Community takes ignorant shots at shooting park

On the list of 100 all-time best sports movie quotes posted at ESPN.com is a classic line from "Hoosiers," the 1986 basketball movie in which Gene Hackman plays Norman Dale, a previously disgraced college basketball coach who gets the chance for a do over in a small Indiana town.

After being dismissed by the new coach, George, who had assumed interim coaching duties, said to Dale, "Look, mister, there's two kinds of dumb. Uh, guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, uh, guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don't matter; the second one you're kinda forced to deal with."

Such is the case with those Carmel Canyon homeowners who have taken up the arms of ignorance to fight against the Clark County Shooting Park. Intent on stopping the park's development, which has been in the works for more than two decades and formalized long before the first homes were built in Carmel Canyon, this group is betting on emotion and ignorance to bring construction to a halt. Why let facts and a lengthy history get in the way?

Following their unsuccessful ambush of Park Manager Don Turner, Las Vegas Councilman Steve Ross and state Sen. John Lee during a meeting last month at the Aliante Library, the homeowners are targeting parents of students who attend Shadow Ridge High School. The school is located at the corner of Decatur Boulevard and Brent Lane. The shooting park is under construction at the north end of Decatur, its nearest shooting line more than 11/2 miles from the school.

Led by Nick Uchyn, who bought his Carmel Canyon home in 2006, the homeowners have been busy handing out fliers near the high school. The fliers imply the shooting range will be the spawning ground for drive-by shootings, stray bullets flying into school grounds and lead dust billowing into the sky.

Said Turner, who previously managed the Ben Avery Shooting Range in Phoenix: "The people who take the time to go to a formal shooting park are not the same people who are involved in drive-by shootings. These are people who are trying to be safe and take the time to travel to a controlled, safe environment."

Formal shooting ranges are designed specifically with bullet containment in mind, and trained range safety officers supervise them. Most, if not all, outdoor ranges are lined with tall berms of dirt to catch bullets as they travel down range.

In the mid-1990s, I toured several ranges located along Utah's populous Wasatch Front. All are well used and their safety records impeccable. At the Clark County Shooting Park, the individual shooting ranges will be oriented to the north so shooters will be firing in the opposite direction from any development. Recreational shooters already are shooting in the desert near Carmel Canyon. Would it make more sense to have them shooting in an uncontrolled environment or in one specifically designed with firearms safety in mind?

As for the lead issue, and contrary to what Uchyn and company would have you believe, lead shotgun pellets do not turn to dust when hitting a clay bird. They will not drift like a dark cloud of pestilence. Rather, they will fall to the ground where they periodically can be removed through federally approved lead mining practices. Case studies indicate that in arid areas with high alkaline soils like those found here, lead bullets or shot do not dissolve but will remain in their original form.

I wonder if the Carmel Canyon folks realize thousands of school-age kids across the United States safely participate in organized shooting programs each year. The Scholastic Clay Target Program is one, the 4-H Shooting Program is another. And would you believe that somewhere in my collection of hats is one promoting Nebraska's high school trap shooting championship?

The world must be coming to an end.

Doug Nielsen is an award-winning freelance writer and a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His column is published Thursday. He can be reached at doug@takinitoutside.com.