DANBURY -- Federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives combed through sign-in sheets at a popular shooting range late Friday night near Newtown, but the facility's longtime director says there is no record that the gunman in the worst school massacre in U.S. history practiced there.
Dean Price , director of the Wooster Mountain Shooting Range on Route 7 , said a pair of ATF agents spent two hours looking for the name of Adam Lanza.
Lanza was found dead after ambushing 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School , 20 of them children.
He also shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza , to whom an arsenal of two handguns and a semi-automatic assault rifle were registered.
"Those names did not appear," Price told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers.
The shooting range is located on state property straddling Danbury's border with Ridgefield.
Anyone using the range, which costs $15 per day, is required to show identification such as a driver's license and print their name on a sign-in sheet, Price said.
"They were very, very thorough," Price said of the agents.
None of the people approached at the range Saturday said they recognized Lanza or his mother, who owned two handgun models used in the shooting, a Sig Sauer and a Glock.
A semi-automatic .223 caliber assault rifle was also recovered by law enforcement officers.
"It's a very common firearm and it is not a military firearm," Price said of the rifle.
Price suspects that Lanza likely avoided shooting ranges and practiced in the woods.
He cited Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris , the gunmen in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, who he said practiced in a wooded garage.
"We do not hand out silhouette targets," Price said. "People can bring their own."
In his 19th year at the range, Price said he has personally been touched by the tragedy and knows the parents of a 7-year-old boy who died Friday at the school.
"We're all really sick about this," said Price, a Wilton resident.
Price said he didn't consider it odd for a substitute teacher to have a gun collection, however.
"Running this range, we have people from all walks of life, nuclear engineers, doctors, lawyers and garbagemen," Price said.
Price said the range has an impeccable safety record and that Connecticut is among the strictest states when it comes to gun control.
"It's about personal responsibility," Price said. "It's not the yahoos that a lot of people think they are."
neil.vigdor@scni.com; 203-625-4436;
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