'I'm tapped out': Calgary shooting range closes, citing gun-control laws and high rent (2024)

Author of the article:

Matt Scace

Published Oct 03, 2024Last updated 2days ago3 minute read

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'I'm tapped out': Calgary shooting range closes, citing gun-control laws and high rent (1)

A longtime Calgary shooting range and gun store is closing its doors after 25 years in business.

'I'm tapped out': Calgary shooting range closes, citing gun-control laws and high rent (2)

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The Shooting Edge Inc. announced late Wednesday that it has permanently closed and will soon file for bankruptcy.

The gun store cited a confluence of factors that led to the company’s insolvency, including recent gun-control legislation, financial losses incurred during COVID-19 and steep rent hikes that were expected to increase in the coming months.

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'I'm tapped out': Calgary shooting range closes, citing gun-control laws and high rent (3)

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“I’m tapped out,” owner J.R. Cox said in an interview with Postmedia.

Cox has also seen a precipitous decline in membership over the past four years as federal legislation limited the number of new gun owners in the province, he said, resulting in declines in revenue that have reached as high as $3 million annually.

The Calgary business owner, who formerly served in a reserve unit at Currie Armoury in Calgary, has long been an advocate for Alberta gun users. He owns a shooting range in Ontario that’s still operating, and owns an international firearms company called Sterling Arms International Inc.

The business has seen rent costs skyrocket from $61,000 per month in 2021 to $95,000 a month — a number Cox was told would exceed $100,000 next year. He said negotiations with the landlord have been unsuccessful.

“There’s only so much blood from the stone,” Cox said, adding he’s subsidized Shooting Edge for about two years using earnings from his other businesses.

'I'm tapped out': Calgary shooting range closes, citing gun-control laws and high rent (4)

Cox has been fighting federal gun-control regulations for several years, and has advocated for a stronger focus on stopping illegal firearms trade in Canada.

'I'm tapped out': Calgary shooting range closes, citing gun-control laws and high rent (5)

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An amendment to a gun-restrictions bill in early 2023 drew an uproar from gun owners and hunters. The provision introduced a new definition of an “assault-style” gun that included semi-automatic rifles and shotguns with a capacity of more than five cartridges. Some of the loudest pushback came from hunters who said the bill would ban many firearms used to legally hunt. (Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price received significant attention for his public objection to the bill amendments, though largely because he posted his support leading up to the anniversary of the 1989 Montreal Ecole Polytechique massacre.)

The federal government rolled back some of those restrictions that would have outlawed certain legal hunting rifles.

The federal government had previously banned 1,500 models and variants of firearms in 2020, including the AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14, in the wake of the mass killing in Nova Scotia in which a man dressed as an RCMP officer killed 22 people in an overnight shooting rampage. (The man used two types of semi-automatic rifles and three types of pistols in the shooting.)

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Bill C-21 also limited gun owners from transferring handguns, even between family members, which Cox said has resulted in spiralling membership numbers. Before the bill, Shooting Edge saw anywhere from 15 to 25 per cent membership attrition each year, a gap that would largely get shored up by new members.

Since then, Shooting Edge has lost a net 200 members annually, Cox said. Increasing membership fees fourfold would be the only way he could keep the business afloat, he added.

“Shooting is a very social sport, so all of a sudden there’s no new people. You’re not having the group functions. You’re not having these social activities, so a lot of people just park their guns,” Cox said. At its peak, the club reached about 1,200 full members and 1,500 “associate” members who paid as they went.

“It’s a slippery slope. You quickly lose members.”

In the early 2010s, the business was earning about $6 million a year in revenues. “Then we went to four, then down to three. It’s been huge,” Cox said. As well, in the early 2010s, the growing presence of online gun dealerships shrunk their annual earnings, he said.

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Cox said he’s been trying to off-load his lease since late 2023 but has been unsuccessful due to the rent costs associated with it. More recently, he’s decided it will be untenable to continue paying the current rent rates due every month. Instead, he’ll centre his focus on his Toronto shooting range and arms manufacturing company.

He stressed there’s no possibility Shooting Edge will revive itself in the near future.

“There’s no coming back from this.”

— With files from Postmedia

mscace@postmedia.com
X: @mattscace67

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