Flagstaff City Council Threatened With Lawsuit Over Ban On Arizona Shooting Range’s Airport Ads

The Flagstaff, Arizona City Council that barred a local shooting range owner from taking out ads in the city’s airport, as he’s done for years, is now plotting a policy proposal that could permanently ban the licensed federal firearms dealer from marketing his business to tourists.

“It’s especially frustrating for us because it’s not a Second Amendment issue, it’s strictly a First Amendment issue,” Timberline Firearms & Training Founder and Owner Rob Wilson told The Federalist.

The Navy veteran founded Timberline, a “full service, retail store, training facility and indoor and outdoor shooting range,” in 2018 with his wife Elise.

By 2019, Wilson decided to tap into Flagstaff’s booming tourist market by taking out space for a video advertisement that runs on a 60-second loop in the lagstaff Pulliam Airport’s baggage claim “during peak tourist season.”

“We have about 5 million tourists a year that visit Flagstaff to go to the Grand Canyon, and many of them come through the airport,” Wilson explained. “This was running on the only video monitor in the airport that has anything on it, and it’s right over the baggage claim belt. While you’re sitting there, waiting for your baggage, this was all you got to see.”

The 10-second ad features the Timberline Firearms & Training logo, a picture of young people holding unloaded rifles, and a short clip of a shooter firing a weapon at the FFL’s indoor under the close supervision of Wilson.

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