Environmentalists Target Gun Rights
by Larry Pratt

If anti-gun zealots in government are frustrated that they have not
yet been able to completely infringe on our right to keep and bear
arms, the United States Forest Service (USFS) has found a
politically correct issue to use against gun owners.

In Azusa, California, there is a shooting range in the city’s
mountain suburb. The Burro Canyon Shooting Park opened with a bang
in November, 1993 on a 76 acre allotment near the Angeles National
Forest.

Since the Shooting Park is on land unconstitutionally owned and
administered by the United States government, Burro Canyon operates
with a permit from the USFS, itself an unconstitutional agency
desperately in need of elimination.

About a year ago, the USFS discovered that the railroad ties in use
at the range had to be removed because the creosote in them was
disturbing the pristine environment of Burro Canyon. This creosote
is apparently different from that in the telephone poles all over
other federally protected land.

Well, the railroad ties went, but trouble was just starting.
Through an alleged irregularity in the deeding of the 76 acres for
the Shooting Park, in spite of the USFS’s earlier approval, the
Rangers managed to whack the Shooting Park down to four acres.

Then the Shooting Park was told to be sure that all that horrible
human activity that occurs there would not endanger any exotic
plants. You see, the natural habitat must not be disturbed. By the
way, the Burro Canyon Shooting Park sits on top of a landfill.

By October of 2000 the USFS discovered that shotgun shells are an
environmental threat, and the Shooting Park was not picking them all
up.

Next the USFS decided that there was too much picnicking going on,
so the picnic tables had to go. Ooops — haven’t you gotten rid of
all those metal plates the cops used for their long range practice?
“Why, you’re not in compliance. Those plates are polluting the
pristine Canyon.”

Finally, after months of a death-by-a-thousand-cuts, the Burro
Canyon shooting park closed on January 2, 2001.

The anti-gun nuts in the bureaucracy have managed to squelch
constitutional freedom under the guise of protecting the
environment.

Doesn’t this make you want to go hug a tree?

[Larry Pratt is Executive Director of Gun Owners of America located
at 8001 Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151 and at
http://www.gunowners.org on the web.]