Texas Gun Club grand opening goes wrong when employee shoots own hand

The grand opening week of the Frisco Gun Club of Frisco, Texas was marred by an accident at the shooting range when an employee shot his own hand while trying to clear a jammed Ruger 9-millimeter handgun.

According to Claire St. Amant of CultureMap Dallas, the shooting club opened on December 13 with a ceremonial ribbon cutting. Within 24 hours, an ambulance was called to the scene to aid the injured employee.

A statement from the club read, in part, "On the evening of December 14, 2013, while assisting a member with a jammed firearm, an experienced range officer at the Frisco Gun Club slightly injured his hand when the firearm accidentally discharged while pointing downrange. The range officer was transported to Medical Center of Plano, where he was treated and released for injuries which were not life threatening. No other patrons or staff were injured in this incident."

The Frisco Gun Club bills itself as "the nation's largest indoor shooting range," although that statement includes the asterisked qualifier: "measured in square footage of the actual gun range." The "luxury gun club" features an executive chef and, judging by the photos on its website, an abundance of stone fireplaces and high-backed leather chairs.

Operations at the club continued virtually uninterrupted through the weekend, wrote St. Amant. Frisco Gun Club spokesperson Kelly Hunter said that initial media reports about the accident were misleading.

"There was a range safety officer down range away from the public trying to clear a jam in a gun, not clean a gun," Hunter explained.

When St. Amant called the club on Monday, the employee who answered the phone was unaware that an incident had taken place.

"I didn't know about that," he said. "I wasn't here this weekend."

[image via the Frisco Gun Club on Facebook]