Minnesota: Shooting Range Protection Act Passes Committee

St. Paul Pioneer Press ^ | 2/13/04 | Michael Krieger

[brbethke]

CAPITOL BRIEFING

On Thursday: A bill that would make it more difficult to close or relocate shooting ranges passed the (Minnesota) House Environment and Natural Resources Policy Committee.

What's going on: The bill's sponsor, Rep. Tom Hackbarth, said he introduced the legislation because he's concerned that local governments are poised to shut down existing shooting ranges. Under his proposal, local governments must foot the bill for noise abatement and range location, and range owners would enjoy a degree of immunity from all but the most severe noise and safety litigation.

Next step: The bill moves to the House floor.

More information: The bill, HF327, is online at www.leg.state.mn.us

[brbethke]

If you live in Minnesota and care at all about hunting, shooting, or the 2nd Amendment, call your state representative and tell him or her to get behind HF 327. You have got to do it because I know that my state rep, Nora Slawik, will do everything she can to stop this bill. (She's the useless @*#&^ who's sponsoring the bill to repeal concealed carry.)

After all, what good is the right to keep and bear arms if there's nowhere you can use those arms?

[Tijeras_Slim]

Bumping

Going after ranges is just another gun grabber tactic.

[brbethke]

It works, too. If you can just increase the expense and hassle associated with doing something, most people will say, "Aw, forget this," and go do something else. Eventually there won't be a fight over whether to ban guns, because there will be so few people left who want to own them.

[jim_trent]

I used to belong to an outdoor range just outside of Cambridge, Mn (I lived in nearby Isanti). Through the years, people bought acreages around it and built homes. Then they tried to shut it down. I no longer live in Minnesota, but I visited it about 3 years ago and heard that they had to raise dues in order to keep a lawyer on a retainer for all the legal problems the "concerned" neighbors brought against them. One even erected a billboard on his property right across from the entrance of the range with his rantings painted on it.

[brbethke]

I hear you. Luckily we've got a couple of lawyers in the club who are willing to work pro bono.

Still, keeping Oakdale Gun Club going is an expensive proposition. In the last few years we've sunk over $100K into landscaping, tree plantings, and other noise abatement projects, and we're just about finished with a way overbudget and overschedule project to completely enclose the 25-yard range. We had to rebuild the entire target area with these molded rubber bullet trapping bales that have to be treated as toxic waste if we ever take 'em out again (but give us important points with the EPA for reducing soil lead contamination), and once the 25 is finished, we get started on the 100- and 200-yard ranges.

Plus, we're trying to build up a war chest so that we can buy the farm next door -- not to do anything with the land, just to ensure that it doesn't get turned into houses full of complaining neighbors -- but the non-members squeal like stuck pigs if we raise the rates for public shooters.

Where else are they going to shoot if we get put out of business? That's what I want to know.

[brbethke]

Wait, in Cambridge? Just off Highway 9_?? (The road that goes to Princeton?) I drive past that place every time I go up to Garrison!

Small world, innit?

[Condor51]

This now happens EVERYWHERE.
Just as #4 has said, once remote/isolated outdoor ranges or gun clubs are being surrounded by new homes and then the bonehead owners say,

"Hey, what's all that noise? A Gun CLUB? It Must Go, dammit! I don't care if they've been here for fifty years, I just moved here and I can't sleep, watch Oprah, Springer, etc, blah, blah, blah."

It happened to a gun club in Naperville, IL recently. The Sportsman's Gun Club if I recall correctly. It was once remote and had like a 50 year lease from the Village for the 'vacant' land. The new 'neighbors' DEMANDED it not be renewed - noise, lead pollution, etc. The controversy dropped from the news so I don't know the outcome.

[shelterguy]

I have heard you guys at the Oakdale Cub shooting many times while I am working on projects at the Lake Elmo Park Reserve. I always wondered how many problems you have encountered as the urban sprawl overtakes you.

I am a member of a club on the western edge of the cities. I know they have had problems with a few neighbors there but so far have been able to control them with restraining orders and such. Maybe one advantage we have is that many small community police departments come to practice there. I,m sure as the sprawl comes our way there will be many more battles.

[jim_trent]

I moved from Minnesota in 1978 so I don't remember the hwy number, but it was just a ways south of the road between Cambridge and Princeton. I live in Nebraska now and except for an indoor range, the closest range is 30 miles away. The one I belong to is 45 miles away.

[brbethke]

We've actually had the park people tell us that they *like* having us there, because it gives them a good excuse for keeping the area south of Lake Elmo completely undeveloped and not putting in any more horse, biking, or hiking trails.

Nah, our problems are with the new development west of Cty 19 and east of Cty 17, and with a certain clot of metrocrats and new residents who want to transform Lake Elmo into North Woodbury. The current town council likes us because we're helping them resist that and helping fund their lawsuit against the Met Council, but all it will take is one adverse court decision, or a few more years of yuppie in-migration and a few changed seats on the town council, and then goodbye, rural/agricultural zoning, hello, an unbroken string of strip-malls all the way to the Wisconsin border.

As for the blessings of letting the local police departments practice on our ranges; oh, don't get me started on that...

[brbethke]

I'm not surprised. We've been looking into acquiring land for a new range, but everything suitable is either priced in the multi-millions or at least 50 miles further out. To make things even more fun we've just learned that we need to start building an escrow fund, because on the day we *do* get zoned out of business, our land instantly becomes a toxic site and we have to pay for the clean-up if we want to continue to exist as a club.

I can see why so many other clubs have just decided to fold up and vanish.

[jdege]

I can't believe nobody ping'ed me on this ;)

Joel Rosenberg put an essay on his website: Why Range Protection is Important

[brbethke]

I'm surprised Joel didn't tell me when I was on the phone with him Tuesday. Usually he's very good at relentless self-promotion.

[brbethke]

I've just done a badly needed update to the OGC web site. Check it out!

oakdalegunclub.org.

I'm particularly proud of the new & improved Range Schedule. If you know of anyone who might be interested in the various high-power rifle events that are now open to non-members, or the Silhouette or Practical Pistol matches, please forward these links accordingly.

Thanks,
~BRB

[CarolAnn]

We passed a similar law here in Kansas about three years ago, when they started building upscale homes near a shooting range that has been outside the KC area for generations. I know Minnesota is a liberal state, but it's also very rural. I hope you don't have too much trouble getting it passed.

[COBOL2Java]

Or perhaps what the gun grabbers want to happen is this: make it more difficult for legal gun owners to practice, thereby increasing the chance for an accident to occur. Then they can say "See? See? Only law enforcement should be permitted to own guns! They're dangerous in the hands of unskilled civilians!"

[philetus]

When they shut down all the rsnges, you better be able to prove you're a hunter until they outlaw hunting.

[brbethke]

The problem is that the "canoe counties" at the north end of the state are both very rural and very liberal, and they tend to vote en bloc with the very liberal urban counties on most issues. Range protection isn't an issue to voters outside of the metro area because when the locals want to shoot they just step outside, make sure their favorite cow or pickup truck isn't in the line of fire, and blast away.

It's a big issue in the 7 county metro area, and the biggest problem is that we have this unelected body called the Metropolitan Council that functions as a central planning commissariat and makes -- or at least tries to make -- all zoning and land-use decisions for the entire area. The Met Council talks a lot about "preserving green space" and "controlling urban sprawl" and all that, but in reality it's full of "smart growth" advocates who basically want to turn the whole region into a 100-mile wide swath of rigidly planned post-suburbias connected by light rail.

Of course, things like shooting ranges are anathema to the Met Council. We can't have guns in our brave new world, y'know.

[brbethke]

The problem with that argument is that in the 40 years we've been in operation, we've had just one gunshot injury on the range -- and that was a cop who shot himself in the right jackboot with an MP5 while practicing a "kick open the door and throw in the flashbang" drill.

We don't let that police department use our ranges anymore.

[brbethke]

Ah, but how do you prove you're a hunter? What Americans keep failing to notice is that in most of Europe you can get a gun license if you're a hunter, but first you have to prove you're a hunter, and how can you prove you're a hunter if there are no public lands on which you could hunt? Well, you either join a private hunting club at great cost and then are required to store your gun in the club's armory, or else you prove that you already own a substantial amount of private land suitable for hunting.

In short, the landed gentry and hereditary aristocracy have no trouble obtaining and keeping guns; it's just the poor working schlubs who never get a foot in the door.

Remember, gun control is always about keeping the commoners in their place. Always.