On the front lines: How Miles Hall became a leader in the battle over gun ownership

When Miles and Jayne Hall started their small business in 1981, they had no idea they soon would be on the front lines of an emotional and contentious battle that would divide the nation.

Hall, 64, who grew up in Oklahoma City, was working at a Dairy Queen and living in a mobile home park near Lake Overholser west of the city when he and his wife began to be concerned about their safety.

"Back then, Lake Overholser was the sticks," Hall said, and one of his neighbors suggested he would need a gun.

"I said, 'No, I don't want to do that.' But then you'd hear random gunshots and cars racing, ambulances and fire trucks, and all of a sudden that gun didn't seem to be such a bad idea after all."

The gun store the Halls found in the Yellow Pages was not at all appealing. It was small, dark. It catered mostly to people from the military and law enforcement and seemed to have little interest in helping them. The store's indoor shooting range was so small, Hall said, that a ricochet from one of the bullets they fired actually hit Jayne on the sleeve of her jacket, fortunately not reaching her arm.

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"We had a discussion and decided, we can do better than this," Hall said. "We put together a plan and built what came to be known as a shooting sports complex."

H&H Shooting Sports, eventually located on the city's west side off Interstate 40, grew to become one of the nation's largest gun stores, incorporating a large range, training facilities and a wide variety of merchandise for both gun and archery enthusiasts.

Hall became a founding member the Association of American Shooting Ranges and the Association of Firearm Retailers. From 2003-2006 he was a board member of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). Founded in 1961 to promote hunting and recreational shooting, the NSSF has grown into the nation's largest firearms trade association with more than 8,000 members. In 2023 it spent more than $5.4 million on federal lobbying, twice as much as the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Hall's business and others like it across the nation tapped into a strong and growing demand for guns in the U.S.

Hall said he believes many Americans start out wanting a gun for safety and security, as he and his wife did, but then grow to enjoy shooting as a sport.

Most research suggests that crime surged in the 1980s and '90s and has declined somewhat since then.

In 1984 a lone gunman shot and killed 21 people and wounded 19 others at a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, California, but such incidents were relatively rare. However, in 1999 two students at Columbine High School near Denver killed two other students and a teacher before killing themselves. That incident, and other school shootings, including those in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012; Santa Fe , Texas, in 2018; and Uvalde , Texas, in 2022, sparked national outrage and a strong movement to reduce gun availability and ban certain types of weapons.

"We didn't know when we started that we were going to be part of a cause-based business ... part of something bigger than what we were," Hall said.

Here's a condensed account of The Oklahoman's discussion with Hall, who sold H&H Shooting Sports in 2016 , but continues to be a consultant to the sport and to business owners across the country who own Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs).

Q: You mentioned your belief that selling guns is a cause-based business. But surely people don't buy guns to make a point about the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.

A: No, no. You're accurate about that. But here's the thing that we uncovered ourselves. People buy guns for self-defense reasons. That was our motivation in buying a gun. We were worried about our own safety. But what happened on the range was a rush. We really got into it. In fact, we kind of got worried that maybe there was something wrong with us. You know, people who get guns for defensive reasons usually get this happy, do they? Then we started meeting other people that were in the shooting sports world, some of them young like us, and we found out that there's something prideful in actually being able to hold a gun, aim it, shoot it and actually hit something.

Q: Did you see enthusiasm diminish after all the school shootings? It seems to me that the climate has changed, and that shooting guns, especially semi-automatic weapons, is not looked upon with favor. The industry is getting a lot of criticism, and I wonder if you saw that in your business.

A: The industry is still growing quite nicely. It was growing when we sold the business. I started working with other range retailers around the country, trying to help them do better. And I'll tell you that we have entirely too many markets where the bad guys, when they commit their crimes, are being released without even bail. When you have that much freewheeling crime going on, that gets people very scared very quick. And as you may know, COVID was the largest gun push in history. Depending on where you go for the statistics, somewhere between 6 and 8 million people who had never owned a gun a gun before bought one during the COVID period.

Q: Every time there's a mass shooting, people are shocked, and they say, "We've got to do something." Often the first suggestion is to ban assault rifles, which the industry opposes. Do you believe those who sell guns have any responsibility to be a part of the solution? Taking some kind of a proactive approach to do whatever it takes to make a difference in reducing gun violence?

A: One of the problems is pigeon-holing one thing. The problem is not the gun, it's the individual. You don't blame the car for the drunk driver.

Q: I've heard that. But is the industry just saying, "don't do anything?" I know the problem isn't easy to fix, but what does the industry believe would help? Does it accept responsibility for being part of the solution?

A: I can't speak for the industry, but I will tell you that the mental health issues are something that has to be addressed.

Q: But the industry doesn't support red flag laws, for example, to get guns away from people who have mental health problems.

A: The problem is that there are different views on what mental health is. We have 50 states, and it's probably not an exaggeration to say that well over half of them have different variables on what mental health challenges we need to fix. ... One of the things that I and others have pushed in the NSSF is how to address suicides and teach range operators as best you can what to look for when someone is buying a gun. And we put together a program for that, and it was at least a step in the right direction in trying to do something on mental health. In our years in the store we passed on many sales.

Q: If people in this country have the freedom to own guns without government restriction, shouldn't they also be free of government restriction regarding their reproductive choices? It often seems that the strongest advocates of gun rights seem to also be the strongest opponents of reproductive rights. .

A: There are lots of regulations involved in gun ownership. Age, criminal history, victim protection orders are just some. Interesting question. We have found that a lot of folks, gun owners and not, have changed their minds as technology advances. It's never an easy choice even to think on that topic. Today, many see the life — be it small or not — and deciding to eliminate it is not a casual thing any more. It's certainly not just a gun group thing.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: On the front lines: How Miles Hall became a leader in the battle over gun ownership