Hoffman

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The First Day of Summer at Premier Shooting: A nice way to celebrate what America is all about

I can’t say enough about Premier Shooting and Training Center which is in West Chester, Ohio. Every time I go there I feel renewed it is one of those places that has a spirit about it that is extremely positive. It’s a unique creation of American philosophy that does not shy away from their positive impact into the local community. They make West Chester so much better in what they do which is train people not only in proper firearms conduct, but general self-defense with various martial art forms. They are a really neat operation. Of course I’ve been to a lot of gun ranges over the years, but Premier is absolutely the best.

I was taking a VIP there the other day and it just happened to be the first day of summer and Premier was giving out free water bottles with the Premier logo on them and hot dogs. In addition to a really nice gun range that is wonderfully well ventilated and training classrooms that are equal to any college campus, they have a cafeteria overlooking their fishing lake which is very well stocked. So after doing a little shooting, they welcomed us to some hot dogs as a way to celebrate the arrival of summer which I thought was a very nice touch. Me and this VIP might have otherwise have gone to Jags for lunch, but the hot dogs were good enough given the atmosphere.

I’ve been to Premier before but recently since acquiring a gun that I had been thinking about for a very long time I have been going regularly to shoot it. Most of my shooting these days has been in my private range in my home where I shoot Cowboy Fast Draw. While that is fun, and still constitutes most of my shooting activity, the bullets are wax and not the same kind of experience as shooting my .50 AE Desert Eagle. To shoot that, you really need a range like they have at Premier. On this particular day I brought along my .500 Magnum, so we were shooting some very big ammunition for which the Premier ventilation system really showed its use. There was no lingering smoke from those big guns hanging around, it was all scooped up leaving a very pleasant environment to shoot in which is what they do best at Premier.

When I shoot in my garage with Cowboy Fast Draw, my wife loves the smell. The gunsmoke is part of the appeal for her. I leave the garage door closed when I shoot there so that the sounds don’t wake up the neighborhood. It’s not uncommon for me to shoot really early in the morning or late at night. But as good as the smoke smells it’s not good to breathe. When I’m done I usually open the garage door to let the smoke out and get the ventilation moving again. But with that type of shooting the only real explosive element is the 209 shotgun primers which are used as the propellent for the wax bullets. We’re only talking about a 7 grain bullet with about 600 FPS velocity at the barrel. You always need to use proper gun safety but these are not the types of bullets that are killing anyone. They can sting, but are perfectly safe to use in a sport like Cowboy Fast Draw. They are effective up to about 15 feet, although we compete with them up to 21 feet. But firing the .50 AE is a different matter, it typically has a 300 grain bullet with muzzle velocity of 1475 FPS and a whopping 1449 ft/lbs of muzzle energy. It really is a remarkable cartridge and what I consider an engineering marvel, to be able to contain all that power into a relatively small gun. The Desert Eagle is not a small gun by any means, but for the power output that it is utilizing, it is a real engineering feat to have such a thing work so well under such violent conditions. The smoke that is left behind if you are shooting indoors can be a lot, but at Premier, you don’t even notice it. Their ventilation system picks it all right up, it’s very impressive all its own.

Shooting for me is a daily occurrence so it’s very disingenuous to listen to people who don’t understand the sport of shooting to cry out against the 2nd Amendment. It really gets on my nerves because guns in America are not a brutal thing, they are a deeply philosophical element to the freest country on earth. Because without all the guns that we have, and places like Premier which helps take the gun from a thought to a practice, the Constitution would have been eroded away a long time ago. The only thing that keeps the three branches of government working properly, in that one doesn’t try to take over the others is the very defined understanding that the people of the nation can at anytime take back their country from the grips of corruption, should they choose to. That gives weight behind our police to do their jobs in defending our laws because if that doesn’t work, an armed society is there is a backstop. I view gun ownership as an essential American right that every household should participate in. But that right comes with responsibility and places like Premier Shooting do a fantastic job of defining that balance. The atmosphere of the place is very family oriented and patriotic. It’s the kind of place that certainly charges me up whenever I step into their doors and by the time I leave I’m good for a few days. My new Desert Eagle gives me a reason to go there more now than I did in the past and that has greatly enhanced my life.

Smaller caliber guns really don’t excite me, because I do so much shooting with the wax bullets. Working on my accuracy just on paper targets wasn’t a big attraction for me prior to the Desert Eagle. My big .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum was just too expensive, ammunition is over $3 a shot, so shooting it regularly isn’t practical. It wasn’t until this Desert Eagle for me that the slightly over $1 per shot made visits to Premier Shooting a viable option for my personal lifestyle. If I’m going to shoot a gun, I like it to be a big one because that’s kind of the point. The ballistic power so self-contained is amazing to me and is part of the joy. But to enjoy it I need a good range and that is where Premier comes in. They are the best certainly in Cincinnati and compared to most places in the country. Specifically, to West Chester, they are a great asset to a community that already had it all. I’m glad they are there. When I want to have such an experience with a VIP and we don’t feel like spending a whole half of a day playing golf or some similar activity, a half hour on a shooting lane at Premier is just the right thing. We were in and out and back to our professional tasks within the hour, and that included enjoying a hot dog by the fishing lake—and that is what makes shooting in America such a special thing, and Premier does it better than anybody.

Rich Hoffman

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