Friday, July 28, 2006

No, As a Matter of Fact, I Haven't Blogged Anything Today!

It's Friday, after all, and I've been busy as all get-out. I did take my motorcycle out at lunch and ride for an hour, just to clear the cobwebs out of the bike's engine and my head. I rode up to toward the Continental Divide, and I was reminded of the Bob Seger song, Roll Me Away, where he's standing on the Divide, knowing he could go west or east, it was all up to him to decide:
And as the sunset faded
I spoke to the faintest first starlight
And I said next time
Next time
We'll get it right...
Well, it has been a long week. Spent too much time worrying last night and ended up at 2 AM watching Shaun of the Dead. No wonder I'm jello today.

Had a major meeting last night on the Forest Service antigun initiative — we're now officially the Ad Hoc Committee for the Preservation of Recreational User Rights, and we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. Attendees included the ubiquitous Col. Robert Brown, ace police trainer Diane Nicholl, John Higgs from Paladin Press, Firearms Coalition of Colorado President Steve Schreiner, NRA rep Darin Goens and several other long-time advocates.

How serious is the USFS antigun initiative? Well, despite representatives from the Department of Agriculture, which alledgedly controls the unruly mob of Clintonistas that pass for "Rangers," roundly denying that the USFS has called jihad on recreational shooting, the new "no shooting within 150 yards of a road" is now being enforced throughout the West. Posted signs are up in several states; citations are being handed out...and the ringer here is that federal law says, "no shooting within 150 yards of an occupied area." My own attorney read the statutes and said the law clearly doesn't not include "roads" as "occupied areas."

You can read the details here, from last June, when the jihad first came to light. In short, USFS Greenies, who readily tell everyone who will listen that they are the USFS"law" in their districts, opted to revise federal law all on their ownsy, and since nobody stepped on them last year, they've expanded the jihad.

Let me make this perfectly clear — if we don't stop this USFS antigun initiative in its tracks, there will be precedents on the books for shutting down whole national forests to recreations shooting and plinking. Yes, they already do that in California, but USFS has never been able to pull off a total ban — and that is clearly what they are after — outside of that beknighted state. USFA is now bleating like a goosed sheep that, "hunting won't be affected."

Yet.

If you believe that antigun activists will stop at shutting down recreational shooting, I have a lovely bridge I'd like to sell you!!!

The Ad Hoc Committee will be ramping up our national efforts, aimed at legislators and our own lobbyists to make sure they understand the seriousness of this issue. This is the real deal, folks.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please let us know as soon as you are ready to accept contributions.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for doing this. BTW, the link to the federal code in your original post is broken (at least for me). If anyone else is looking for the actual federal law, this should get you to the part-261 page, and from there you can pick 261.10 in either PDF or txt format

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's time for Henry Bowman to "feed the hogs".

Anonymous said...

Why don't you hold a monthly shoot in the place where it is legal to shoot and hire some of the Rainbow People to be security? They will probably work cheap and the greenies seem to be deathly afraid of them.

Anonymous said...

Michael -

As you note, FS Policy 261.10 does not support interpretation of roads as "occupied areas." Where have these bogus citations been issued and do you have any details/links re: circumstances?

Thanks for putting out the warning on this one. Never trust a pinche greenie!!

Rec Shooter/F&G Guy in AZ

Michael Bane said...

The Firearms Coalitionof Colorado is compiling data now. It's hard because whenever we query the USFS on ANYTHING, they tell us they "lack the resources" to maintain effective record-keeping.

They also state they "lack the resources" to enforce the anti-litter/anti-dumping laws or, apparently, any other federal statute that doesn't directly effect recreational shooters.

They seem to have plenty of resources to run witch-hunts...the 3 public meetings in the Front Range used Rangers from around the Rocky Mt. West, bought in at Forest Service expense, plus initially a huge law enforcement presence, on the clock and at taxpayer expense, in case Bob or Steve or Diane or I "went postal." The meetings were held at schools, because Colorado has a law prohibiting CCW on school grounds...for heaven's sake!

mb

Anonymous said...

If I had $1 for every time I heard the "lack of resources" excuse I could buy at least one nice 1911 like your C&S. Hear it as a private citizen, hear it all the time when doing agency-to-agency business wearing my F&G hat. Absolute BS.

Keep up the good work and please post info compiled by the CO Firearms Coalition if possible.