A quiet in the air resembled the silence experienced at the Master’s final hole during the competitors’ eyeing of their shots.
But this wasn’t a game of golf.
The silence would eventually be broken by a clang. Then there was another. Then there was another. Going to repeat 90 times over a long period of time until quiet returned.
The sound was of 177-caliber pellets crashing against the Rio Grande Air Gun Range’s steel backstop near the Village Del Mar.
On June 24, nine local police officers and members of the One Buck Club, a subset of The Villages Air Gun Club, convened for the first “Law Enforcement Shootout.”
The tournament was a team marksmanship competition in which a club member was matched with a police officer.
Each partner had two 10-minute shooting intervals. They each shot one round at ten half-dollar-sized targets from a distance of ten meters. The goal was to hit the bull’s-eye at each target, which was worth 10 points, for a total of 400 points for each team.
When the gunfire ceased, Sumter County sheriff’s Detective Jon Binegar and his partner, Brad Zimmerman, a Village of Pinellas resident with 26 years of law enforcement experience in California and Alaska, were declared the winners.
They won by nine points with a total of 396 points, thanks to Zimmerman’s two perfect rounds.
The winners congratulated one another.
“Brad’s a great teacher. It’s a lot more technical and uses a lot more attention to detail than traditional firearms,” Binegar described his first experience with one of the competition-caliber air rifles. “It’s pretty fun. I’d like to do it again.”
These aren’t Ralphie’s Red Ryder BB guns from the movie “A Christmas Story,” for those who don’t know.
According to club members, the perfectly manufactured, European versions utilized for the shootout cost between $1,500 and $4,800.
“I think I got lucky and got a partner with a lot of natural talent,” Zimmerman said of Binegar. “He’s a great learner and a great shooter.”
The champions did not get any awards, but after the ceremony, they were treated to Publix subs and baked cookies.
Winning was a secondary consideration for the club members.
Tim Langwald, head of the club committee that arranged the competition, said the concept of inviting law enforcement officials to demonstrate their skills had been discussed for a few years. Last year, COVID-19 stopped this from happening. So now, he explained, the moment seemed just right.
Authorities from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, as well as cops from the Wildwood and Fruitland Park police departments, attended the event. The officials drew the names of club members to form the couples.
“What better thing to do for the community and just bring people together, especially the way the world is nowadays,” said Langwald, a resident of the Village of Chitty Chatty. “All of us in the gun club love our policemen and support them. What a great bunch of guys here.”
Thomas Lange, another club member, concurred. “It brings the community together with the polite. They’re the good guys,” he said.
“With all of the stuff going on with the police, we thought we needed to do more with people in the community,” added Bonnie Webb, president of One Buck Club and a resident of the Village Rio Ponderosa. “I had no idea what we were in for, but turned out really well. I think it’s fun to get together with people in a friendly way.”