Future Of Recreational Shooting In The Arapaho And Roosevel

[Merl]

Future Of Recreational Shooting At Stake
In The Arapaho And Roosevelt National Forests

The Forest Service recently announced that it will be examining the impacts of recreational shooting (but not hunting) in the Boulder Ranger District (BRD) of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests. This review is being conducted under the Urban Front Country Initiative that is taking place on national forests along Colorado's Front Range.

Concerns about public safety, natural resource damage and user-to-user conflicts are some of the reasons the BRD is launching an examination of recreational shooting. It is likely to result in changes to regulations, which in the extreme could be an outright ban on recreational shooting.

The BRD is inviting the public to submit their thoughts, concerns, and issues on recreational shooting by May 19. Please visit http://www.nraila.org/media/PDFs/ufcea.pdf to view the 4-page document that the Forest Service is distributing which lists the issues, the form for submitting your comments, and guidance on how to make your comments meaningful to the BRD. Also, visit http://www.nraila.org/media/PDFs/brd042706.pdf to view the letter sent by the Forest Service.

Public meetings have been scheduled for:

1. May 11, 2006
6:00pm to 8:00pm
Silver Creek High School
4901 Nelson Road
Longmont

2. May 13, 2006
10:00am to 12:00pm
New Vista High School
700 20th Street
Boulder

3. May 17, 2006
6:00pm to 8:00pm
New Vista High School
700 20th Street
Boulder

You are asked to call 303-541-2500 if you are planning to attend a meeting and let the BRD know which one for planning purposes.

The future of recreational shooting in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests will depend upon the kind of responses the BRD receives from the shooting community. It is vitally important that shooters participate in this public planning process by submitting comments and attending at least one public meeting.

[Merl]

ok, the meeting was started under the assumption that no decisions have been mde already. This may or may not be true but the different rangers coordinating this definatly have opinions on what should be done.

timeline for this is between 12 and 18 months the rules will change. There will be time a public comment after the initial enviromental report and proposed changes are made.

These were the primary issues that need to be adressed:
firearms complaints are the #1 complaint type recieved by the FS.
The front range forests are the most heavily used forest in the nation.
the forest along the front range is nowhere near continuous. many private holdings within. Many unmarked.
How do we (FS and shooters) educate people about the regs. make people not leave trash. not shoot trees. etc.

No good solutions were presented. most/all attendees were shooters. If I had to guess, I forsee designated shooting areas with signs around them for when hikers approach. It was made very clear that these areas would need to be large, >2mi diameter.

If you own a class3 weapon, definatly write to remind the FS that those types of weapons are legal and should not be prohibited. they could easily be overlooked.

my opinions:
there is no way to educate irresponsable people and make them care. they'll ignore the regs anyway. the rest of us don't need these regs but will be punished anyway.
fine/penalty for littering (shooting and LEAVING) trash or targets should be extreme. perhaps second or third offense extreme enough to revoke fireams rights. same with shooting at trees.

[DanaT]

Well guys,

I wrote Catherine Luna my thoughts about this (nice long letter). In addition, I also sent my thoughts to Wayne Allard. It may not help, but I want the Ranger District to know that when they pull this non-sense, our elected officials will be notified.

I can't stand bureaucrats that want to do social engineering.

We pay the Federal Excise tax on Firearms and Ammunition. If any group should be able to use the National Forests, it is the group who pays Federal Excise taxes to keep them open! The only other "sporting" group that pays excise tax is Bows and Arrows. I say get the OHV, bikers, hikers, etc outta there. We pay the taxes. By the way, there is a way around this:

Buy a small game hunting license, hunt ground squirells (years round season) and when someone interferes with your hunting they are violating CRS 33-6-115.5. Call the Rangers and demand that the person is cited. I will have a small game license and be trying to hunt squirrels!! There is a reason why I always have a small game license.

Here is CRS 33-6-115.5

33-6-115.5. Hunting, trapping, and fishing - intentional interference with lawful activities.
1) No person shall willfully prevent or interfere with the lawful participation of any individual in the activity of hunting, trapping, or fishing in accordance with this article.
(2) A person commits intentional interference with lawful hunting, trapping, and fishing activities if he:
(a) Acts with intent to alarm, distract, or frighten prey and causes prey to flee by:
(I) Use of any natural or artificial source of noise or light;
(II) Giving chase to prey on foot or by use of any vehicle;
(III) Throwing objects or making movements;
(b) Intentionally harasses any person lawfully participating in the activity of hunting, trapping, and fishing by use of threats or actions;
(c) Erects barriers with the intent to deny ingress to lawfully designated hunting, trapping, and fishing areas;
(d) Intentionally interjects himself into the line of fire;
(e) Engages in any other conduct with the intent to disrupt or prevent lawful hunting, trapping, and fishing activities.
(3) Any person who violates this section commits a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars and an assessment of twenty license suspension points

-Dana

[Obiwan]

I bailed before the brainstroming session since the meeting was supposedly about "identifying Issues" and most of my issues are likely to be based on the decisions made

I did send in a two page letter with my thoughts/possible solutions

What I stressed in my letter was that almost all the "issues" identified by the Forest Service are based on illegal, or at the very least, inconsiderate actions on the part of a (hopefully) small percentage of shooters

Once you removed all those from the list there was not too much left to be "concerned" about

I, for one, have no problem with stiff fines for tracers, exploding targets and shooting appliances/computers.

[jassenb]

I, for one, have no problem with stiff fines for tracers, exploding targets and shooting appliances/computers.

Neither do I, but I think that enforcement is the problem.

-Jassen

[KarlPMann]

Yes it is. I know that there is only like 3 enforcement guys for the entire Pike/San Isabel National Forests. That's like 3 cops in Vermont. :roll: Karl.

[Hokie]

Well guys,

I wrote Catherine Luna my thoughts about this (nice long letter). In addition, I also sent my thoughts to Wayne Allard. It may not help, but I want the Ranger District to know that when they pull this non-sense, our elected officials will be notified.

I can't stand bureaucrats that want to do social engineering.

We pay the Federal Excise tax on Firearms and Ammunition. If any group should be able to use the National Forests, it is the group who pays Federal Excise taxes to keep them open! The only other "sporting" group that pays excise tax is Bows and Arrows. I say get the OHV, bikers, hikers, etc outta there. We pay the taxes. By the way, there is a way around this:

Buy a small game hunting license, hunt ground squirells (years round season) and when someone interferes with your hunting they are violating CRS 33-6-115.5. Call the Rangers and demand that the person is cited. I will have a small game license and be trying to hunt squirrels!! There is a reason why I always have a small game license.

Here is CRS 33-6-115.5

33-6-115.5. Hunting, trapping, and fishing - intentional interference with lawful activities.
1) No person shall willfully prevent or interfere with the lawful participation of any individual in the activity of hunting, trapping, or fishing in accordance with this article.
(2) A person commits intentional interference with lawful hunting, trapping, and fishing activities if he:
(a) Acts with intent to alarm, distract, or frighten prey and causes prey to flee by:
(I) Use of any natural or artificial source of noise or light;
(II) Giving chase to prey on foot or by use of any vehicle;
(III) Throwing objects or making movements;
(b) Intentionally harasses any person lawfully participating in the activity of hunting, trapping, and fishing by use of threats or actions;
(c) Erects barriers with the intent to deny ingress to lawfully designated hunting, trapping, and fishing areas;
(d) Intentionally interjects himself into the line of fire;
(e) Engages in any other conduct with the intent to disrupt or prevent lawful hunting, trapping, and fishing activities.
(3) Any person who violates this section commits a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars and an assessment of twenty license suspension points

-Dana

Good luck with Catherine Luna, that whole office basically ignored all the OHV input they received about the lefthand canyon OHV designation and future use planning and are just doing what they want.

I don't see it being any better for firearms use either.

By the way OHV pays taxes/money as well in the form of required OHV stickers to use the land. These funds are continually misappropriated and not used for trail maintenance like they are supposed to be. You may find that OHV users would be a better ally in this fight than a foe.

[usa]

[Marlin]

Problem is They don't want to Be. :roll:

[Hokie]

Problem is They don't want to Be. :roll:

Well, I for one, do, since I like both forms of recreation.
I would rather try to work something out with OHV/firearm owners than the damn greenies. (Yes, I would even try talking to beer drinking redneck qwad riders....but that is a different story....)


[beer]

[DanaT]

By the way OHV pays taxes/money as well in the form of required OHV stickers to use the land. These funds are continually misappropriated and not used for trail maintenance like they are supposed to be. You may find that OHV users would be a better ally in this fight than a foe.

[usa]

First, if my typing is bad, I am in Germany and using a German kezbord. Some of the keys are in different places so I may have a few extra typos.

Only non-licensed OHV users buy the sticker. So probably around half of the OHVs are Jeeps that don't pay a special tax. They pay road registration only. NExt, that is a state sticker, not a federal sticker. Firearms taxes are federal.

As far as OHV users being good allies, go check out the 4x4 pages. The OHV guys are the ones who want shooting out of lefthand canyon so it is for their private use. I have been saying for a while to these guys to be careful of what they ask for, because by getting users against one another, the greenies win. If you read posts by people in the CO OHV association, they are upset that the NRA has gotten involved with this issue because they wanted shooting banned in Left Hand. After they made a foe with lefthand, they now got an organiyation involved with a lot more money than they have.

Yes, the OHV people would be a good allie if they didn't mind sharing they NF use with hunters/shooters. However, they want the NF for OHV use.

BTW, I am not against wheelin and have even done that in lefthand (carnage) myself. I have also seen some very irresponsible shooting occuring in lefthand. However, if I am forced to pick sides, kick the wheelers out and leave shooting. My personal opinion is that the NF are public and all users must share the NF. No group should have exclusive rights (be it hikers, equestrians, yakers, shooters, ect). But if you want to make me choose side, I will.

-Dana