do you pick up after yourself?

[orienteeer]

i shoot on my club's private range. on average, i pick up 2 pieces of paper, maybe 1 coffee cup or soda can w/.22 holes in it.

i go to my son's neighborhood, where there is sort of an unofficial range in a clearing in the woods off the road, & i can pick up destroyed appliances, wood pallettes, toilets(!), beer kegs, dozens of cans, 5 gallon buckets, & still have too much to fit in my car!

this is why so many communities hate guns in general & shooters in particular!

please, people! take home more than you bring to the range. police your ranges, private or public, & let the folks out there see we are responsible adults & not irresponsible yahoos!

thanks for listening to my rant.

 

[hso]

People that trash a range up drag us all down.

 

[Caliper_Mi]

Seems most folks at my club are pretty good about keeping things clean. We are supposed to pull our targets down off the backers when leaving though and a lot of guys will leave them up.

Most of the clean up I do after other people is the brass they kindly leave for me!

 

[beatledog7]

I always leave a shoot with everything I brought except powder, bullets, and the few brass casings I can't find. It's beyond me why anyone would would haul garbage to a shooting spot (range, farm, desert, or anywhere), shoot it up, and leave it. Very bad form.

 

[Redlg155]

I used to be able to shoot at a clay pit about 2 minutes from my house. This worked great for testing weapons after repair or cleaning. Unfortunately people decided that it was a great place to dump refrigrators and even a boat. Eventually the landowners posted "no trespass" signs. Now its a 3rd degree felony to get caught shooting there.

 

[mljdeckard]

I started a thread about this. (Something like; If you are a litterer....stop.)

I am a recovered litterer. I used to go out with my dad and shoot stuff. I had the mentality, "We're out in the middle of the desert, WHO THE HECK CARES?!"

What I came to realize, is that those who would ban our activities don't make any such distinctions. There is no such thing as harmless litter. In addition to which, the BLM has actually gone as far as to track down owners of CRTs that were found in the desert and fine them for the cleanup costs.

 

[langenc]

We had (note tense) a 'pit range' near here. The Lions and Boy Scouts cleaned it up several times.

I drove by last week and it is clean, graded and all access roads loaded with large rocks. No more range.

Too many shooters are slobs!!

 

[Rail Driver]

The problem is that these public "neighborhood" or commonly known "shooting spots" don't just cater to conscientious shooters like most of us here on THR try our best to be - they cater to the uninformed and the uncaring shooters as well. They also appeal to the felonious gunners as well - at least those of them that are smart enough to not utilize monitored ranges such as regulated or indoor shooting ranges.

We're all aware that IN GENERAL - a law abiding shooter is going to have a bit more care for their environment and have the respect to make an effort to leave things as they found them - Someone without the respect to follow the laws is much less likely to have any respect for anything else including picking up the junk they just shot up or cleaning up their spent shells.

 

[esheato]

I always leave a shoot with everything I brought except powder, bullets, and the few brass casings I can't find

Same here.

I just moved to Socal a few weeks ago and shooting spots are hard to come by. Luckily there is one down the road about 20 minutes....and it's thoroughly trashed.

In fact, I talked to a LGS employee and he was the one who told me about it, "Yeah, if you see all the pallets around, that's me". :banghead:

Wonderful.

 

[doubleh]

I shoot at a private range but there is always trash to pick up. I never leave anything I brought and always clean up some of what other people didn't bother to take home. Old TVs, boxes, wire spools, and shot to a frazzle plastic bottles and coke cans. That's not all but it gives you an idea.

It has been a little better this year after a big clean-up in the winter. Now that warm weather is here there will be more traffic and more trash. I consider it just getting some exercise.

 

[ball3006]

My club requires you to police up after your shoot. If you don't want to or don't, you will be asked to go somewhere else to shoot.....good policy......chris3

 

[wally]

I pick up the occasional litter and left behind target at our club, but this in not that much of a problem. What irks me is the rules say you are supposed to repaint the plate rack when done and this rarely happens

 

[DeadFlies]

I sometimes go to a public range that is run by some kind of local sportsmans's club. It's free and unmonitored though it's closed on Tuesdays for the cops to use. It's a nice place; benches, designated parking spots, archery range...but no trash cans.

What I DID see are multiple piles of burned trash. Everything. Shotgun hulls, soda cans, blocks of wood, broken clay pigeons, paper targets, foam, plastic ...just everything. I actually saw this take place on morning. Aguy rolls up with a pickup truck, spends a few minutes gathering some trash laying around, throws it on an old burn pile, adds some lighter fluid and proceeds to "take out the trash".

This is no excuse for not picking up after one's self (indeed, if we would all clean up there would be no trash to burn) but still...really?

 

[dragon813gt]

The private ranges I go to are about 98% clean. People tend to leave their targets up which isn't allowed. But having to pull down paper targets is a lot better than picking up trash. The public range by has gotten a lot better since PA requires you to have a hunting license or dedicated range pass. It keeps a lot of trash(multiple meanings) away from the range so they stay cleaner.

I don't understand how people can leave trash "anywhere." Clean up after yourself. The one range I belong to might be changing their brass policy. As in you can only leave brass lie. Reloaders like me will gladly pick it up. If it's steel or aluminum you will have to pick it up as it's trash that no one wants. There has been an abundance of steel cases lately that are just piled up at the stands. They haven't been sweeping them back like they're supposed to. I hope they change the
policy because it really is trash they are letting lie on the ground.


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[Walkalong]

Yes I do, and sometimes others trash as well. Slobs make us all look bad. How the non shooting public sees us is important.

 

[BADUNAME37]

As others stated, yes I do, and even other people's trash they don't clean up and it ends up blowing all over the place. Last year, one day I got a whole truck load of all manner of wood, sticks, old weathered targets, a lot of corrugated cardboard and who knows how many aluminum and steel casings and shotshell hulls that I don't even reload!

I went with the idea of shooting and, instead, spent over an hour cleaning up all kinds of junk. Fortunately, I have a good place at home where I keep a pile of such things to burn every so often, so at least the junk got a good home for a month or so.

 

[Gtimothy]

After a shoot at the range I belong to, I police my brass, remove my target from the frame and lay the frame on the ground. On my way back to the firing line, I'll pick up some of the shot gun wads that litter out to about 10 yards and toss em into the trash. I don't see many others doing it but I try and do more than what needs done just to keep the place clean

I'll also grab some of the veggies off the trailer (free for the taking) before I head home!

 

[Furncliff]

The little slice of BLM land near my place sees a lot of Hunting pressure in the fall. Generally I don't see anyone there when I go to target shoot (about once a week). I've got the road into the area cleaned up and most of the camp sites as well. But I'm always finding new areas of trash. I haven't been able to get the giant couch into my pick-up yet, I'll need some help with that.

 

[Bmont2409]

I spend winters in Arizona and frequently go shooting in the desert. We would go to a place near Florence,Az. and always picked up our stuff after shooting, but it amazed me the trash that people left behind. Washing machines, tv's tons of broken glass and propane tanks. It is BLM land and they have been shutting down a lot of the so called shooting areas because of people leaving tons of trash in these areas. At the Florence area there are a couple of locals that shoot there a lot that clean up after these slobs and burn or haul stuff away. The folks that use these places and leave crap like that will get all the places that people go to shoot shut down if something isn't done. We also went to a place near 4 Peaks recreational area and there was so much trash from shooters that the area needed a small bulldozer to clean it up.

 

[RBid]

I hope that this thread changes at least one person's behavior for the better.

Thank you, OP.

 

[parsimonious_instead]

Most people at my range are good about cleaning up after themselves, which is pretty outstanding considering that the range officer isn't on the actual firing line for more than about 15 mins a day.
Part of the Defensive Handgun class I took with Cope Reynolds out in Pinetop, AZ consisted of cleaning up the stretch of piney woods we used as our range. We carefully scooped up our brass, and grabbed and bagged a lot of the trash other people left.
A lady friend I made out in the Winslow area took me shooting to a desert area near her house... the place was horribly trashed by sloppy shooters. We certainly cleaned up our own stuff, but lost too much daylight to touch anything else.
The worst bit of littering I saw was at a local park in my area - I witnessed someone pulling out of their parking spot, and simply throwing trash out their window, rather than depositing it into a trash receptacle that was in easy arm's reach as they were leaving!

 

[ljnowell]

I was at my range today (private club) and when we got there we found a few old targets on the berm along with four or five plastic bottles shot up by 22s. When we left there was nothing on the ground. It seems I am always picking up after another. Unfortunately, in this hobby, we have to lead by example. "Its not mine" simply isnt good enough, in my opinion.

 

[dagger dog]

The old backpackers rule of carry it in, carry it out, applies to ALL SHOOTERS, but everyone should go the "extra mile" and pick up at least one other piece of trash that others have left behind.

 

[deputy tom]

The range is always cleaner after I leave than before I arrive.tom.

 

[Coyote3855]

And after others.