I've read through the rule book a few times and I'm kind of confused about how the ranges for weapons work. For example, on page 33 it says that a Holdout Blaster is a short range weapon, a Blaster Pistol is a medium range weapon and a Blaster Rifle is a long rage weapon. Does this mean that this is the only range that these weapons can fire in? Is it impossible to fire a Holdout Blaster at long range or a Blaster Rifle at short range?

The way I'm reading the rules is that firing a Blaster Rifle, which can only be fired at long range, will always be "Hard" difficulty. A Holdout Blaster, which can only be fired at short rage, will always be "Easy" difficulty. This seems too simple and doesn't really make sense to me. What am I missing?

Alchemist said:

You're missing the fact that those are the MAXIMUM ranges of the given weapon. They can shoot at any range up to the one listed. So, holdout can be fired in short. Pistol in short or medium. Rifle in short, medium and long.

You can fire at any range up to and including the weapon's listed range.

I think at some point Fantasy Flight might have toyed with the idea of allowing firing at targets beyond the listed weapon range but it looks like the idea was scrapped along the way.

Here is an extract from the Final Week Beta Update that supports this reasoning :

there are some talents that allow fire past maximum listed range.