The February 14, 2015 article How do you feel about a shooting range in Cook County? begs a response. There is a significant need for such a facility.
The need is not limited to local sportsmen, however, but has much greater application: The Sheriff’s Department, State Troopers, U.S. Customs, Border Patrol, DNR, and U.S. Forest Service all have armed personnel that need to requalify on a regular basis.
It must be noted that while the closure of existing pits has been attributed to alleged “safety concerns,” I am unaware of anyone in the county being injured while using such areas. Several years ago I was using a pit in Hovland when I was accosted by an irate individual who claimed that I was shooting over his house on Moose Valley Road. I tried to explain to him where we were, where his house was, and the direction in which I was shooting. He would have none of it. Several weeks later a gate was erected on the road, and effectively closed three pits to public use.
As a result of much letter writing to the USFS, DNR and Department of Transportation, two of the affected pits were reopened, however one, the one at which I was shooting, remains closed. It appears that all that’s required to close a pit is an unsubstantiated claim of “safety concerns” in spite of a decades-long history of safe use.
Range development, operation and maintenance need not be expensive. The pit(s) selected are already in public ownership; improvements needed are limited and finite (grading, benches, roofing over the benches, and target berm construction). Annual operation and maintenance costs would be minimal, and the development and subsequent O & M could be covered by the users. The range could be operated as so many have been throughout the country, without range officers or other active, on-site management and supervision. The only remaining issue is one of insurance, and policies specific to shooting ranges are available.
Clearly a shooting range would be a broad-spectrum, low cost benefit to the county, that, employing the abovedescribed approach, would not compete with the YMCA for its funding….
Nevin D. Holmberg
Hovland
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