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Public Lands Foundation
Position Statement:
2010-13
Recreational Shooting on BLM Public
Lands
August 17, 2010
Executive Summary
Recreational shooting is a legitimate
component of multiple-use on the
National System of Public Lands administered by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). For a variety of
reasons, this use has not been a featured element in land use plans unless
it was to prohibit recreational shooting. The BLM Land Use Planning
Process should identify potential
shooting ranges or other areas of public land where concentrated
recreational shooting activities are currently occurring and where such
activities might be directed in the future.
Recreational shooting on public lands should be restricted or prohibited
by land management decisions only in public land areas where dangers to
public safety exist or where restrictions or prohibitions on recreational
shooting are needed to prevent damage to valuable resources.
Background
Ownership of firearms
is commonplace in the United States with an estimated one in three
households owning one or more firearms. Sales of firearms and hunting
equipment in 2006 exceeded that spent on golf and are second only to sale
of exercise equipment. [National Sporting Goods Association data reported
in Bullet Points; March 10, 2008]
The majority of
shooters, 95%, is unorganized and merely wants some place to
go to shoot. Unlike many other recreational groups, the OHVers (Off
Highway Vehicle) for example, recreational shooters are not well organized
and have not been diligent in expressing their needs and concerns at
public land use planning meetings. Event and competition shooters make up
the other 5% of shooters. For the most part, they need and use developed
sites or shooting ranges. While the latter category of shooters is
organized they are most likely to engage an agency planning process only
if their shooting site or facility is threatened.
Since the settlement
of the West, recreational shooting has been common on private and public
lands. Most recreational shooting has been scattered in occurrence, low
in impact and largely unnoticed. As the West became more urbanized and
land developed, areas for dispersed shooting declined. Recreational
shooters were forced to move more to public lands. Where more
concentrated shooting took place, conflicts with other land users became
more common.
Uncaring,
ill-mannered shooters have given a bad name to recreational shooting in
many areas. Sometimes household items such as old cars, refrigerators,
TV’s and trash are illegally dumped on public lands. If these items
subsequently become targets by recreational shooters, they may be wrongly
blamed for the illegal dumping.
Other than some 50 to
60 Recreation and Public Purpose Act leases and sales for shooting ranges
issued or authorized by BLM to date, recreational shooting has been
largely ignored in the past in BLM land use planning. Conflicts involving
recreational shooting were most often viewed as a nuisance with shooting
ranges being closed or shooting prohibited in areas where it was
concentrated.
The protocols and
operational safety of recreational shooting are, for the most part,
self-regulated by users. These generally include at least two types of
guidance: 1.) shooting safety law and or regulation of a state wildlife
or natural resources agency; and, 2.) shooting safety ordinance of local
government jurisdiction. In addition, for specific areas of public land,
recreational shooting may be governed by additional published BLM
regulation.
Recreational
shooting, like mountain climbing, rock hounding, wildflower viewing, and
hiking, is one of many commonly recognized uses which are legitimate
recreation use components among the whole array of multiple-uses of BLM
public lands. For a variety of reasons, many such recreational uses have
not been featured elements in land use plans.
However, the volume of recreational
shooting and its legitimacy as a component of public land recreation has
been given more recognition recently.
In early 2007 the
Public Lands Foundation (PLF) and 39 other organizations entered into a
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and U.S. Forest Service (FS).
This MOU, The Federal Lands Hunting, Fishing, and Shooting Sports
Roundtable MOU, has as it purpose, “…to develop and expand a framework
of cooperation among the Parties at the national, regional, and local
levels for planning and implementing mutually beneficial projects and
activities related to hunting, fishing, and shooting sports conducted on
federal lands. These activities and projects will complement the
respective missions of the Parties and serve the mutual interests of the
Parties and the public.”
From the above MOU, a
subset Roundtable (Hunting and Shooting Sports Roundtable – HSSR) was
established to work on shooting and
hunting and
shooting access issues. PLF is a member of
this Roundtable.
Discussion
Proposed closures of
public lands to shooting in early 2007 by BLM were controversial and rose
to the BLM directorate level. These include an area near Pahrump, Nevada, and the Ironwood Forest
National Monument near Tucson, Arizona. Currently, the Aqua Fria National
Monument near Phoenix, Arizona, is proposed to be closed to shooting.
While not largely controversial, this proposed closure is seen by many as
a trend in closing public lands to shooting based upon status versus need.
This belief tends to be confirmed by the more recent proposal to close the
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado. However, none of
the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument is proposed for
closure. The FS has closed significant areas of the Tonto National Forest in Arizona, and has
closed or put on notice for closure several shooting ranges that had been
operated under special use permits. Neither agency has developed any
designated shooting sites, nor developed any new shooting ranges, despite
overwhelming evidence that recreational shooting is in
high demand on
public lands.
Federal land
management plans, for the most part, have not historically
addressed recreational shooting
in ways similar to other recreational activities. There may be a variety
of reasons for this. They
include:
-
little or no proactive
participation in planning processes by affected individuals and
organizations;
-
limited understanding of
recreational shooting
activities by agency staff and/or managers;
-
reluctance on the part of
agencies to deal with the complexities of environmental and liability
issues associated with recreational shooting;
-
insufficient
resources to build and manage recreational shooting sites and ranges; and,
other reasons.
The land
use planning
process is the principal tool that land management agencies use to address
resource use and allocation. In that regard, the PLF believes it
important to state its position with respect to recreational shooting and
land use planning and land use allocations and restrictions.
PLF Position
1. Recreational
shooting should be considered an appropriate and accepted use of the National System of Public Lands
and be given equal consideration with other legitimate land use activities
or projects that are evaluated within the context of land use planning.
2. The BLM Land Use
Planning Process should identify
potential shooting ranges or other areas of public land where concentrated
recreational shooting activities are currently occurring and where such
activities might be directed in the future.
3. Recreational
shooting on public lands should be restricted or prohibited by land
management decisions only in public land areas where dangers to public
safety exist or where restrictions or prohibitions on recreational
shooting are needed to prevent damage to valuable resources. There may
need to be more restrictions on recreational shooting in wildland/urban
interface areas than in the more remote areas of public lands.
4. The
BLM's planning for restrictions or closures to recreational shooting
should consider options for mitigating the loss of areas that have been
available for recreational shooting.
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Updated from PLF No. 32-08, April 21, 2008 |