Minor Waiver & Guardian Consent

Who you are and what you are signing

This document is about a person under 18 — "the minor". You are signing it as that person's parent or legal guardian.

By signing, you state that you are the minor's parent or legal guardian, that you have the legal authority to make decisions for them, and that you are entitled to give this permission even if custody or guardianship is shared. The Range may ask you for proof of your relationship or authority, and may refuse to let the minor onto the property until you provide it.

You are signing in two capacities: for yourself, and for the minor. Everything in this document that gives up a claim gives up your own claim, and — so far as the law allows — the minor's as well.

[Range: this is the paragraph to ask your attorney about first. What a parent may sign away on a child's behalf is one of the least uniform areas of this whole document.]

Age limits at the Range

These are the Range's age limits. [Range: change these to match your own policy, your insurance requirements, and any age rules that apply where you operate.]

1. Under 5 — not permitted on the property.
2. Under 8 — may be on the property with a parent or guardian, but may not shoot.
3. 8 to 17 — may shoot only under the direct supervision of a parent, legal guardian, or another adult the parent has authorized in writing and the Range has accepted.

"Direct supervision" means an adult who is within arm's reach of the minor, whose attention is on the minor, and who is not shooting at the same time. An adult on the next lane shooting their own firearm is not supervising anybody.

The Range may set a higher age limit for particular firearms, calibers, or bays, and may decide on any given day that a particular minor may not shoot. Staff do not have to explain that decision beyond safety.

Your supervision obligations

While the minor is on the property, you agree to:

1. Stay with the minor and keep them under direct supervision at all times — including in the parking area and everywhere behind the firing line.
2. Make sure the minor wears eye and ear protection that actually fits them, whenever they are on or near the line. Adult-sized protection that slips is not protection.
3. Control access to firearms and ammunition. The minor may not carry, load, or handle a firearm out of your reach, and may not take one from the vehicle to the line unattended.
4. Teach and enforce the safety rules yourself. Range staff are not the minor's supervisor, and a range officer watching a whole line is not watching your child.
5. Stop the minor and take them off the line if they are tired, frightened, distracted, or not following instructions. Ending the day early is not a failure; it is the single most useful thing on this list.
6. Take lead exposure seriously — hands and face washed with cold water and soap before eating, and range clothes changed and washed separately from the rest of the laundry. Children absorb lead more readily than adults do.

If you leave the property, the minor leaves with you.

The risks you are accepting for the minor

Shooting is dangerous. People are seriously injured and killed at shooting ranges, including well-run ones. By signing this you are saying that you understand that, and that you are choosing to bring a child into it anyway.

The risks include, but are not limited to:

1. Gunshot wounds, including from a negligent or accidental discharge — yours, another shooter's, or one caused by a firearm that malfunctions.
2. Ricochets, splash-back, and fragments. Bullets, jacket material, and target debris can come back toward the firing line off steel, rock, frozen ground, berms, and hard objects, at angles nobody predicted.
3. Burns and cuts from hot brass, hot barrels, muzzle blast, and ejected casings.
4. Permanent hearing loss and tinnitus, including from a single unexpected shot fired nearby before hearing protection is on.
5. Eye injury from fragments, debris, hot gases, and unburned powder.
6. Lead and other chemical exposure from primers, bullets, solvents, and airborne residue. Lead exposure builds up over time and is a particular hazard for children and for anyone who is pregnant or may become pregnant.
7. Injury caused by other people on the range — someone sweeping the line with a muzzle, handling a firearm behind the line, moving forward of the line at the wrong moment, or simply not knowing what they are doing.
8. Mechanical failure of a firearm, ammunition, magazine, holster, or the range's own equipment, including a case rupture or an out-of-battery discharge.
9. Ordinary hazards of the property — uneven ground, holes, slips and falls, weather, heat and cold, insects, snakes, and animals.

Some of these fall harder on a child. A minor may not have the strength to control recoil or to hold a firearm steady when tired, may be startled into an unsafe movement by noise or muzzle blast, may not recognize a dangerous situation in time, and absorbs lead more readily than an adult.

You are accepting these risks on the minor's behalf and on your own, whether they arise from an accident, from equipment failing, from the condition of the property, or from another person's carelessness — including the carelessness of the Range, its staff, and its other members.

Release and promise not to sue

Read this section carefully. You are giving up legal rights — your own, and, so far as the law allows, the minor's.

In exchange for the minor being allowed to use the Range, you release [Range legal name] and its owners, officers, employees, volunteers, range officers, instructors, members, landlord, and insurers — together, "the Released Parties" — from any claim for injury, death, illness, or damage to property arising out of the minor's use of the Range or presence on the property.

You give this release both for yourself and, to the extent the law permits a parent or guardian to do so, on behalf of the minor. You also promise not to sue the Released Parties over anything this release covers, and not to bring such a claim on the minor's behalf.

This release does not cover anything the law does not permit to be released, and it is not intended to release anyone for intentionally harming the minor or for conduct beyond ordinary negligence. If part of it cannot be enforced where you live, that part does not apply and the rest still does.

Indemnification

If a claim is brought against the Released Parties because of something the minor did, or something you failed to do in supervising them, you agree to defend the Released Parties against that claim and to pay the resulting judgment, settlement, and reasonable legal costs.

This includes a claim brought by the minor themselves, including one brought after they turn 18.

It does not apply to a claim arising from the Released Parties' own intentional wrongdoing.

Medical treatment for the minor

You authorize the Range's staff to call emergency services for the minor, and to permit emergency medical treatment and transport, if the minor is hurt and you cannot be reached or cannot act.

You agree that you, or your health insurer, are responsible for the cost of that treatment and transport — not the Range.

You confirm that the minor is physically and mentally able to handle a firearm safely under your supervision, and that you have told the Range about any medical condition, allergy, or medication that staff would need to know about in an emergency. Give the Range a phone number that will be answered while the minor is on the property.

Governing law and severability

[Range: with your attorney, name here the law that governs this document and where any dispute over it will be heard. HotRange has deliberately left this blank rather than guess — the answer depends on where your range is, and a wrong answer here can undo the rest of the document.]

If a court decides that any part of this document cannot be enforced, the rest of it still applies, and the part that cannot be enforced should be read as narrowly as it needs to be in order to stand.

Your acknowledgement

By signing, you are saying that:

1. You have read this entire document and you understand it.
2. Nobody rushed you, you were able to ask questions, and you could have had an attorney look at it first.
3. You are 18 or older, and you are the minor's parent or legal guardian with authority to sign this.
4. You have explained the range rules and the safety rules to the minor in terms they understand.
5. You understand this is a release of legal rights — yours, and, so far as the law allows, the minor's.
6. You are signing it freely, and not because anyone pressured you to.

If you do not agree to all of this, do not sign it and do not bring the minor onto the Range.