Posted on 10/27/2002 10:23:35 AM PST by vannrox
Poisonous PastimeThe Health Risks of Shooting Ranges and Lead to Children, Families, and the EnvironmentIntroduction: There Goes The NeighborhoodThe American gun industry is in big trouble. Hunting is fading as a sport. Guns are seen by most of the general public as either weapons of crime or dangerous toys owned only by a shrinking minority of Americans.a As a result, the civilian firearms market is becoming smaller and more concentrated.b The gun industry is keenly aware that it faces eventual extinction unless it can break out of this fatal cycle of fewer and fewer people owning more and more guns. The industry and its satellite organizations—the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), in particular—have developed a long-range "survival" strategy to pump up gun sales. One arm of this survival strategy—selling lethality, or killing power—is described in a number of Violence Policy Center books and reports. But a hitherto less well-documented arm of the industry strategy is that of building more shooting ranges to draw new customers—especially women and children—into what it euphemistically calls the "shooting sports." (Appendix A documents the means by which the industry is using tax dollars and co-opted federal officials to help underwrite this strategy.) As is so often the case, what is good for the gun industry is bad for the general public. Thus, as a Michigan hunter safety coordinator told a national shooting range symposium in 1990, shooting ranges are "like a waste disposal facility." The attitude most people have toward shooting ranges is "not in their neighborhood and definitely not next door."1 There is good reason to compare shooting ranges to garbage dumps. Part of this is because, in the understated words of ubiquitous gun industry defense lawyer Anne Kimball, "the activity of shooting is one that is controversial in our society."2 Shooting is indeed controversial in America because of our world-record levels of firearms death and injury.c But, as this report documents, shooting ranges actually are bad neighbors. They pollute the environment. They threaten public health, most severely among children—the gun industry's prime targets.d And they are backed by special-interest bullies like the NRA who use their lobbying clout to pass laws that block citizen recourse against unwelcome ranges and their influence with government agencies to cut back-room deals for special treatment. Spokesmen for the gun industry and the "shooting sports" publicly describe shooting ranges as places where skilled marksmen engage in disciplined and wholesome sport shooting. But when they talk privately among themselves, they discuss a less savory reality: lead poisoning and other types of environmental pollution such as excessive noise, dangerous novice shooters who barely know what they are doing, the "Rambo factor" (shooters intent on destroying targets and other objects by blasting away at high speed with powerful guns), suicides, unintentional deaths and injuries—even murders. These are truly neighbors that no one would want moving in next door. And "next door" is constantly getting closer and closer. As cities and suburbs expand into once-rural areas, new homeowners increasingly "complain of noise and safety," according to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service deputy director Conley Moffett.3 This report documents the problems that shooting ranges bring to those who use them, their families, their neighbors, and even to entire communities stuck with the considerable costs of cleaning up the hazards that abandoned ranges leave behind. It suggests ways that local citizens can organize and take action to:
a) A measure of the growing disfavor with which firearms are held among the general public may be seen in the reported decision of the Make-A-Wish Foundation to reverse policy and no longer grant wishes that involve firearms or other weapons. The Foundation underwrites the wishes of children with terminal illnesses. "Make-A-Wish Opts To Shun Future Gun, Hunt Requests," The New Gun Week, July 1, 2000, 11. b) Firearms ownership has declined and those who own guns typically own more than one. In the 1950s, about half of American households reported owning a firearm. This dropped to just 35 percent by 1994. Only one in six adults owns a handgun. In 1994, just 10 percent of firearms owners held 77 percent of the privately owned guns in America. Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, Guns in America: Results of a Comprehensive National Survey on Firearms Ownership and Use, Summary Report (Washington, DC: Police Foundation, 1996). c) Since 1960, more than a million Americans have died in firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings. In 1998 alone, a total of 30,708 Americans died from gun violence. Of these, 17,424 deaths were suicides, 12,102 were homicides, 866 were unintentional fatalities, and 316 were of an undetermined nature. "Deaths: Final Data for 1998," National Vital Statistics Report 48, no. 11 (2000). d) "Everyone past toddler age should get the chance to shoot," advises Guns & Ammo magazine in a special section, "Recreational Shooting: Fun for the Whole Family," May 2000, 52. Back to Table of Contents All contents © 2001 Violence Policy Center
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| For the rest of the article please go < a href="http://www.vpc.org/studies/leadcont.htm">HERE. | |
(Excerpt) Read more at vpc.org ...
Both (Unless I'm wrong, there's only 2) indoor shooting ranges in the Denver area are in residential areas; Firing Line, and another right on 38th Ave(I can't think of their name). Personally, I don't go to these ranges because of their "One bullet per second" rule. I like going to National Forests to practice instead. Thanks to the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners for info on where it's still legal to shoot.
LOL!
Longrider, I developed my love for shooting with a single-shot .22 Stevens rifle, and I still love to shoot them.
I've told many people that when I was growing up in Ft. Stockton, Texas, I killed more mule deer with a .22 rifle than most people have seen.
I wish you could have been there yesterday to shoot Bigun's custom built .300 Winchester!
Talk about a sweet shooting weapon!!
SHEECH! WHERE do they FIND these idiots?
My next home will be out of the city so I'll be just a few minutes drive from a plinking area. A freind of mine at work is able to go in his backyard and fire away whenever with whatever he wants.
This is what is known is psychological circles as "projection." It is a pathological state in which one's own wishes or desires become aggrandized and attributed to the general public or in some cases, all of humanity. It is a hallmark of grandiosity and stunted ego development, since it marks an unhealthy need to have one's opinions validated by an external population instead of relying on a sense of self-worth.
For cripes' sake, why don't Sarah & Co. n't just hire a couple of unemployed comic book writers to manufacture their talking points? They'd do better than the authors of this ghastly essay.
Yeah, the shooting sports are in trouble. And talking pictures are just a passing fancy.
Can anyone guess which one I'd pick?
FWIW, NRA membership almost doubled in the last 2 years and if there is less hunters it is only because of the ongoing landgrabbing by the Govt.
As for shooting sports, I just went out yesterday and bought a Trius clay thrower and went to a park locally which is 0pen to the public for shooting and shot a hundred rounds. Ain't never done that before. Think I will make it a weekly Sunday event.
Must admit tho, as much as I love bird hunting, living in S.E. Michigan and not having any friends who shoot is a big deterrent in hunting.
If there's any FReepers here from Northern Michigan who enjoy partridge/woodcock hunting and wouldn't mind a flatlander who grew up in Boyne City taging along, please drop me a line......
Of course, this is Los Angeles.
--Boris
Yeah, whom did VPC interview for this exhaustingly documented and brilliantly reasoned expose? Some soccer mom high on Prozac? Geezus. Who is this "general public" they refer to, huh? Guar-an-tee ya they didn't show up on MY doorstep... How come *I* never get tapped for these bullsh!t reports on the "general public"...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.