Posted on 03/18/2006 11:35:20 AM PST by BenLurkin
HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- Erosion by wind and water is a big part of the story at Makoshika State Park, a place of badlands and dinosaur fossils, bobcats and bluebirds. Now some people who enjoy firing guns at a range there fear erosion of what they have come to view as an entitlement.
The state parks agency plans to eliminate a decades-old rifle range at Makoshika, a rolling expanse of peculiar sandstone formations in eastern Montana. The 11,500-acre park gets about 54,000 visits a year, and is especially popular among gun enthusiasts in Glendive, about a quarter-mile from the rifle range and its plywood targets.
"Things have changed," said Tom Reilly, an assistant administrator in the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "Now we have a visitor center on one side and a public campground on the other."
Shooting may disturb people who "come from New Jersey to camp and wake up to gunfire," he said "We may be used to that, living here, but others may not be."
The state agency's new 10-year management plan for Makoshika calls for moving the shooting range, but no new site has been selected.
That concerns Glendive shooters such as Ernest Huether, who sells and repairs guns. He worries the alternative to the state range will be a private one, with fees and a less convenient location.
Another shooter, Henry Mischel of the Dawson County Rod & Gun Club, said state planners should keep in mind that guns are a traditional part of life in Montana.
His response to concerns about visitors: "I don't like the sound of sirens when I go to a big city, but I have to deal with it."
Mischel said the rifle range has existed at least for the 50 years he has lived in Glendive. On a busy day, the range - passed by visitors heading to the park's interior - draws dozens of shooters carrying handguns and rifles.
The new Makoshika plan, prepared after study of recommendations from a public advisory group, was approved in late 2005 by Jeff Hagener, director of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
The state commission overseeing the agency will take up an appeal Monday by John N. Haas of Glendive, who has challenged removal of the range. Eliminating it might be OK were there a suitable replacement, but one has not been found, Haas said.
"I'm not sure that a suitable replacement site exists - it depends on what is defined as suitable," he wrote in the appeal. And without an alternative site, he said, "future development within the park cannot successfully be planned around a faulty assumption that the range will be moved."
There have been no reports of accidents or close calls associated with the range, but the plan says "the possibility of a misfire" into a populated area cannot be ignored.
"People wander all over," said Jim Swanson of the park advocacy group Friends of Makoshika. "They can drop over a hill and, boom, they're right in a rifle range."
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Has it really come to this?
Oh, poor, poor babies!
Hell, I was awakened three times during the night to the sounds of gunfire right in downtown San Francisco, the last time I was there.
You can bet that those shots weren't meant to be harmless like those are at that range in Montana!
Seems to me a few signs could let people know they're walking behind a firing range. Duh!
As for the folks in New Jersey, visit or don't. The park is in Montana.
Seems to me they'd have to practically be looking for a place to get upset about to go that far and then complain about what existed there for over fifty years.
"People wander all over," said Jim Swanson of the park advocacy group Friends of Makoshika. "They can drop over a hill and, boom, they're right in a rifle range."
With "Friends" like Jim, who needs enemies?
That settles it. Montana has been Kalifornicated.
Libs from NJ saturating MT should be use to gunfire from the frequency of the NJ mobsters.
If they don't like it, let them go back to their nice, quiet, safe city.
You think Blago could install a nice target range near Chicago?
Perhaps someone should tell them that Dick Cheney likes to camp there.
Problem solved!
Bull, there's a rifle range in Ringwood State Park. Not to different from this setup.
Newark....Camden....Jersey City....
They wake up in their bedrooms and hear to gunfire. They will feel at home.
great: trample on locals in order to pander to tourists. what a boot-licking serf-like excuse this is.
If such a long-standing rifle range were closed, consider how much lead & metals would be in the ground "generally" close to/behind the target area? Superfund site?
ull, there's a rifle range in Ringwood State Park"
Makes one wonder how much time that one has too.
Uuuuuhhhhh....... maybe they shouldn't have built the visitor center and campground near the gun range!?
But then again Montana did vote for a dumbocRAT governor. To many Kaliforni types moving into a common sense state.
Eh, I think the state NJ was just used as an example, since it said "may disturb". BTW, NJ is loaded with gun clubs and ranges. The type of people venturing out west to camp are not likely to be our scumbag liberals that have a foot hold in the political realm at the time. If you happen to identify the Jersey camper as a liberal by all means use it for target practice.
Don't give them any ideas!
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