NRA-ILA Alert - Rampart Range Rd and other

[shilly]

Long time since I posted, but today's NRA-ILA Report noted that the National Forest Service is trying to keep this range closed - even though the report of the recent shooting there did not find that the shooting was a result of the design of the range. Please read the following alert and follow-up with the Forest Service and our Congressmen. We should have places on public lands in Colorado where we can shoot. I did not even know that they had shut down the Pawnee Grasslands.

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COLORADO: Support Needed to Re-Open Rampart Shooting Range! Following an accidental shooting last July, the Forest Service closed the very popular and heavily used Rampart Shooting Range on the Pike National Forest. In its nearly 20 year history, Rampart had never before experienced a shooting-related injury or fatality. Rampart is the only free public range in El Paso County and receives 40,000 visitors a year. The Service called the closure a "time-out" in order to assess whether the design of the range was a factor. An investigation determined that the range was not a factor in the accident. Safety experts have said that the accident could have happened at any range. But after it closed Rampart, the Forest Service devised a scheme to keep the range closed permanently.
The Forest Service has listed requirements that must be met before it will reopen Rampart. There is no timetable for meeting these requirements and likely no money to cover costs. The most significant issue is the requirement of full time supervision. Most ranges on federal lands operate without supervision and this requirement could place all such ranges in jeopardy. Rampart Range is in need of improvements which were identified more than two years ago. Such improvements can be addressed and implemented with the range reopened. The Forest Service has said that it could take up to five years before Rampart is reopened, but there is no guarantee that it would reopen Rampart in that timeframe or at any time in the future.
NRA has been working to get Rampart Range reopened since the day it was closed, but we need the help of Colorado hunters and shooters to show the Forest Service and your elected officials that the federal government cannot continue to close public lands to recreational shooting, and certainly not without replacing those areas lost with other areas of the same or great value. Rampart Shooting Range is an important resource for the shooting community along the Front Range. There is no incentive for the Forest Service to reopen Rampart unless the shooting sports community demands it!
Shooting ranges on public lands are few and far between in Colorado. In addition to the closure of Rampart, the Forest Service has closed its lands to recreational shooting near Boulder and on the Pawnee Grasslands, and large acreage closures have occurred west of Sedalia. The Forest Service is not planning for recreational shooting. Closures are imposed without opening new areas and needed improvements to existing areas, including the Rampart Shooting Range, have not been made. Recreational shooting is not being treated by the Forest Service in Colorado as a legitimate and valued recreational activity on forest lands.

Please send an e-mail in support of the immediate reopening of Rampart to:
Tom Tidwell, Chief of the Forest Service, atttidwell@fs.fed.us, and copy your letter to:
Senator Mark Udall at senator_mark_udall@markudall.senate.gov,
Senator Michael Bennet at http://bennet.senate.gov/contact/,
Congressman Doug Lamborn at CO05ima@mail.house.gov, and
Governor Bill Ritter by clicking here.
Please stress that keeping the range closed is not supportable by the investigative report; that the closure has robbed the shooting community of a valuable resource; and that needed improvements to the range can be planned and implemented without closure.


Thank you for your help
Steve "shilly" Schilffarth

[Hedley Lamarr]

I didn't realize Rampart had that much traffic (40,000 per year), so I would hope more people will voice their desire to have it reopened. To me it needs a thorough clean up more than full time supervision. While keeping it clean would be a challenge, this could help people get in the range safety mentality better than the free-for-all garbage dump that it has been in the past.

From looking at the Forest Service website, it appears they closed a small section of Pawnee but I couldn't find any details on why. This is yet another place where we need to remain vigilant on keeping open.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/arnf/conditi...ng/index.shtml

[theGinsue]

The section of Pawnee that got close is because a few dumbasses weren't paying any attenetion to what was BEHIND where they were shooting - namely HOMES. After enough homeowners complained that bullets were flying past their houses and children, the closure occured.

What Rampart needs is two a two-part solution. First, the cleanup - immediately followed by the installation of tall fences with narrow gaps of cement filled 8 ft posts to pass through. This could help control the LARGE items that get drug out there, shot up, then left to become everyone elses problem.

Of course, the place will never be particularly safe with the carelessness displayed by so many folks who use the place. This might be improved by having the place supervised, but I wouldn't bet my life on it (literally).

BTW: Nice post Headey - you should stop by the New Member Sign In & introduce yourself.

[m4bangr]

I sent an email to Tim Tidwell and copied Udall, Bennet and Lamborn. Didn't waste my time with Ritter. Email bounced for Udall and Bennet, not sure why.
Bottom line is, we need to try to save these places. Rampart need improvements and its surely not the safest place to shoot. But dammit, these ass clowns keep trying to shut us out of these places without any alternatives.
I mentioned that not only does Rampart need to be re-opened, but we need additional ranges created. One death in 20 years is very unfortunate but a pretty damn good record in anyones book. How many skiers die on the slopes every winter? Is the NFS going to shut down the ski slope? Not on your life, all hell would break loose. But one fatality on a shooting range and OMG we have to save these people from themselves.
WRITE TO THESE PEOPLE!!!