I just saw this posted on NRA website:



Anyone planning on attending to represent the shooting community?  It's already tough enough to find open shooting locations..

Seriously?  Evergreen State College?

They always put these open houses in strange locations and on work days at that.  Makes it very difficult for the actual working class citizen to make it.  

Not to mention the meeting at the Burlington High School cafeteria is during a school day - even at 6:30PM there will still likely be students on campus for extracurricular stuff  

This topic is discussed here also; http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_8_15/599723_Firearm_use_in_Tahuya_Forest.html

The time is convenient for many people as long as they work usual daylight hours and are not too far away from the meeting place.  I went to the Mason County meeting last week, it was productive.

Randy

I'll be at the one in Vancouver.  I notified everyone I know with a gun.

I already posted this a couple weeks ago.  

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_8_15/599655_Vancouver_Shooters___Public_meeting_May_31st.html

So I am at the Burlington meeting. No really strange horsepeople. Well, maybe two.

Some good ideas, some really shitty ideas.

Thanks for going.   So what's the consensus?

There are / were 4 meeting scheduled.
Tahuya
Yacolt Burn
Harry Osborne
Capitol state forests

Each of these areas have been identified by the DNR as having the largest number of recreational shooters and issues with other recreational users.
That's part of the reason why there are no meetings in King or Snohomish or the east side of the state (as of yet)

With Tahuya and Capitol Forest and the Yacolt Burn area's it's with ORV's, with the Harry Osborn area it's horses.
So the DNR is approaching each of these areas with different mindsets.

In tonight's meeting I was figuring on there being rabid anti-gunners and crazy libtard horse people there.
What I found was the people that were there were about 95% in support of shooting.
I really only heard one person say that target shooting should be banned in the HO forest, and she left soon after that comment.

The issue is that target shooting is becoming more and more popular, and with the closing of other lands (both private and .gov) it is "funneling" more people into smaller areas, much like what's happened with Walker Valley after Reiter Pit was closed and "reworked".
This is causing conflicts with the rest of the users in the state forest lands.

What the DNR is doing is trying to figure out how to keep target shooting alive and well in DNR managed land and how to allow shooting without impacting other users.

So the DNR is having these meeting and gathering information from users of the forests.

Some of what the DNR said is spot on, getting the NRA involved, looking for actual no shit funding for shooting areas from the state and the .feds (ammo tax money anyone).
Actually setting standards for no shit shooting areas, ranges with backstops (not just gravel pits), benches, identified shooting lanes.

Getting gun clubs involved with the management of the land.
I bought up how Walker Valley works, the Skagit Motorcycle Club is the "managing partner" with the DNR as far as motorcycle trails go.
They do scheduled maintenance on the trails and take part in the management of the area.

I also brought up the old Granite Falls pit and how the WA ARFcom Hometown Forum, for a couple brief years, used to do semi-organized clean-up's out there (even though it was private property).
Local gun clubs should be able to get involved with helping to manage local shooting areas.

To me it was a positive meeting, the DNR has an open mind.
You have to remember that this is the first time the DNR has ever looked at target shooting with an eye to the future.

As far as the 4 areas go, three of them are destinations.
Tahuya, Yacolt Burn, and Capitol State.
You have people from all over the place visiting those areas, and no one really lives in "their backyard".

With the Harry Osborne forest it's more of the backyard for the people that live in the Concrete / Hamilton / Lyman / Sedro Wooly and the Hwy 20 area.
There were a lot of people there who were very adamant about the DNR not taking away "their shooting areas".
This meeting had a very family orientated feel about it.

The DNR said this is going to be an 18-24 month process.

Did you go to the Vancouver meeting? If you did, which group did you break off in to and what was your take?


 

I did, I was in the group by the door.  I thought it was a pretty good meeting but thought the head speaker seemed to be less than enthused about the topic. The rest of the DNR folks were on board or seemed to be.  The group I was in was mixed bikers and shooters and there was a guy and gal pissing and moaning about shooters, couldn't tell if they shooters or not.

I guess we shall see if they set up another meeting and what the next steps are.  I was shocked to hear them say meetings were had frequently for others groups but this was the first for shooters.

I hope something comes of this, didn't seem like they were talking about doing anything reasonably quickly.

Staying tuned.  

Art

This is going to happen.
It's not going to be a fast process.

18-24 months before they even start to do anything.

I agree and wasn't expecting to see bulldozers pushing in backstops by the end of summer, but it appears to be a few years before anything is made.  Hopefully with a slow approach, areas will be created that will stay and not be encroached on. The longer the wait and the expansion of other hobbies only restricts places for shooting spots.  

I was happy to see as many folks turn out for the meeting (~80ish) and many were headstrong on getting the DNR to stay the course.  
I was expecting somebody to start complaining about EPA issues with lead and more negative feedback but I only heard the 2 folks near me.

The other problem is what ever we get, keeping them usable and somehow policing the turds that ruin shooting spots.  
I'm excited and hoping things move in the right direction.    

Have a good weekend.

Art