Our friend Michael Bane (and if you are a Shooter, he’s your friend too) made a great post that everyone should read. I’ll not quote from in, instead link to it so you can read it whole, there.
I have some observations to add. Out here in the Deserts of Utah, I’ve seen people dump illegally in public lands… even where the Municiple Dump was only a few hundred yards away. Shooters get blamed for dumping a lot. I’ve never seen a Shooter back up a truck and push a Washing Machine and a broken Lazy Boy out of the back. I’ve watched guys kick out bags of garbage in areas where people shoot, and then drive off in a cloud of dust. There are shooters who leave can and stuff, yes. But far more are those that just dump trash for whatever their reasons. I’ve also seen far more often Shooters back up their trucks and pick up the trash to clean the area up. I’d hazard a guess that Shooters pick up more trash than they drop off.
The USFS wants to stop shooting, and they are using some’s bad habbits against us. Don’t give the enemy ammo. Pick up your trash. If you shoot it, pick it up.
The Rampart Range shooting range, mentioned in Bane’s article or somewhere in all the chain of articles, is a case in point–it was a trash heap, with people shooting old washers, tvs, monitors and junk. Some more conscientious shooters would occasionally do clean ups, but it would soon be back as bad as before. Most people just didn’t give a ****. The fatal shooting there wasn’t because of any failing OF the range, it was because of yahooism, people not schooled in proper gun handling and safe shooting. It just gave the NFS the ammo they needed to close the range, which was their goal in the first place. And now that it’s been closed, people are shooting all over the forests, and not following the rules–shooting trees, trashing the areas, etc. It can get scary with all the idiots with guns. This is why I don’t shoot up there. The yahoos hate to be under the thumbs of range officers, who would kick them off the ranges for their idiot behavior.
This was handled intelligently in the Tillamook State forest in Oregon.
Wood and paper targets only … if it can’t be burned on the cleanup day that month, it is littering, and the person doing it is guilty of criminal trespass ( trespass with a weapon ), a felony.
There is also a reward offered to turn in any asshole just dumping trash.
If pittman-roos money is set aside for such efforts, I suspect we will see more shooting areas like this in National Forests and BLM lands.
When I go shoot and then take the dogs for a run, I’ve always carried plastic grocery bags in my pocket, and always come back with a bag or two full. Sometimes a pick-up bed full because of some of the morons out there.
Agreed to the above points about dumping. But disagree to the poster who feels that one can only shoot under the eye of a range officer. Having a SOA wannabee kind of takes the fun out of it for me. Plinking is a time-honored tradition, one where you can still follow the golden rules…
If I have to shoot with people who have no common sense and obviously don’t know gun safety, I’ll take a range officer, tyvm.