Gun owners who have historically been able to use public lands for target practice would be barred from potentially millions of acres under new rules drafted by the Interior Department, the first major move by the Obama administration to impose limits on firearms.
Officials say the administration is concerned about the potential clash between gun owners and encroaching urban populations who like to use same land for hiking and dog walking.
“It’s not so much a safety issue. It’s a social conflict issue,” said Frank Jenks, a natural resource specialist with Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 245 million acres. He adds that urbanites “freak out” when they hear shooting on public lands. [Read about the subpoena issued as a result of Operation Fast and Furious.]
"When the authorized officer determines that a site or area on BLM-managed lands used on a regular basis for recreational shooting is creating public disturbance, or is creating risk to other persons on public lands; is contributing to the defacement, removal or destruction of natural features, native plants, cultural resources, historic structures or government and/or private property; is facilitating or creating a condition of littering, refuse accumulation and abandoned personal property is violating existing use restrictions, closure and restriction orders, or supplementary rules notices, and reasonable attempts to reduce or eliminate the violations by the BLM have been unsuccessful, the authorized officer will close the affected area to recreational shooting."
Makes sense to me. Too bad some bad apples can spoil this for the rest of us.
HEARTLESS wrote: I can one up that, I even properly dispose of the annoying hikers bodies.
I would like to say I oppose this, but I see much too often poor safety practices by recreational shooters and poor trash cleanup. They don't know to use backstops, we have had rounds shooting over our house. They just don't realize that their bullets can go for a mile.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Certainly shooters need to clean up after themselves. I take pride in leaving a place in a condition in which no one would have known I was there. But this smacks to me of the administration trying to get their foot in the door again. Shut down places where the public can shoot and all of a sudden there are no places to shoot. What's next? Ammo sales? Their poor attempt at escalating gun control via the "Fast and Furious" ruse got exposed. They can't use that, so now they'll try another angle.
:rofl 
