As sociologist (and gun owner) David Yamane often says, gun ownership is normal and normal people own guns. 

While that's certainly the case, all too often the media presents gun owners as exotic and unusual creatures; a group to be carefully studied and maybe avoided, but definitely not normal. So, when I ran across a story from the Louisville Business Journal entitled "Farm to table restaurant opens in East End gun range", I was expected to see a snarky piece ridiculing the idea that a gun range and good eats could ever go hand in hand. 

Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see reporter Michael Jones offer a positive take on Louisville's newest restaurant, which is indeed ensconced inside the nearly 39,00 square foot Next Level Ranges facility that opened earlier this year. 

Brass Social opened at 11800 Electron Dr. on Friday, Nov. 29. The nearly 3,300-square-foot restaurant is located in the Next Level Ranges development, which also includes gun ranges and a pro shop.

Brandon Brass, co-owner of Brass Social, said the new restaurant serves what he likes to call elevated bar food with locally-sourced ingredients. His partners in Brass Social, James and Jennifer Naïve, own a farm in Spencer County that supplies the restaurant’s beef.

“We're burger heavy. We've got about eight signature burgers that we do,” Brass explained. “Our emphasis really has been on trying to use as much local product as possible. We actually have a beer that's being brewed for us locally as well, and the spent grains from that beer is what feeds the cows that we serve. So, it's really a sustainable circle.”

While the ranges may be the main draw for the "guntry club", Brass and the range owners took great pains to create an inviting eating space. Brass told the Louisville Business Journal that work on the restaurant started almost a year ago, and he was able to help design and build the dining establisment from scratch. 

Brass Social is just a small part of Next Level Ranges' large footprint. The project was first announced last fall, and its owners have been hard at work turning what used to be an empty field into a world-class destination for gun owners. Interestingly, the range isn't the first gun-related project for the Naïves and their partner Mark Swearingin.

James Naïve is a firearms enthusiast of more than 20 years. He and Swearingin started Midwest Gun Co. in 2020, selling ammunition, accessories and a variety of firearms to area residents. He also owns ISC Kentucky, which provides outsourced IT Services for small businesses in Kentucky since 2001.

Swearingin is a firearms expert and marksman for over 20 years. Along with Midwest Gun Co., he is the COO of ISC Kentucky. Jennifer Naïve is the owner of Naïve Realty and partner at CDJ Development.

Brass said he wants Brass Social, which has 22 employees, to sit in a space between fine dining and a fast food restaurants.

“I really wanted a comfortable seating, not a lot of TVs,” Brass added. “I wanted it to be a conversation space, not a sports bar, just somewhere that you could go on a date, somewhere that you could sit and conversate after shooting.”

According to Pew Research, about 50% of gun owners visit a gun range at least semi-regularly. That's 40 to 50 million people... hardly an outlier or a cultural fringe, despite how the media regularly portrays gun ownership.   

It's possible that the even-handed tone of Jones' coverage comes from the fact that he's reporting for a business journal and not a more general media outlet, but regardless of the reason it's great to see both the gun range and the eatery inside the facility treated as a positive endeavor and going to the range as the normal activity it is.