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RangeUSA is trying to carve out a niche and change that perception.

Appealing to women makes good business sense. According to the Tennessee Department of Safety, the percentage of new gun-carry permits that are issued to women has risen steadily from 10% in 2000 to almost 20% today.

Marketing to women and families was part of the plan for RangeUSA since it opened on Whitten Road in Bartlett in November 2002, says RangeUSA co-owner Scott Kilby, 31. Kilby owns the business with his wife, Randa and his father, Tim Kilby.

“We wanted a female face here,” Randa Kilby says. Now five months pregnant, Randa works the register and helps manage the day-to-day operations. “There’s potpourri in the bathrooms. It smells nice here. Guys don’t have the sense to know what needs to be done for things like that.”

Ranges typically don’t go out of their way to cater to women, but RangeUSA often has women at the shooting range, practicing with their gun, says patron Wayne Leggett.

“You’ll see a lot of women here by themselves,” Leggett says. “You don’t see that anywhere else.”

The range is also where the West Tennessee Junior Rifle Team‹a team for shooters ages nine to 20‹holds practices and matches. Young and new gun owners are the future of his business, Scott Kilby says.

“We always need new customers in this business,” Kilby says. “There are only so many guns and so many classes you can sell to people.”

There has been an increased interest in guns and self-protection since the Sept. 11 attacks because many began to feel vulnerable, Kilby says.

“Guns can’t stop a 747,” he says. “But other things might happen, and guns give a sense of security. They are the great equalizer.”

Like other ranges in the area, RangeUSA provides a variety of training classes and a gun permit certification class. In Tennessee, one needs a permit to carry a gun. The permit certification class gives gun owners the proper paperwork to apply for a gun carry permit.

Since gun carry permits became easier to acquire in 1996, more than 155,000 permits have been issued by the state as of Dec. 31, 2003.

Both Scott and Tim Kilby are licensed gun instructors with the state and the National Rifle Association. Tim had always wanted to build his own range for personal use. Typical of his personality, son Scott took the idea and “blew it way out of proportion,” deciding in 2000 to research the idea of opening a range for public use in Jackson, Tenn., his hometown.

RangeUSA instead opened in the former Whitten Arms, which the Kilbys purchased for less than would have been needed to build and open a range in Jackson. Kilby wants to franchise the operation and open another location in Jackson and then a third between Nashville and Murfreesboro.

The franchising model would be a familiar one for Scott Kilby, since he worked 15 years at Chick-Fil-A in Jackson, mostly as a manager, developing an expertise in customer service.

“I model what we do here after the Chick-Fil-A mindset,” Kilby says. “Whether you are selling a chicken sandwich or a gun, you must have a strong work ethic and make customer service number one.”

Marketing the range is easy for Kilby. He says the shooting range experience is unique because it appeals to different customers in different ways, he says.

“Some come for recreation, some come for competition and others come to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Kilby says.

The range must be striking a chord. In its first year, over 6,000 people came in to shoot, and on most Saturdays there are more than 200.transactions. In Shelby County, the most populous county in Tennessee—and also the county with the most gun carry permits—Kilby sees nothing but growth ahead.

“There’s a million people in Shelby County,” he says. “There are a lot who have yet to come here.”

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