It was a beautiful Christmas morning in 1955. Under the tree was the narrow and long boxed Christmas present that every red blooded American kid looks for…my own Daisy Red Rider BB Gun! Fortunately for me, my Dad had his own ideas on how that new “firearm” was to be used, as I quickly found out it in no uncertain terms that it was not another “toy” for my amusement. After Christmas dinner, Dad took the new BB gun, some old Christmas tree light bulbs, a brand new box of BBs, and me for a walk. We placed the light bulbs on a cut bank in a desert wash, which was on nearby federal land, and so began my lesson in firearms responsibility, safety, safe backstops and respect for the land. Before we left our newly utilized personal shooting area, Dad had me pick up every little bit of glass and we carried it out for the trash can at home with the remark that “if you brought, take it out, it isn’t your garbage dump.” My love of the shooting sports and respect for my father as a true conservationist began on that day.

Since that time, I have fired countless amounts of ammo on government lands (city, state and federal) enjoying recreational shooting. There have been personal trips as well as outings with family and friends, and later, (repeating my first shooting experience) with Dad and his grand kids.

Recreational shooting is an interesting and entertaining sport. Very few of us have the luxury to be able to use our firearms on our own property as we just can’t go out onto the street and throw a few rounds back and forth with our buddies! Shooting ranges and shooting areas always belong to someone else, so respect for and use of other’s property is as much a component of recreational shooting as responsible firearms use.


As a recreational shooter, a competitive shooter, a game warden, a public range manager, a statewide shooting program manager, and an NRA Range Technical Team Advisor (RTTA) specializing in public land shooting issues, I have seen a dynamic shift in recreational shooting on public lands in the Western United States, and not for the better.

From the settlement of the West until recently, a person living in the western US could pretty well shoot anywhere one wanted as long as it was safe. There was not much need for developed ranges, except maybe near big cities. But within the last 20 years, things have begun to change all over the West.

From the Canadian Border to the Mexican Border, the same pattern is emerging detrimental to the future of recreational shooting. More and more governmental lands are being closed, and fewer and fewer outdoor ranges are being built. It is harder and harder to find a place to shoot anymore, especially for us folks who live in a city. I’d like to discuss what is happening and what we can do about it. Because a majority of my experiences with recreational shooting on public lands has occurred in the west, my observations and recommendations apply primarily to the Western United States.

We must understand that outdoor shooting on public lands is a traditional western activity. My experiences are typical of a common multigenerational history. This traditional activity has taken place on vast areas of western land, both private and government owned. As recreational shooting is widely dispersed and is an individual or small group activity, it has largely gone unnoticed both by the public and land management agencies.

During WWII, the population of the United States was approximately 150 million; today it is over 300 million. This population expansion combined with a massive emigration to the West after WWII has accelerated the development of private land and the sales of some “surplus” governmental land, especially lands under the management of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Western private land has experienced a historic housing boom. Dense residential real estate development returns more money on investment than other diverse or less dense uses of land. The west now has more people who have adopted the western lifestyle, which includes recreational shooting. So at the same time some governmental lands are being sold to the private sector, the private sector is building houses, more new residents want to shoot. Consequently there is less land and more demand.

Included within this western population are some who do not understand or appreciate the value and sanctity of other’s personal property. For whatever reason, best left to sociologists and psychologists, they are not good stewards of the land. They destroy the land both with their vehicles and with their trash. “Pack it in, pack it out” is not their motto. Unfortunately, some also recreational shoot. The evidence of their activity litters every accessible canyon and wash near all urban areas. Sometimes someone else’s trash becomes their targets, but they still do not pick it up when they are done “enjoying” the outdoors. Vandalism is not discussed in this paper because it is a criminal law enforcement issue, not a recreational shooting issue. Its causes and solutions do not apply to recreational shooting.

In a nutshell, outdoor recreational shooting is a traditional western activity; more people are moving to the west; private land is developing into houses; governmental land is shrinking; more people are shooting; shooting in outdoor areas is being concentrated; less people have outdoor ethos, and recreational shooting is no longer dispersed and unnoticed.

Governmental agencies are frequently closing their lands to recreational shooting because they cannot manage the perceived environmental damage “created” by recreational shooting. They also do not have the funds or the motivation to provide for recreational shooting. “Why is that” one may ask, since they are responsible for “multi use management?”

The answer is simple. In the late ’70s, the federal government was legislated to complete land management planning programs. Even though “multiple use” was a required planning function, recreational shooting was not part of the planning process. The simple explanation is that at the time recreational shooting was of low volume, dispersed and “under the radar.” One of the truths about the government is if it “ain’t in the plan, it ain’t funded.” Since recreational shooting wasn’t planned because it was unnoticed, there isn’t any money in the budget for recreational shooting. So in the mind of a government land manager, if an activity is causing you a problem and you don’t have the budget to manage it, eliminate it by closing the area.

In the last 20 years, hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands have been closed to recreational shooting throughout the West, and the proposals to close additional acres are escalating. Public hearings are being held all over the west to discuss what to do with recreational shooting, and the only current tool is “close the area.” Consequently, recreational shooting is way behind the planning and budgeting curve.

Building and operating shooting ranges is an expensive endeavor. If you were a private investor wanting to have a “high return on your investment,” you would not consider operating a shooting range. You’d make more money building and selling houses. Most outdoor recreational shooters are unorganized “plinkers” and do not participate in formal organized shooting competitions. They are very happy having an old “gravel pit” to shoot in.

A misunderstanding by land managers is the nature and type of recreational shooting. There is no standard definition of recreation shooting areas, and no analysis of the amount of recreational shooting being produced on public lands. This leads to confusion when issues are being discussed and solutions proposed.

It also contributes to poor identification of establishing priorities between competing land users. Because there is no standard for discussion, and no standard for determining recreational shooting use, there is no common ground for inventory, planning discussions or solution development. To help solve this issue, the following definitions are proposed for use in discussing recreational shooting areas for use in land management planning.

• Dispersed recreational shooting is random shooting on public lands. This may occur when one stops to sight in a hunting rifle, throw a few clay birds with the kids, shoot at cans from an off road campsite, etc.
  
  
• Undesignated Shooting Areas are those areas, which attract recreational shooters through tradition, backstops, accessibility to roadways, etc. The familiar “gravel pit” is a good example. These areas produce a large amount of recreational shooting but are unregulated and undeveloped. Many of the “reasons” for public land closures are due to these popular sites.
  
  
• Designated Shooting Areas are areas where the land management agency has made some improvements to the area and post and/or advertise them as a site for recreational shooting; they are unsupervised, and may have some minimal management such as trash pick up. Many governmental agencies mistakenly designate these “shooting ranges.”
  
  
• Designated Shooting Ranges are developed and supervised areas designed and operated for recreational shooting. For the rest of this paper, shooting range means this definition.

Due to their size, remoteness and availability, citizens planning recreational shooting areas turn to land management agencies for shooting range sites. There are several ways government can provide land for shooting ranges: they can lease the land to a club or organization; they can sell the land to another governmental agency to operate a shooting range, or they can operate a shooting range themselves.

There are many shooting ranges throughout the West that are leased to clubs and organizations. Frequently these are non-profit clubs. Unfortunately, years ago, when the leases were obtained, urbanization was not a problem, so the governmental agency leased the land on their borders. Over time, the march of houses has forced many of these ranges to close, as they did not have enough buffers to protect them from encroachment. Complicating matters, the environmental “red herring” of “fear of lead” has caused agency attorneys to recommend to their governmental agencies that they no longer lease land for ranges, as they are afraid of “liability” issues. The bottom line is that a significant number of governmental leased ranges are closed or are threatened with closure, and no new leases are being offered.

Federal land management agencies may sell their land to other governmental agencies to operate shooting ranges. This has occurred in a few places, but the process is long and drawn out and, if successful, may take 5 to 10 years to accomplish the transfer. In the two land sales that I have been directly involved in, neither has been successful.

Congress can transfer the land to another agency to develop and operate. This is extremely rare, but Congress did transfer 2,900 acres of BLM land to Clark County, NV, after the citizens had worked with BLM for over 25 years to try to develop a public shooting range near Las Vegas without success.

The land management agency can develop, manage and operate its own shooting range. This is also rare. Several game and fish agencies and parks departments (state and county) do, however, own and operate their own ranges throughout the Western states.

When a range is being considered, the competitive (event) shooters are the most organized and motivated and generally support the range development plan for their specific sport. Consequently, they drive the discussion as to what features should be included in the shooting range. The non-event participants comprise a majority of the shooters, but they tend not to participate in the development process and are not organized. So an organization or club that plans on developing a shooting range must consider both groups even though one may not be represented. This is especially critical as the unrepresented group produces most of the shooting use days. Ranges need to be designed to provide as much positive cash flow as possible. The inclusion of the ability to provide campsites, retail services, or other revenue generation sources, adds to the profitability and helps keep shooting fees lower.

There are three ways to make a shooting area safe: by physical features; by supervision, or a combination of both. A supervised shooting range (designated shooting range) is the safest place to shoot. However, unsupervised “designated shooting areas” should be developed and offered on public lands. It has been my experience that most recreational shooting not on shooting ranges is by family groups. We should develop a family-sized shooting bay template. This could be used to determine the suitability of a Designated Shooting Area for development that will provide lateral berms and backstops that will allow for safe unsupervised family type shooting experiences.

So what does the future look like? Under present trends, there will be a significant decline in recreational shooting as shooting areas are eliminated and the frustration level grows to where there is no place to shoot, and therefore no reason to own firearms.

Obviously this is unacceptable, but what is being done about it?

The National Shooting Sports Roundtable has been formed to address this issue. It is comprised of representatives of federal, state, county governments, and non-governmental organizations. They have been discussing many issues and solutions. They do not have rule or policymaking authority, but they do make recommendations to their agencies and organizations.

Based on my experiences in this area, the following steps to protect and grow our shooting heritage are recommended:

• Recreational shooters that don’t participate in competitions must become organized and participate in government decision-making. Agencies must solicit public input but when they do, comments and participants from recreational shooters are sparse or completely absent.
  
  
• Recreational shooting and shooting organizations must establish and promote a positive land ethos, which includes leaving their shooting areas clean.
  
  
• Land managers, shooting organizations, and the shooting community must adopt common definitions to identify the various types of recreational shooting areas. This is critical for resource inventory, issue identification and the development of meaningful objectives.
  
  
• Land Management Agencies must include recreational shooting in their land management plans. This has to be accomplished by legislation or executive order. Without this, there is no budget. “No budget” means no money; no money includes resources, manpower and interest. So we must ask for legislation to include recreational shooting into land management planning.
  
  
• A template for a safe family-oriented shooting area (shooting bay) must be developed to be used by land managers to determine the suitability of a piece of property for the establishment of a safe “designated shooting area.”
  
  
• Federal and state attorneys’ attitudes and advice regarding lead and environmental management of shooting ranges must be changed. A strategy needs to be developed to counter their misdirection to land managers.
  
  
• Land Managers must be “encouraged” to allow leases of public land for shooting ranges. These areas must have enough land provided with the lease to allow for a buffer to protect from encroachment. Ideally these lands will no longer be on the edges of governmental lands, but internal to provide protection from future development.
  
  
• Shooters pay for wildlife funding through a federal tax on guns, ammo and other products. These funds are available to state game and fish agencies for wildlife management. A mechanism should be developed that allows any public agency developing a shooting range to be able to utilize some of these funds for shooting ranges.
  
  
• Each state, through its parks or department of natural resources agency should prepare a statewide strategic plan for the development of recreational shooting areas and ranges. This strategic plan would identify areas that are suitable for future “designated shooting ranges” or “designated shooting areas” and would also identify areas where shooting opportunities are lacking.

In summary, public lands are your lands and recreational shooting is a valid multiple use of public lands that is not planned for. Shooters should be good stewards of public lands and insist on recreational shooting being included and managed as part of a multiple use recreational management plan. Shooters need to do their part as well by being involved in the planning/management process, by respecting public lands and keeping them clean and by insisting their friends do the same. Failure to do so will result in the current trend continuing until there are very few places left to shoot. It’s your choice!