Target Shooting Ban Of Another Color - Granite Grok

Target Shooting Ban Of Another Color

“Despite the enormous role that local government plays in our daily lives, the constitution makes not one mention of it.” Anthony Albanese

Target ShootingHunting has been spared…or has it? Last night, the Londonderry Town Council voted 4-0, to restrict “target shooting” in the 1,000-Acre Musquash Conservation Land in Londonderry, NH.  Non-Hunting target shooters are effectively banned. Period.

The measure adopted would impose the following rules on shooting in the Musquash:

  • All target shooting on Musquash Conservation Land would be confined to Deer and Turkey Season.

  • To “target shoot,” one would have to have a Valid Hunting License. Target shooters would be required to “check in” with the Londonderry Police Department.

  • Firearms used for target practice would be restricted to only those legal to use during hunting season, in keeping with Wildlife Management Unit M restrictions. .22 caliber would also be allowed.

The ordnance will go into effect immediately.

Anatomy of a Shooting Ban

target shootingThe four town councilors voting for this measure, all enjoy some commonalities.
  • All, moved to the Granite State from some place else;
  • All, do not hunt or shoot;
  • All, have demonstrated recently, or in the past, a bias against hunting and shooting.
  • All, have been presented with numerous opportunities and invites to learn about shooting and hunting, with goal of having an informed view, yet none have accepted.
  • All, have formed whatever opinions they have from limited sources and various public comments.

In May of last year, Councilor Tom Freda asserted,

“Hunting in the Musquash is far more dangerous than target shooting…Hundreds of people get shot every year in Hunting Accidents…”
That little uninformed snippet of charlatanry was put out there by Lowell Massachusetts native, Tom Freda who advocates banning hunting.
Councilor Joe Greene remarked,
“Its like a cowboy shoot-out out there…”
Target shooting
Londonderry Councilor Joe Greene

When the discussion’s focus was the activities of the Londonderry Fish & Game Club and Greene was in attendance at a youth soccer game. The game, however, was at Continental Field on West Road near the Hudson Londonderry Town Line. In that area the Hudson Police maintain a range and shooters use the power line corridors to shoot, not Londonderry Fish & Game Club.

In the past several years, Councilor Tom Dolan has engaged in Kabuki Theater of sorts, seeking a “suitable place to build a public shooting range.” Councilor Dolan commissioned several town officials to study the Musquash Conservation land to find a suitable location. None could be found, the report concluded.

Finally, Councilor John Farrell held a special Town Meeting on the private property of Londonderry Country Club to hear “range noise.” It was this period when shooting in the Musquash gained the most focus.

The town council has done an excellent job keeping this issue on the horizon…Shooting in the Musquash has taken ink in nearly every local and regional publication for the last five years. One might conclude from the articles that there is shooting going on every day, all hours in the conservation land; “24-7” as Councilor Green once quipped. Hikers and Bikers have to dodge bullets. Home are constantly being struck by bullets. None of it is true and the fallacy is grossly overstated.

During the week, there is virtually no shooting taking place in the Musquash. Weekends are the times when target shooting takes place. There are bubbles. Shooting activities peak between 10 AM and 2 PM. Activity comes in ebbs and flows, but not nearly to the degree they would have us believe.

Hunting Ban?

If I had a nickel for every time the town government asserted, “We have no problem with Hunting. We do not want to ban hunting” I would be a wealthy man. Despite that, Councilor Mark Oswald took a run at banning Hunting eight years ago. It has already been done.

Despite those ubiquitous and continued assertions, We’ve borne witness to considerable time, effort and energy in discussions related to baiting, tree stands and locations where people hunt. At no time did the Conservation Commission invite the feedback and input of New Hampshire Fish & Game for feedback and input regarding hunting laws pertaining to baiting or tree stands. At no time did they ask anybody from the hunting community for input about baiting or how tree stands are used. The discussion focused on regulating or restricting the activities. Town Counsel Mike Ramsdell was engaged in these conversations.

Three Dimensions, One issue

A chinese proverb tell us, “At the feast of ego, everyone leaves hungry…” And the issue now rests in ignorant bliss as a “compromise” between the shooting/hunting community and the hiking/biking/whine-about-damn-near-everything, community. But is it?

The first dimension of this so-called, “compromise” is how this will affect hunting in general. First, should the “hunters” go to the Musquash for target practice, they will be creating pressure on the game animals, driving them or pushing them. Deer season opens today…for Archery hunters.

Active target practice in the Musquash, will decrease the likelihood of hunting success. Prior to this ordnance, Hunting seasons are such that target shooting activities slow down substantially. By creating that window in Deer and Turkey Seasons, there may be an increase in target shooting. While the effect is unclear, those concretely predicting the effect are naive.

Hunters generally have no need to target practice during hunting season because most hunters have already sighted in their shotguns and muzzleloaders prior to the opening of Hunting Season.

Inversely, This ordnance effectively proscribes target shooting where a significant number of target shooters are non-hunters. N.H. Law mandates those who want to hunt, obtain a Hunter Safety certificate to purchase a license. Shooters are not going to participate in Hunter Education to merely target practice.  So target shooters are effectively banned.

Finally, as time passes, we will eventually see a move to ban hunting activities in the Musquash Conservation Land. This is inevitable.  Counselors today have all the political cover they need to say otherwise, but lets face it: They are not going to hold their council seats in perpetuity. Moreover, several towns across New Hampshire already have bans on hunting in their public lands. It nearly always comes, be it five years or ten years.  This legislation today, greases the skids for that effort and while the current slate of councilors won’t have to fall on their swords, fact is, the town contributed to it.

Easy Solutions Not Looked at

At no time has the town ever undertaken an educational effort. While they found there was, “no safe place to shoot in the Musquash, for many years people did just that, without anyone ever being seriously hurt. Indeed, there are those who said bullets hit their houses or they dodged bullets, but I challenge the credibility of those assertions. We’ve never seen any police reports, or bullets dug out of the side of a home. Does it happen? who knows?…but not on the scale portrayed in this particular ongoing conversation.

Were wide-scale bullet-dodging taking place, it would seem we’d not ever hear the end of that. We’ d see the stories in the Union Leader, Tribune, Derry News, and perhaps WMUR. Yet such assertions never even came close to the cacophonous crescendo  shooting itself and gunfire noise.

Did the town ever designate target shooting areas without shutting down the whole property?  No. Instead, when a popular area was found for target shooting, a trail conveniently appeared through it or behind it.

Under that rationale, How is Londonderry Fish & Game Club a safer place to shoot when the conversation focuses on distances and locations?

A well-known custodian of the Conservation Land has repeatedly denied this, yet new trails are constantly being constructed. Conservation Committeman Mike Considine has stated all along, “we need to get rid of the guns in the Musquash.” All or nothing. 

Did the town ever meaningfully reach out to the target shooters in town and form a volunteer committee to assist with managing the shooting in the Musquash? No. The terms of the conversation about firearms and shooting have been dictated by councilors, commission members and the loudest complainers.

The town essentially, kicked the can down the road and those who were loudest and most vocal were heard, despite their small minority.

Despite the insistence there was no safe place anywhere to shoot in the Musquash, The Londonderry Police Department maintains a shooting range facing the Londonderry Country Club. That is not a criticism, but an observation. An observation that effort is applied where the will is applied.

No-Hunting-3 If we are completely candid, the underlying issue here is nobody wants a public range near their home. A suggestion was recently made to construct a range at the town disposal and residents ramped up to say no. Ultimately, a range has to go somewhere. If some had their way, LFGC would be out of business.

Under the current situation where Musquash hikers and bikers openly harass target shooters, what is to say that will not continue during Deer and Turkey Season? Like anything else in life, those with the short attention spans will read only the components of the ordnance they feel relevant. Both shooters and non-shooters alike.

But there is this…

  207:57 Harassment. –
    I. No person shall purposely obstruct or impede the participation of any individual in the lawful activity of hunting, fishing or trapping while that individual is in a designated hunting area on public lands. No person shall enter or remain in a designated hunting area on any state lands with the intent to purposely obstruct or impede the participation of any individual in the lawful activity of hunting, fishing or trapping.

That is the state statute outlawing Hunter harassment. Despite that, some will continue to harass hunters.

In summary, Londonderry has banned target shooting in the Musquash where non-hunters are concerned. Londonderry has seriously discarded hunting, negatively affecting the ability to hunt. Londonderry has created an enforcement challenge in that those who take issue with the ban will disregard it.

This ordnance will go unchallenged unless somebody steps forward to challenge it.

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