How to deal with totally unregulated shooting area

[sanp]

Folks,

I'm new here. I admit I'm not an active shooter (in the true sense of the words), but I have a number of guns, including the Mossberg .22 my Dad gave me almost 60 years ago. I shoot occasionally, but have other hobbies that I lean towards, and have little time to spare for any hobbies.

So.... I live in an area in the NM mountains about an hour's drive from Albuquerque. In the last couple years, unregulated shooting areas around the metropolis have been shut down, because of the over-usage, or the yahoos that do stupid things.

Now, people have discovered a very small parcel of BLM land, 120 acres, within our community that is open to shooting. (BLM land is open to shooting unless it's officially closed). This place is worth the hour's drive, as it's one of the very few unregulated places to shoot. The result is that we have shooting every day, and on weekends it is non-stop, all day. Sometimes as late as 11 pm., in the dark.

Albuquerque has a great range (from what I hear) but people choose to drive up here, an unregulated place. We have day-long gatherings, with canopies, tables, coolers, a real party. You can't do that at the Albuquerque range.

Beer cans/alcohol containers abound.

I totally understand the desire to be unregulated. I camp a lot, and avoid official campgrounds as much as I can. This situation is different.

From the 'range', there are houses directly downrange, no safe backstops (the 'backstop' is a rocky mountainside), and many people purposefully shoot at big rocks, guaranteeing ricochets.

One house has gotten a bullet through it.

The BLM has refused to do anything meaningful. Their "No Shooting" signs posted at the inappropriate places to shoot have been shot up.

They say "We'll enforce the rules", but their Officer is stationed 110 miles away, and (honestly) I don't think he gives a hoot, and BLM refuses to tell us if he has written any tickets or not "for security reasons".

I confronted some shooters with steel targets placed on top of a berm with a major highway 80 feet behind (during the time school buses were running). I was told that the bullets hit the steel targets and just dropped to the ground, so it's ok.

I called the cops.

We've called all these things to the BLM's attention, not just the most outrageous things, but the most basic safety considerations, as outlined by the NRA and every other shooting organization.

Things like "have a safe backstop".

None of this has worked.

Ideas?

 

[housepainter]

As TPTB will not do anything to regulate or close this place, I'd avoid the area as well as any potential impact areas.

 

[Ash]

The annoying part for me are the irresponsible shooters. That's freedom for you. Freedom remains free so long as we are responsible with our freedoms. When people become irresponsible - such as with mass shootings or with careless actions at unregulated ranges or with shady business practices those rights become infringed by regulations. In this case, the right to use public land (we are the public after all) becomes threatened by careless members of our shooting community becomes infringed and eventually closed down.

Frankly, I'm glad the guy doesn't shut the place down like all the others. However, I am dismayed that shooters would be such a-wholes for not taking care of their stuff. I feel the same way when I'm hiking and I come across the mess of a campsite in the middle of a wilderness. Pretty rare when you are miles from a car, but it happens. Once we found where I guy had taken a crap in an open spring on top of a mountain - the water supply for most hikers. What a jerk. We had to go another day before getting water (and as a result were thirsty and pretty hungry when we did get to some).

How to respond to this scenario? Perhaps make some signs of your own reminding that if shooters are irresponsible, they'll lose that spot, too. However, the kinds of people doing the stupid things means they likely will heed no warnings.

 

[BSA1]

Ideas?

Not trying to be a smart aleck but find a different place to shoot.

The situation as you describe it with shooters impaired by drinking (Beer cans / alcohol containers) and use of unsafe targets is ripe for a shooting accident. Confronting shooters without legal authority is risky and easily lead to a violent incident.

The only other idea is to organize a "adopt the range" campaign like the "adopt a highway" campaigns around the country. This would help to get the BLM more interested in policing the area.

 

[Tony k]

Federal land management agencies like the BLM and FS are pretty slow to respond to this type of issue, but they inevitably do. It's likely to be draconian when they finally do get around to it.

If you want to keep it open to shooting, but make it safe and "self regulated," somebody is going to need to organize a group of "concerned citizen shooters" to bring solutions to the BLM. They will take action, but unless someone speaks up, they will shut it down.

 

[sanp]

There is a group that cleans up the place, and talks with irresponsible shooters (I've done that a couple times) and has left flyers asking people to mind their manners, but the good guys can't be there all the time.

You can avoid the place, but the people that live downrange and the folks driving by... can't.

Thanks for the replies.....

 

[Capybara]

Wow, does this ever sound familiar. We have a similar place in the Los Padres NF above Santa Barbara called the Glass Factory. It's been there for decades, I am not sure, but I think going back to the '30s. It has almost been shut down for pollution by local politicians several times. About five years ago, we decided to do something about it as it was literally turning into a garbage dump. We organized a community clean up. The local trash company donated 40 yard dumpsters and we brought in about 100 local volunteers, along with a couple of local fire crews, two tractors, we turned it into a big cleanup party. On our first cleanup, we removed 45 tons of garbage. Shot up furniture, signs, beer bottles, propane canisters, you name it, it's out here. We did a second clean up the same year (2012) and removed another 25 tons.

We now do one clean up per season, but it is getting more difficult because the trash company that donated their drivers, dumpsters, plus they pay for the trip to the landfill to dump all of this junk, they told us that our clean up last year would be the last one that they could donate, understandably. So we are now going to have to raise $600.00 to $800.00 to pay for their drivers hours and the trips to the landfill. It strikes me as ridiculous that we have to get donations to pay for the cleanup but those are the cold, hard facts. If we don't do a clean up every season, the place will turn back into a garbage dump and local politicians will shut it down. The local community of shooters is divided 50/50 between responsible shooters who clean up their mess and sociopath morons who bring up every form of garbage (we have removed mattresses, box springs, couches, dishwashers, refrigerators, cars, Dominoes Pizza Delivery car signs, you name it), shoot it up and then just hop in their car and leave. On one hand, I side with the non-shooters who want to close it because this group of idiot shooters are like three year olds who cannot clean up their mess.

But we have good people, Boy Scouts, the local college ROTC, fraternities, fire crews, families, etc. who come out every year to help us clean it up. We solicit donations of prizes for the clean up crew and give away hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts, ammo, gun accessories, we have even given away quite a few guns that I and other shooters have donated to the cause. We feed everyone lunch, we have one of the rangers for the Forest Service who comes out, we have everyone sign waivers, it's quite the production. So we have kept this place open for years after the local politicians wanted to shut it down.

As far as safety, we do not have line of sight to any residences, this place is in a little box canyon six miles from the main local highway out of Santa Barbara. The range, because of the drought, has been closed for fire danger for most of the year, we usually open in November and the Forest Service usually closes us in May for fire danger. It has all of the same challenges you face, because it is a public shooting area and NOT a gun range with staff, people do really stupid things. I never go on weekends because you may have 50-100 shooters on the line, no RSOs and when people call a cease fire to change targets, stupid unsafe shooters do dumb things like hold their guns, mess with magazines in and out of the guns, etc. while shooters are downrange changing targets. It's actually a miracle that nobody has been fatally shot over the years. I have been muzzle swept and seen people sweeping all of the time. I see people bump firing from the hip and just doing a lot of other unsafe behaviors. I have no problem with bump firing, if it's done safely but it's best to do that when you are alone or in a tightly controlled group of shooters directly behind the person bump firing.

We have posted signs about cleaning up, four rules, yardage markers, all have been shot up and even when they were posted, people ignore them. We had a volunteer who built half a dozen wooden picnic benches, they were eventually all dragged onto the range and shot up. My involvement over the past five years with the area has reinforced my incredible disappointment with our community. There are some great people in our community but they are outweighed by the jackasses who pollute, never clean up, break the four rules, drink while shooting. We had a ranger who hung out and wrote tickets for people not cleaning up but the Forest Service is very short staffed and it is time consuming to hang out and figure out who dragged what onto the range when the range is always full of shot up junk anyway. So the ticketing thing and fines are not going to work. We have tried everything we can think of for years and the bottom line is that the inconsiderate sociopaths who get drunk and shoot up empty cases of beer bottles are going to do it no matter what. The morons who will go through the incredible effort to haul a 250lb refrigerator up a mountain to shoot it up are going to continue to do so no matter what.

it's really sad for us because public shooting areas are as rare as hens teeth in SoCal and eventually this one will close because of pollution or some moron will accidentally shoot and kill someone. Then it will be over. I am an NRA RSO and me and three other RSOs wrote a proposal to the Forest Service for safety and range improvements that we would raise the money for, get donations for, install some borders and barriers, signage that couldn't be removed and shot up, concrete shooting benches, permanently affixed steel targets, etc. but the Forest Service never responded to our proposal, even after follow up and repeated calls, I am sure they received pressure from the local politicians to NOT approve our proposal. Unfortunately I don't have any silver bullet for your situation, all I can do is share our struggles with the same situation, pollution, garbage and unsafe shooters in a public shooting area. Best of luck.

 

[joem1945]

With alcohol being consumed there I wouldn't be there. There was a club close to me that I thought about joining. Took a tour and noticed 2 -55 gal barrels full of beer cans. Told the guy I'd think about it. Never went back.

 

[mokin]

I like the idea of the "adopt a range" group. There are a lot of good people in Albuquerque and the surrounding area ( a lot of yahoos too...). Maybe running an ad in a local paper will generate some interest. My brother and I used to go shoot north of Rio Rancho before it was all houses....

If the situation seems unsafe, the area should be avoided. If unsafe activity continues, the place will be shut down. I find that when I have little time to shoot I can still go to a private range and get in a good practice.

Best of luck and be safe.

 

[yugorpk]

I don't shoot at ranges. They dont let me shoot cans or golf balls. I do shoot on BLM and state land and possibly soon on my own land. Every time I have the kids clean the place up and throw the trash in the truck while we are there. I'm probably the only one that does. In any case if theres people up there shooting and drinking I always try to either avoid the place at that time or to relieve them of one or two of their beers on my way out.

 

[22-rimfire]

I think the best approach is to make it "regulated" by the visiting regulars. The trash has to stop. I find it really disheartening that any open land for shooting is becoming a trash dump over time and eventually there will be NO open land for shooting. I would talk to the county and use the safety issue and then post some signs that this area will likely not be open for shooting if the unsafe behavior persists. The noise issue..... comes with the turf.

 

[Mman]

Try contacting your congressman. A letter from a congressman to the BLM would probably get a response. A couple extra paragraphs tacked onto a bill to fund more enforcement, or to create a committee, might be possible.

 

[danez71]

Sounds like a place I used to go to until the bullets wizzing over my head became too distracting.

It turned into a real dump. Trash, appliances, glass and every other kind of waste was dumped, shot up. and left there.

Its now a regulated area.

I can manage myself and any time I go off road I generally pack out more trash than I brought. I'm responsible enough not to need to be under watch.

Its unfortunate that so many adults need adult supervision.


http://www.lytlecreekrange.com/Default.htm

 

[silicosys4]

a very small parcel of BLM land, 120 acres.

Beer cans/alcohol containers abound.

From the 'range', there are houses directly downrange, no safe backstops (the 'backstop' is a rocky mountainside), and many people purposefully shoot at big rocks, guaranteeing ricochets.

steel targets placed on top of a berm with a major highway 80 feet behind

One house has gotten a bullet through it.

It does not sound like a very good place to shoot.

I would anticipate this shooting spot will be closed down shortly. Sounds like a major accident just waiting to happen. The BLM won't care right up until somebody sues for having their house shot up.
Just seeing your description I personally wouldn't shoot there, ever.
Honestly, I would find another place to shoot, or start saving for a piece of private property on which you could safely shoot without worrying about trash and idiots.

 

[yugorpk]

Folks,

and many people purposefully shoot at big rocks, guaranteeing ricochets.

One thing you figure out pretty quick when you shoot with a silencer attached is that a very high percentage of shots ricochet even when you are shooting into dirt. You just don't hear them normally. With the sound of the gunshot gone it becomes very apparent.

 

[45_auto]

Your experience has been the fate of every single unsupervised public shooting area I've ever seen. Seems to take about 3 to 4 years for the cycle to complete around here, I've seen about a dozen sites go through the cycle. Unfortunately it has become more common with the increased popularity and sales of firearms.

A few people start shooting there using berms and backstops, then word gets out and the TV's, propane cans, and general garbage starts showing up with people shooting any which way. We try to keep it going by bringing garbage bags and hauling off garbage every time we come, but it soon becomes overwhelming. Usually gets shut down and posted not long after that.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a HUGE proportion (if not the majority) of shooters who are very self-centered and immature, and just enjoy punching holes in stuff and blowing things like bottles apart without taking on the responsibility of cleaning up after themselves.

I don't think there's anything you can do except find somewhere secluded to shoot and not tell ANYBODY about it, or find some private land to shoot on.

 

[medalguy]

I'm in the same area of NM and I see the same things where I shoot (a much larger piece of BLM land). I have toted dozens of bags of crap out of there, and I can't even make a dent in the garbage, plus I have to pay to take it to the landfill out of my pocket.

Computers, TVs, furniture, fire extinguishers, beer bottles, you name it, it's shot up and left on the ground. I feel safe enough because where I shoot there are a lot of hills and I drive around to see if anyone is set up near me, so I can pick a safe place. But the amount of garbage left on the ground is simply amazing.

I have no idea how to stop this. We have a few "gentlemen" shooters who pick up their targets and trash, but the vast majority are simply slobs, no other word for it. I don't confront people for leaving their trash out there partly because there are so many people leaving it, and partly out of a concern for my own safety. Shooters and miniature liquor bottles do not make a good mix to me.

I hope my place, and the OPs place, don't get shut down. No surprise if they do, but I have enough acreage that I can shoot in my own back yard as long as it doesn't disturb the neighbors too much.

 

[njl]

Unfortunately, a lot of shooters never grew/grow up. I've been a member of two members-only ranges/gun clubs. The one in the previous town I lived in, someone used a high power rifle to shoot holes in the plate racks on the pistol range and someone shot the yardage markers on the rifle range.

Where I am now, the pistol bays have some old oak trees downrange. The club has put up wood fencing on the uprange side of the trees and painted really big "NO SHOOT" on the fencing. The fencing is full of bullet holes. I've never seen it done...but I assume some people must staple their targets to the "NO SHOOT" wood fence. At one point, I built a bunch of H-frame target stands out of 2x4s, so all we'd need to bring are targets and 1x2s. Most immediately disappeared...some got totally shot up. One, I found on the berm with a target stapled directly to it. All had been painted with latex paint, and then stenciled in red paint with the club name and "Do Not Remove".

It's unfortunate...but it seems the majority of people are idiots.

 

[TwoEyedJack]

Here in Idaho we have the opposite problem. South of Kuna is the Birds of Prey area. For years, the envirowackos tried to get shooting banned there because there is a large population of ground squirrels in the area, and it offended them mightily that people were shooting them. So the BLM does three years of studies and finds no correlation between recreational shooting and ground squirrel populations, which the raptors eat.

Not being able to ban shooting for scientific reasons, they turned to "safety". Based on two incidents, they banned shooting on tens of thousands of acres, on most of which not a single structure can be seen. The incidents were as follows:

1) A construction worker roofing a house claimed a bullet went past him. There was no evidence that this actually happened.
2) There is a military training area south of Gowen Field, and one weekend warrior accidentally shot another one in the leg on a training mission.

I am not making this up. Based on this, no shooting in a huge area. Many of us complained to our congress critters and local politicians. They have zero control over these un-elected bureaucrats. Sickening. If we treated the highways the same way, there would be no cars on the road. And so much for a government of, by, and for the people.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

I'm a federal employee and manage public lands, and I can attest that the law enforcement groups are typically vastly understaffed. I work with 4 LEO's and they cover thousands of acres across multiple states. They will hate you for it, but you are going to have to make calls to folks higher in the chain of command if you want to try and change the priorities of the BLM and LE folks that manage that piece of ground.

My agency is so busy we have a really hard time keeping up with everything going on. But the squeaky wheel gets the grease and if you tell someone high in the chain of command, like a regional LE director, that you have a concern for a threat to public safety, it makes it hard to ignore. Safety is big in the government.

Document the interaction. Email makes this easy. But email and then call a day later for confirmation the email was read.

Or, the easier answer is don't shoot there and let it take care of itself.

 

[gamestalker]

We deal with the same garbage (pun intended) here in Arizona also, non stop. I've been shooting at countless BLM sites that have been used as shooting ranges for decades, only to see those places piled high with old refrigerators, trash, you name it, people bring it out there to shoot it full of holes, then just leave it. These morons who like to call their selves sportsmen, just because they own and shoot guns, have ruined it for those of us who respect the meaning of being a sportsmen.

All of our unregulated BLM shooting ranges were shut down several years ago. But thanks to the NRA filing law suits, we've managed to get some of these sites reopened. I think the EPA got involved, cause I heard something about soil being removed in an effort to remove the lead deposited over the last 50 - 60 years of shooting. they've created some fenced off areas that are now considered as unregulated ranges, so I guess we're back in business? I haven't been back to any of them since they were closed though, I just started shooting at one of our private ranges instead.

I thought it was illegal to even possess guns in New Mexico when alcohol is being consumed, at all? It isn't illegal in Arizona to drink and shoot, and although I'm completely ok with no one infringing on our freedoms, I really can't get behind the idea of alcohol and shooting in the same sentence, it's just wrong, and dangerous. I can understand someone having a beer at the end of the day once firearms aren't being handled. But to shoot and drink at the same time, that just seems irresponsible.

GS

 

[Rubber_Duck]

sanp, if you don't mind can you PM me where this 'parcel of land' is so I know to avoid it? I'm in the Albuquerque area and like the liberty of shooting in open areas but I like to avoid other people for safety reasons.

 

[jim in Anchorage]

We had a simler situation here in Alaska but with a much larger piece of land. The Kink river 30 miles North of Anchorage is wide open land surrounded by mountains and a perfect place to shoot. But it also was plagued by scum buckets shooting up cars, stoves, etc and leaving them. It got so bad it looked like a open pit landfill.
Then DNR [department of natural resources] took contral of the property and built a great shooting range and prohibited shooting elsewhere.
State Troopers patrol the area on 4 wheeler's to enforce the laws.
I was Leary at first at the gov intrusion but now I like it.

If I what more "unrestricted" shooting I just drive the 4 wheeler farther in and get off the public use land. Best of both worlds.
http://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/krpua/#krpua=4

 

[rondog]

Unfortunately, the more guns and ammo that are sold to newbies and people who "gotta get 'em while I can", the worse this situation will get. People buy 'em and wanna use 'em, but places to shoot are disappearing faster than honest politicians. And, PC or not, there just really IS a lot of people that really have no business with guns. At one time, I was one of them.

The wonderful gun club I'm a member of now and the awesome range facilities we have are well worth the meager cost. Absolutely stellar place, I couldn't dream up anything better. The annual renewal fee is my Xmas present!

 

[doctorjohn]

My residence is about 1/3 mile from a National Forest. Around 10 or 15 years ago, we had an informal place to shoot down an old logging trail. Someone dumped an old car door and other trash in our shooting spot, and before long there was a steel pipe gate across the trail and a "road Closed" sign. It's still there to this day.