Gadsen
More importantly, learn about your township boards, city councils, and county commishioners views on guns. Much of the zoning laws and the like are on that level, not to mention that todays township supervisor is tomorrow's state rep.
I haven't heard of range closing in Livingston County, but when I was growing up there, there was 100,000 people in the county. Now there is 150,000+ and and is rapidly developing. IT's becoming suburbia. I used to be able to hunt across the street from my dad's house. Not anymore. Too many homes.
We need to make more inroads in the cities in the shooting sports, and we need to control sprawl as well. This is a conservative issue.
I don't believe it. The anti-gun people would never misuse the legal system to harass people who are politically inconvenient in order to push their agenda. /sarcasm
Gadsen
Most of the "sportsman's clubs" in the area are nothing more than drinking teams with hunting and fishing problems, and their yearly fees are outrageous with sometimes a year or two waiting list just to get in - provided you have the bucks.
However, there is a country store/gun shop just down the road from me where the owner lets me shoot out back. (My wife works there and I'm one of his best customers.) It's only 100 yds, but a good place to shoot handguns or get a new scope to hit the paper. I just recently did some work for a fellow who owns land near the Licking River (yes, that's the real name). By my best estimate so far, his flats along the river are in the 400+ yd. range. I offered to pay him to use the area. He only asked that I don't drink or litter in the area. I told him the only sign of me being there would be an occasional stray casing. The .308 will surely get a workout this summer.
Finding a decent range to shoot is sometimes frustrating - even though I live in the country. Since I'm a strong supporter of private property rights, I don't think fighting "urban sprawl" is necessarily the answer. If someone wants to develop his land, that's his right. I think once the anti's get the "environmental hazard" ball rolling to shut down ranges, urban sprawl will be the least of our worries.
Any of you guys have problems finding a suitable range? When it comes time for me to buy another house, range area will be priority number one.
Back in the sixties and seventies I could get in a car, ride a little out of town and set up a range in the woods or field. Now I have an 11 year old son and I can only take him to an indoor range. He doesn't like it and I don't blame him because feral jocks bring 45-70 or whatever pistols to the range and make the place sound like a nuclear test site. We just want to shoot our .22's, .410's and .38's. But we have nowhere to go. I think NRA needs to do something like the Nature Conservancy and buy land that people can shoot on. I know that I give minimal to the NRA but I will give all I can to an effort like this.
When I moved to Ogden, Utah I found they had a nice shooting range real close by that only costs $30 a year for a membership or $3 per day. The range is only open on the weekends in the winter however.
There is a major problem with the need for shooting ranges in the United States, especially in the liberal states.
Always a bad idea to make deals with the devil. Government money means lose of rights. I don't care if it's states taking Federal grants, or schools or shooting ranges. It's wrong to get tangled in the state money octopus. There will always be strings attached to any money from any government.