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In the grand hall of Toronto's Union Station, as commuters stream from one train to another, three young people are standing, quite still, their packs and bags sitting on the floor.

Matthew Kao is a 16-year-old high-school student who likes golf and tennis, and hopes to be a doctor one day. Violetta Szyszkowski, 25, goes to York University. Prakash Nanjappa, 32, is a software engineer born and raised in India. They stand chatting and smiling amid the bustle.

You would never know they're armed.

The three are sport shooters. Their bags carry locked cases with competition pistols inside. They hope to compete for Canada in the 2012 Olympics, but face eviction from their shooting range after Toronto Mayor David Miller proposed closing the city's gun clubs.

To justify the move, Mr. Miller cited the case of John O'Keefe, 42, who was shot dead with a registered gun earlier this year.

"After John O'Keefe's tragic killing, I don't think there is any defence for sports shooters any more," Mr. Miller said this week, effectively linking sport shooting to gun crime.

Patrick Haynes is a sport shooting coach with the Union club, set in the rafters above the station's grand hall. He said sport shooters follow a strict set of rules and thinks Mr. Miller is unfairly targeting them.

"What gives him the right to question my character?" said Mr. Haynes, who works for a bank. Mr. Haynes has a physical disability limiting use of his left arm and took up sport shooting as a child because "there's not a lot of one-handed sports." He coaches shooters including Avianna Chao, who will compete for Canada in the 2008 Olympics

"I teach discipline. I don't teach people to go out and hurt others," Mr. Haynes said. "The people that want to do something positive are the only ones who will be affected by this."

The Union gun club has 140 members. President Thomas Bradbeer said they are a mix of professionals, young and old, from diverse backgrounds - teachers, engineers, doctors, lawyers and students.

Patrick Liao is a Toronto-area obstetrician and gynecologist who says sport shooting calms him and makes him better with a scalpel. "One person making an illegal move does not make all the gun owners illegal," he said.

"Our good mayor has been under the gun, shall we say, about doing something about gun violence," said Mr. Bradbeer, a soft-spoken information technology manager who has been married 33 years and taught his 20-year-old daughter how to shoot. "We are scapegoats."

His club's members need a gun licence, authorization to transport the weapons, 12 weeks of probation training and registration for each gun to be able to shoot.

"Basically, shooting is a fun thing to do," said Calvin Martin, 75, a Toronto lawyer and member of a gun club in Sharon, Ont. "We're not out there to supply drugs ... Cities damn well should condone sport shooting, because it's a legitimate sport like anything else."

Judith Ross, 69, a retired psychology professor at the University of Toronto (which closed its range last year, saying there is no place for firearms on campus), was a founder of an association of female shooters in Canada. At the Sharon Gun Club, where she's now a member, they eat breakfast together on Saturdays before they start shooting.

"The stereotype that many people have of people who shoot is not accurate," Ms. Ross said. "There's nothing embarrassing about it ... I'm proud of how I've done in the sport."

The Union shooting range is run by the CNRA (that's Canadian National Recreation Association, not to be confused with the NRA, the National Rifle Association in the United States). The CNRA is referral-only, Mr. Bradbeer said, and members can only be referred if they have a gun licence, which requires a police background check. He said there haven't been any gun injuries since the club opened in 1927.

"People have been walking through the grand hall with a gun case for 80 years," Mr. Bradbeer said. "Now, it's a clandestine sport."

News of the proposed ban has reached recreational shooters across the country. Michael Ackerman, a sport shooter and family physician in Nova Scotia, said it's an insult to law-abiding gun owners.

"There are no skeletons in my closet. The federal government said there aren't, because I have a gun licence," Dr. Ackerman said.

The closings are being proposed just as Ms. Chao prepares to compete in the 2008 Olympics.

"Closing the range is like closing one event of the Olympics," said Ms. Szyszkowski, a former women's youth champion shooter in her native Poland. A vegetarian, she abhors hunting but finds target shooting calming.

"I just love it. It's comforting. You have to be so focused. It's just you and the pistol."

If the clubs close, they can no longer endorse their members, which the government requires them to do to keep their transport licence. Members would then have to start anew, on extended probation, at another club outside Toronto.

The CNRA is campaigning to stop Mr. Miller's proposal, which will be debated at City Hall next week.

"The idea we support a gun culture that's based on violence because we're here, it's crazy. It's offensive," Mr. Haynes said.

"[Mr. Miller] has gone for these people that are law abiding, and they'll do what he tells them to, because that's what we do. We follow the law."