I am not suggesting taking away 2nd amendment rights. This post has nothing to do with that.
Currently, in the U.S. anyone can go out onto National Forest or BLM land and target practice. Those lands are also used by campers, hikers, OHV riders, etc.
The target practice areas are everywhere. At nearly every single pullout in a forest you can find shell casings, trash that was used to shoot at, and even easy to spot shotgun shell hulls. Occasionally, I found live rounds as well.
If you are camping it’s almost impossible to find a spot where you don’t hear constant gunfire. So, noise pollution is everywhere.
If you browse some of the websites/apps dedicated to finding free camping spots you will sometimes see reviews where people say that the target practice folk were not careful with which direction they were shooting and that bullets were coming close to the trails or camping locations. You can imagine this to be true when you see how nearly every pullout has signs of previous shooting.
I have been in numerous National Forests: including: Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, South Dakota, Colorado, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington…you get the picture. I have been to a lot of forests and BLM land and every one of them sounds like militias are there preparing for the next war. And every one has target practice trash.
In my opinion, Oregon is the worst state for gunfire noise pollution and target practice trash and shell casings everywhere. I never found a single camping space in Oregon where I could not hear people shooting in the background.
So, all I am suggesting is that you take some acres in a corner somewhere in every forest and make a gun range. This would keep the noise and trash in one place and would also allow the forest rangers and BLM to police the areas and enforce rules and safety.
Yeah, target shooting areas should be designated and maintained. Makes it easier for everyone. Brass hunters can find brass easier, lead pollution is more contained, safety, etc.
So, all I am suggesting is that you take some acres in a corner somewhere in every forest and make a gun range. This would keep the noise and trash in one place and would also allow the forest rangers and BLM to police the areas and enforce rules and safety.
That definitely helps. The wildlife refuge nearest me is set up like that. As soon as you enter there is a nice, free, maintained shooting range right there. It does help corral the randos that just come out to make noise.
I was up in Montana near Kalispell in August 2008 and definitely experienced people target practicing and the rounds were uncomfortably close to where I had previously pitched my tent. That was scary.
I think that having the opportunity for live fire + hikers/campers in the same space is a recipe for disaster. No one ever walks across a gun range.
At least BLM could make zones that are designated live-fire areas so campers know to keep out, and hopefully rangers don’t have to do much enforcement.
I’m a shooter and I agree with you. If drones are banned from all national forests because they might disturb people how are shooting ranges allowed?
I guess the problem with being a shooter is of many areas more and more of the nearby open spaces are being taken up by development.
BLM?
Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management.
Bitches love mosquitoes
Bosky Land Matters.
I’ve almost been shot while hiking on a trail by irresponsible assholes out target shooting. Bullets were flying over head and hitting trees nearby. I’m sure some are responsible but it’s true that a lot of people are going out to the woods to get wasted and shoot guns and they aren’t always careful about what’s downrange, and they definitely aren’t cleaning up after themselves.
Behind this 100%, target practice with firearms should be done on private property only. Went on a hike yesterday in a state park and it was completely ruined by the gun idiots mag-dumping over and over and over. The sound carries for miles.
I’m sure they’re great in bed, considering as soon as they pull the thing out they’re ready to just blow their entire wad all over the place.
As someone who owns and shoots firearms, but has never done any shooting on public land, I think you’re correct that this would be better. I also think that BLM rangers want to part in enforcing rules and safety on a shooting range, nor would there be a budget for it. There’s too much personal liability to the rangers if they have to be range masters.
Allowing target practice and setting up an organized range are two completely different safety protocols. Currently, all of the assumed (legal) risk is held by the shooters. Building an organized range at least partially inverts the safety liability to the rangers. They have to manage things like timers, breach flags, etc.
The BLM oversees more than 247.3 million acres (1,001,000 km2) of land, or one-eighth of the United States’s total landmass. (wikipedia) I just don’t see them having the workforce to handle mass organization of shooting ranges.
Then we should enable BLM to do these things we the people would like our governments to do with our tax money
I’m all for increasing BLM funding. I also believe that there is far more important enforcement work that would take priority. I’m sure they could double the funding and still struggle to effectively enforce their mineral leasing agreements.
That’s good news, that means we should quadruple their funding. As long as we have impossible goals, let’s really go for it. I think the right person could convince the voters these are good ideas, if we could find someone proletariat enough to endorse them and run on that platform. Bourgeoisie politicians can’t support it because their donors make bank off a crippled government.
Preach. For one thing, it’s something that shouldn’t need regulating, but unfortunately not every gun owner has any sense at all. That’s what regulations are for, to keep the idiots from fucking over the rest of us.
For another, the impact of shooting isn’t limited to casings and trash. Even the noise isn’t as big a problem as the other effects. Lead, the powder residues, the damage to trees and other plant life. If the activity of target shooting, which is going to cause the most problems environmentally, isn’t limited in location, you can’t really clean up effectively. Even shooting into a natural soil backdrop isn’t without problems for the soil and surrounding life.
And the project could partially fund itself no more broken glass and other trash, you use a recyclable paper target or gtfo. Sell those targets. Charge a small cleanup fee for use as well. Keep it cheap enough that anyone who can afford ammo can afford to use the site, then make the fines for target shooting elsewhere on public lands as big as you can realistically hope to collect.
Mind you, it would need that kind of system, because the rangers sure as hell don’t have the manpower or resources to do it with what’s already there. You couldn’t just put up a sign either, it would have to be supervised to some degree. So you’d need to secure initial funding to set things up, add personnel, and make people aware. Wouldn’t be cheap, and I doubt it would ever break even, but it could be done without being a massive money sink, I think.
Don’t they teach to show the abbreviations on first use?
I’m not sure if you are just super unlucky and happened to be in the wrong places at the wrong time or if you’re exaggerating your experience, but my wife and I are avid campers and we’ve never had that experience at any of the National Forests or BLM areas we’ve stayed at. Are you mindful about hunting seasons when you are in these places? Obviously if you go during a hunting season, you’re going to hear gunshots. But outside of hunting seasons, I’ve rarely (if ever) heard single gunshots in these areas, let alone something that “sounds like a militia”.
In my experience (living in a very rural area), when people just want to target shoot, the vast majority of them do so either at a gun range or on private land. I’ve never encountered someone doing that on public lands of any kind. Is it possible that what you’re hearing could be on neighboring land where there might be a range or something?
I’m not saying no one has ever done this, but as someone who frequents these places, it’s certainly not an epidemic like you described. Again, maybe you are just really unlucky and just happened to be there on the days when the few weirdos who do that were there.
In Oregon this is all too common. As an avid hiker/camper I come across this every weekend. Since covid it has gotten significantly worse here. I have now been shot at 12 times in the NF and BLM land. Idiots here will shoot across and down forest service roads. They bring cars and appliances to shoot, and don’t clean up the mess.
Grew up shooting in the woods here, this is a fairly new behavior in the last decade. There always were some troublemakers, now people are shooting wherever they feel like with no thought of safety. In the last few years is the first time I have ever seen people hunting from their trucks. Have run into over 20 trucks illegally hunting from the roads in the last 2 years.
Guns require safety and respect, this new generation doesn’t seem to have much of either.
Designated areas should be available and monitored for people to target practice.
Yeah, Oregon is on another level when it comes to people wanting to shoot in every location.
I was down near Coos Bay and pulled off on a spot that was on the East side of the road (so not ocean side) and there was a sign posted by a local homeowner begging people to not shoot there because people were shooting towards the East and bullets were flying by their house. If you saw the spot you’d never imagine anyone would want to shoot there because the 101 highway is right there and then on the East side it was flat with houses in the distance. Oregon is on another level for sure.
I have shared OP’s experience in some places.
Same here. I have been woken by gunfire many times while camping on blm land. It is unpleasant crawlng out of the tent wondering “am I downrange?”
No, I did not exaggerate. In fact, I was camping last night and at 8:30PM when it was dark some morons were shooting at a boat ramp parking lot. Did you see my list of states where I have camped? Shooting is everywhere.
- No it was not just hunting season - I have camped every single month of the year
- No, it is not just neighboring land - I have been in some remote places and also you can see the shooting spots in the forest due to the trash left behind
- It’s not being in the wrong place at the wrong time - I have been across the country and camped every month of the year - it’s everywhere
Your experiences may be different than mine but that does not mean I did not experience what I did or that I have exaggerated.
No one’s saying you didn’t experience what you say…just that it does not seem to be an experience shared by many others.
You are saying that. Basically, “I haven’t experienced that, so it doesn’t exist”. AKA argument from ignorance.
No one’s saying you didn’t experience what you say
When you accuse someone of exaggerating that is precisely what you are claiming.
There was no accusation, but I apologize if it came across that way.
apology accepted
I find myself in WMNF often and haven’t heard what op is describing there.
I spent two weeks in Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont last August right near the Appalachian Trail and there was gunfire everyday.
No one has to believe me. You can drive out to the areas and see the trash and items they shoot at. You can go to Google or Bing images and type in “target practice trash” and see the pictures.
I’ve only been to the ones in Minnesota and Kentucky and have never in about fifty years heard a single gun shot in a national forest. I can’t say he’s lying as I have not been camping with him, but I’ve also not heard of anyone else complain about it.
Seems the actual unpopular opinion is in the comments.
