The story of how public lands become closed to shooting (photos)

[jlbraun]

Pawnee National Grasslands is an area where some individuals go to shoot - I go there myself because I can shoot freely while moving in 360 degrees if you find good backstops.

Of course, you get the morons who shoot car tires, microwaves, etc. and just leave the trash there. This does nothing but antagonize the nature lovers, and provides them with excuses to close down shooting areas. Read this post from Publicola.

When we do this:









Now there's a nice new fence blocking that area off:



With a nice new sign:



Clean up after you shoot on public lands! I mean it!

 

[campbell]

Like you said, really hurts the sport when people trash an area. Lytle Creek in So. Cal used to have that problem when I was shooting there in high school in the early 90's. I've heard the situation has improved though.

 

[Hatchman]

Ouch!

 

[Funderb]

thanks guys. just freakin' thanks.

 

[Albatross]

Not condoning this littering, but I see this as a relatively small area. Some 100 square yards or so?

These pits have been around since forever and it has only been very recently that they have become an issue and a good enough reason to put up signs, fences and end shooting on public land.

Shooting pits littered with shotgun shells and assorted trash are just a convenient excuse. Even if every shooter picked up every single bit they brought with them you'd still have the bans and restrictions.

 

[igpoobah]

Hey, at least you have public land. 98% of Arkansas is private property.

 

[Moriarty]

A pity.

About 15 years back, weather permitting, a buddy and I went shooting nearly every Saturday in a littered up canyon. (The front end of a Camaro, including engine block, was one of the worst eyesores. We used the hood for a target frame until it was so perforated it finally folded in half.)

After the end of the day's shooting we started a little ritual -- five minutes of picking up trash and adding it to a pile.

In a couple of months, the canyon was much better. By the end of the season, someone else (fellow shooters by the look of things) had added their efforts to ours and the canyon was almost clean. Finally someone came in and hauled out the trash pile and the place looked nearly pristine.

I'm not one to lecture, but after we spend a few minutes policing up our brass, we spend a couple more picking up trash, we're not likely to have these problems. Just stacking trash in a pile might be enough to keep an area from being closed as it's apparent that someone gives a damn.

It's like the old rule for deer camps. Leave some cut, stacked cordwood for the next guy and you'll likely find some when you show up next season. This sort of thing was once common in American culture and it's time for it to become common again.

 

[bl4ckd0g]

I usually shoot at the Bookcliffs BLM area when I'm working in Grand Junction and Parachute, CO. There is a dedicated range that is supposed to have a volunteer group to "clean up regularly". The last time I met one of the BLM field agents at the range, he was absolutely pissed that no one would clean up their trash.

The large items, like refrigerators, tires, and car wrecks are easy to haul off to the dump or to the scrap yard. It's the idiots that routinely shoot beer bottles, or anything else made of glass that quickly turn public land into a landfill.

The real trouble here is that most state or federal agencies do not come down hard and fast on those whom don't clean up their targets. I know of two LE agencies who routinely scout and observe the BLM area for questionable behavior- yet no one seems to be penalized.

It would be so simple to set up a rewards program to report people who dump, especially since digital cameras and cell phone cameras are so pervasive.

 

[Noxx]

Lytle Creek in So. Cal used to have that problem when I was shooting there in high school in the early 90's. I've heard the situation has improved though.

Well they don't find bodies there too often anymore, but it's still a dump and a fine example of how an open range shouldn't be.

 

[packnrat]

there are some dirt roads in my "area" i go there to pick up used brass, the locals check me out when up there, just to see if i am shooting something, they are blow away i am picking up stuff.

last year i got over $100 bucks in beer cans....not enougth to pay for all the fuel used but for some of it.


but yes the ****heads who shoot "stuff" should pick up there junk and take it to the dump....but plese leave me the good brass.


clean it up or loose it.


.

 

[wuchak]

We had the same problem with garbage on the hiking trails and at ADK Public lean-tos in the Adirondacks. Any time there is something made available to public a small percentage of the people will abuse it. It's up to the others that enjoy it to do what is necessary to keep it in shape. If the people doing the abusing can be caught and punished great but that's not likely in most of these cases. It means that for the others who are responsible part of their price of use is picking up what others left behind like Moriarty and his friends did.

 

[brighamr]

Similar with Wuchak -

When my brothers and I found our public shooting range littered beyond relief (Benneti Road, NFS) we organized a litter clean up day and took about 3 pickup loads of trash to the dump. (couches, a fridge, you name it)

Was it our fault there was trash? No
Should we have to pay the dump fees and gas to clean up? No
Did our efforts help? YES

I hate it when people dump in the national forest or BLM, but if we don't clean up after the morons, we could lose our shooting grounds...

 

[ninteen11]

messy ranges

we have the same mess on our ranges..from car doors,bullet ressistant glass frm security vans,cans,glass bottles,..hell..even condoms..
sumthing our local goverment did to conserve our beaches and dunes of sand,was to print bumper stickers that said.."only baboons drive on dunes"..we dont have anymore baboons...
maybe a bumper sticker that says sumthing along the same lines for those messy hillbilly's..

 

[BackCountry]

It is truly sad that there is a small percentage of idiots in our sport that give us all a bad reputation. We have the same problem where I live. The local shooting areas in the BLM/Forest service lands get littered with trash an shells. This gives the anti's fuel for their war to take away places to shoot. I got so sick of always hauling out a truck load of trash every time I went shooting and lecturing the idiots making the mess that I finally joined a private range where we keep the facilities clean and in great shape. There is nothing worse than trying to introduce a new shooter to our sport and taking them to a trash heap on public land to start shooting. I get many more people hooked on shooting at our clean range than I ever did at the trashed shooting ranges on public land.

I still stop by those places and scavenge brass for reloading and haul out some trash when I pass by. My kids and I also lecture the drunk yahoos about the mess they are leaving and the bad impression it gives others of our sport. I like to impress on them that soon they will no longer have a place to shoot and that their behavior would not be accepted at our private range so they would not be welcome there either.

 

[coloradokevin]

Now there's a nice new fence blocking that area off

Agree completely.

This is an on-going problem here in CO, and I assume elsewhere. I've lived all over the CO Front Range, and every area is plagued with these problems.

My wife and I consider ourselves to be somewhat environmentalist-like. We recycle, believe in sustainable agriculture, support the protection of wilderness (within reason), etc. We spend a lot of our free time hiking, climbing, backpacking, etc (heck, we even met in a mountaineering club). So, I've always been angered when I see these scenes! After all, these spots were not set aside as 'national shooting ranges/national landfills'. I love to shoot, and do most of my shooting on public lands. As a matter of personal policy, I always leave with more than I brought to the area (my brass and trash, plus an extra bag or two of someone else's). Ultimately, we can all see why these spots end up closed... but, where do I go to shoot now?

When I lived in Pueblo we'd shoot at Rampart Range, along Rampart Range Road... Awesome spot for a shooting range, really the best I've ever seen. But, it was trashed, worse than even in those pictures... One time I went there and found a deer that had been poached right by the backstop. The shooter didn't even harvest the meat; just killed it because it was there, and left it to rot in the sun. Of course, the talk for years down that way was that the range was going to be eventually shut down because of this kind of stuff, and for all I know it may have been since I moved (I haven't lived down there in nearly five years, so I don't really know).

I then lived in Fort Collins, and shot out on the Pawnee Grasslands. A national grassland preserve, and it was treated like a landfill. I saw refrigerators, hot water heaters, tires, batteries, and anything else people thought of shooting at... Those pictures, while valuable to this point, hardly do it justice! I think that might be the same area I used to shoot at too.

Then I moved to Denver. Lefthand Canyon was said to be the most accessible spot to shoot, and it was closed just last week because of irresponsible morons (or so I saw in the paper).


By the way, do any of you know if all of the grasslands up there have been closed to shooting, or just the one spot? The wife and I were thinking of heading up that way in the next couple of weeks... But, there may be no point in it now

sad.

 

[jlbraun]

Just the one spot for now. But more closures are coming.

 

[glockman19]

When shooting out in the open I always bring a Black plastic trash bag/lawn-leaf bag and a rake. I wish others did as well.

I'd be happy to spend $20 on a trash can at a local place...problem is...some stupid person will come along and use it as a target too.

 

[BackCountry]

The DOW did just that, set out trash cans last year and signs saying to put the trash in the containers for removal. Sadly the cans and signs got used as targets.

 

[akodo]

I'd be happy to spend $20 on a trash can at a local place...problem is...some stupid person will come along and use it as a target too.

would you be willing to spend $40 for one?

here's a secret, even a tash can full of holes can still hold trash, that is why those wire mesh ones work fine.

Okay, I am poking a little fun at you.

gravel pits it is pretty easy to pick up your trash, and it should be done, but what is the rule for when you are shooting while standing in knee high grass?

 

[coloradokevin]

Just the one spot for now. But more closures are coming.

Thanks. And, I completely agree, I think more closures are imminent. In fact, the wife and I have been guessing that the Arapahoe and Roosevelt National Forests will follow through with their threat to close the entire forest to public shooting within the next two years or so.

Sadly, the "shooting community" seems to do a poor job of policing itself. Without that, the efforts of those of us who do care seem to have little effect. What is truly discouraging is the fact that the minority of idiots that cause these problems also take the liberty of shooting up the trash cans, signs, etc.

From the forest service's perspective, it must be a bit like insult to injury!

 

[bl4ckd0g]

Might be worth it to drum up a few local NRA fundraisers to start a few more nonforprofit managed ranges. The municipal range in Rawlins, WY is a perfect example of this.

 

[alsaqr]

Slob hunters and slob shooters give all of us a bad name. Every time I go hunting I pick up a bag full of beer cans that some "hunter" threw on the ground.

 

[BSlacker]

Well they don't find bodies there too often anymore, but it's still a dump and a fine example of how an open range shouldn't be.

Lytle Creek is a good example of what can happen to clean up a shooting area. Back in the 70's it was a wild and wooly place with trash everywhere. Unsafe shooting everywhere. In the late 90's it was closed to shooting by the Forest Service things got strict and shooting was not tolerated, guns were taken and fines levied. Because of bad behavior by a few a popular shooting area was closed.
Fast forward to the new Creek.




The Creek is all cleaned up and the future looks good. Clean up can happen anywhere shooters want to make it happen.
Keep it clean.
Slacker

 

[valtr0n]

The stupid thing is, with the cost of metal, they could take something up there, shoot it all they want, then haul it off and get paid for it at a salvage yard.

But I guess that makes too much sense.

 

[308win]

Cleaning up after yourself is only good manners; you would expect it if you were letting others use your property. It only takes one slob - and there are plenty of them around - to ruin it for everyone.