Good news for anyone who thought the shooting range was too safe! New testing shows that every pull of the trigger inside an indoor range sends a concussive shock wave into your skull. The bigger the gun, the bigger the brain smoothie.

There are thousands of indoor ranges in the United States, and many have a similar layout: A row of lanes separated by bullet-resistant walls. Soft, shock-absorbent paneling is not standard and without it the booth can act like an echo chamber, reflecting more of the blast waves back toward the shooter.

The potential for harm from blast waves gets almost no attention from the shooting public, even though people can experience concussion-like symptoms after a day at the range, said Jeff Balcourt, who is an acoustic consultant for the National Shooting Sport

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