Practice makes perfect
In 1942, the Lower Merion Township, Pa., Police Department celebrated the opening of a state-of-the-art pistol range, which came complete with a clubhouse and was situated next to the township incinerator. The $25,000 facility featured an outdoor shooting field with a row of 20 electrically controlled targets backed by a sand-banked hill at one end, according to the July 1942 edition of The American City. The clubhouse featured a “knotty-pine-panelled lounge,” a trophy room with fireplace and steel-plated rooms for storing and reloading ammunition. An outside terrace offered “room for kibitzers.”
According to current Township Police Superintendent Joseph Daly, that facility and similar ones in the county fell into disrepair. So Montgomery County, along with the county Chiefs of Police Association and Fire Academy, built a training facility for all local 1,600 law enforcement officers and firefighters. The $11 million weapons and anti-terrorism training facility opened in September 2007 on the grounds of the Montgomery County Public Safety Training Campus.