Watch out for fine print in shooting range plan

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:10 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED DEC. 29, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Watch out for fine print in shooting range plan

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., pretty much forged the template when it comes to Western officeholders who go to Washington, vote for every Politically Correct gun control scheme to emerge from the darker nightmares of cloakroom buddies Dianne Feinstein and Charlie Schumer ... and then return home at election time, don plaid shirt and clodhoppers, plop themselves down on a hay bale, and present themselves in TV ads as "native-born country boys, fighting your battles against the Washington bureaucracy!"

It's in this context that we have to understand the good senator's media event Dec. 18, as he gathered police and federal land officials, representatives of Southern Nevada sportsmen's organizations, and members of the working press at a rural Henderson site which he characterized -- given its proximity to occupied dwellings and a well traveled road -- as typical of the inappropriate places where Southern Nevada residents now repair for their target shooting.

Mr. Reid's solution? He vows to seek federal funding and a set-aside of government-managed acreage to construct a federal shooting range of 2,000 acres or more. A range development committee of "experienced shooters" has already identified six potential sites in the valley, according to Clark County Recreation Department Director Glenn Trowbridge.

So far, so good. In fact, the good senator shouldn't have to search far -- the Pittman-Robertson Act sets aside moneys from a special federal excise on the sale of sporting goods to fulfill precisely this Congressional obligation under the Constitution, that Congress shall "have Power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia" -- the same provision under which Congress directs that surplus military rifles be sold to civilian marksmen "at cost." (And while you're at it, senator, we're still waiting for all those surplus selective-fire M-14s to find their way into the pipeline. We certainly hope there's no truth to the nasty rumors that your Democratic president has been violating both his constitutional and his fiduciary duty by sending such useful militia armaments to be shredded for scrap.)

So what's going on here? Has Sen. Reid -- die-hard supporter of the Brady Law, with its waiting periods and "background checks" and back-door national gun registration -- suddenly turned over a new leaf? Has he suddenly rediscovered his binding oath to "protect and defend" the right of Nevadans -- of all Americans -- to own and remain proficient in the use of military-style arms?

Well, no one ever said Mr. Reid -- who routinely carries "Nevada" by carrying only urban Clark County and a small enclave of federal employees in Mineral County -- isn't politically canny. No less a figure than Bill Clinton said it was the votes of gun owners that cost Democrats the control of Congress in 1994. If lining up some representatives of "sportsmen's groups" for a photo op can help the good senator present himself as a "friend to gun owners" when he next seeks re-election in 2004 ... why not?

What Nevada riflemen and hunters and recreational shooters need to do now is read the fine print.

The new range is needed so no Nevada homeowner need ever again hear the objectionable sound of gunfire, the good senator suggests. The range must fall under federal control because in Southern Nevada, "When you talk about the necessity of 2,000 acres or more, the federal government must be involved," pipes in BLM spokesman Phillip Guerrero.

The range will make a great contribution to public safety "and alleviate desert litter" by providing facilities for "every shooting sport" from long-range rifles down to BB guns, adds usually sensible Assemblyman John Lee, D-Las Vegas, who promises to work with Sen. Reid to seek state matching funds.

The proposed new range could cost $15 million during its 15 years of development, but "should start generating revenue" long before completion, thus offsetting costs and paying operating expenses, volunteers Mr. Trowbridge of Clark County.

Starting to get the picture? A shooting range on federal land, where citizens will doubtless have to check in at a guard station and pay a fee to enter -- a range subject to closure or further restriction whenever the federal authorities so decide. A range which will eliminate the "problem" of homeowners ever hearing a round fired anywhere else, as well as the heartache of "desert litter."

Anyone else starting to get the impression that -- once Mr. Reid's shooting range has been established -- shooting anywhere else will be quickly and completely banned?

As a matter of fact, would anyone be surprised if the gatekeepers at the Harry Reid Memorial Target Range started offering "courtesy vehicle searches" and cross-checking the serial numbers on all firearms to make sure they're properly registered ... "just for our own safety," of course?

Since the U.S. government already collects funds earmarked for shooting ranges -- and controls far too much acreage in Nevada, anyway -- by all means, let Washington hand back some land for civilian target practice, and pony up for some shooting benches, sunshades, and outhouses. Then let local civilian shooters set up fellowships or other non-profit entities to take private title to and administer these set-aside lands.

But to really acknowledge Southern Nevadans' Second Amendment rights, larger appropriate areas -- not smaller -- need to be posted as "shooting specifically allowed" ... starting with the box canyon to the north of Lee Canyon Road where Las Vegas residents shot safely for decades, until the "Red Rock Conservation Area" was recently expanded to encompass that uninhabited expanse, where the only sounds are the screech of the hawks and the whistling of the wind.

Hmm. Wonder which Washington politician it was who managed to get that remote parcel posted "No shooting allowed"?

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and editor of Financial Privacy Report (952-895-8757.) His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

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Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

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Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

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-- L. Neil Smith

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Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

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"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

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Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

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Watch out for fine print in shooting range plan