We had a meeting with BLM today concerning recreational desert shooting. Our goals:
#1 reopen portions of BLM land to recreational desert shooting and leave existing areas open.
#2 make current BLM ranges safer.
#3 improve the existing BLM ranges for desert shooters.
We have convinced BLM that the design of their current ranges are not conducive to those that build firearms and test them in the desert, reload and want to test accuracy on paper, and/or chronograph their loads, mount optics or irons and want to sight-in, run practice drills or draw from holsters, run timed drills, shoot calibers like .338 Lapua or .50BMG with huge muzzle breaks, recover your brass for high end cartridges, etc.
What BLM agreed to was to accept recommendations from real shooters who want more than what indoor ranges and Ben Avery have to offer. They will give feedback on how they can address our recommendations, not like the perfunctory public meeting they had before building current BLM ranges.
What BLM hopes to gain out of this:
#1 Recommendations to improve safety on current ranges
#2 Improve current ranges to better serve desert shooters
#3 Methods to address the trash that casual desert shooters leave behind after shooting up a microwave, a big-screen TV, or glass that causes brush fires. Without methods to control trashing the desert, the march to close shooting on public lands will continue.
The approach, is to have a round table discussion on how best to address:
#1 What we need and want as shooters
#2 Can BLM meet our desires in constructed ranges
#3 How to police the idiots that are destroying open desert, causing more closures.
Planning is already in process for “Table Mesa recreation area”.
If you are interested in participating in a roundtable discussion to help, send a message with your contact information. The date has not been set, the location will be a room at the BLM office 2020 E Bell Road, no personal information will be shared with BLM unless the group decides they want their contact info shared.
FYI, BLM says this is a testbed for a national program for all shooting on all BLM land nationwide. There are many issues that should concern all shooters and manufacturers alike.
Elite Industry Partners
