HuwG, if such an incident happened on the range here the responsible party would have been banned (for life) from the range AND very likely arrested for reckless endangerment. "Cease Fire" orders on the civilian range here and on ALL military ranges I have been familiar with were done with 1) a loudspeaker (tannoy) setup AND 2) range officers running around screaming "Cease Fire!" AND 3) the absolute requirement that EVERYONE put down their weapon on the ground, magazine out and bolt locked open and STAND UP.

I have not only experienced this, but have seen it down at competitions ranging from the extremely local to national competitions.

The only example I know of similar to what you described occured some years ago when three drunken 20-year-old males, living together in a mobile home, shot a .22 at a bunch of Cub Scouts hiking along a road. My nephew was in the Scouts. My brother didn't report it -- he paid a visit to the young males, and after lifting two of them off the ground and throwing them into the third, promised them that if they ever did such a thing again it would be the last time. THEY called the Sheriff, who talked to my bro. The Sheriff said, "You know, if something does happen I'll have to come looking for you." Bro said, "Okay. But you'll never find the bodies." The young males were later arrested for running a meth lab (yes, my brother, who works for the Illinois State Police DID help to break that case!) and are now locked up.

Oh, yeah. They threatened to shoot my brother as he walked away. He replied, rather scornfully, "You ain't got the the balls" and left. He was right -- they didn't.

There is NO excuse for either ignoring range commands or for what those young punks did. None.