Utah Congressman Blake Moore has introduced a bill requiring the National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to provide a public shooting range in every National Forest and BLM district. The Range Access Act’s stated goal is to promote and expand access to safe recreational target shooting facilities.
Increased Conservation Funding
The bill looks to leverage revenues generated by the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act, which funds conservation programs through an excise tax on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment. The Pittman-Robertson Act has provided over $15 billion to those programs since its enactment.
Moore says that increased range access will also create more Pittman-Robertson funds as new shooters will have a place to practice, thus driving more taxable sales. A record 21 million firearms have been sold in 2022, on top of 18.5 million in 2021. Moore wants to incentivize those new shooters to practice their skills. This, again, would drive more revenue to conservation programs through Pittman-Robertson.
Moore also hopes increased range access will reduce trash used for impromptu targets on public land. “I’m frankly tired of visiting our public lands and seeing shot-up toasters and TVs,” he said. “This bill aims to establish appropriate shooting facilities to clean up pollution, promote safe shooting, and hopefully recruit more outdoor recreationists to help fund wildlife management in America.”
Keeping Public Land Open for Shooting
The Range Access Act would mandate that the Forest Service and BLM “ensure that each qualifying National Forest and BLM district has at least one designated public recreational shooting range that does not require a fee, thus promoting wildlife conservation efforts and supporting local communities.”
Each range must accommodate rifles, pistols, and shotguns, and may accommodate archery. Ranges must also incorporate safety measures like berms, buffer distances, a designated firing line, and shooting benches.
The Forest Service and BLM would be required to consider the “proximity of areas frequently used by recreational shooters when identifying a suitable location for a designated shooting range.” They would also be required to provide a designated range before closing federal land to recreational shooting.
Industry Support
“This legislation is crucial to ensuring safe public recreational shooting,” said the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Larry Keane. “Congressman Moore’s bill would also benefit conservation by reducing pollution at non-dedicated ranges on federal public lands while also generating additional Pittman-Robertson Revenue.”
In addition to the NSSF, the bill is supported by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, the Boone and Crockett Club, Delta Waterfowl, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, the Mule Deer Foundation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Wild Sheep Foundation, Safari Club International, the Sportsmen’s Alliance, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and Ducks Unlimited.
Not a High Congressional Priority
Moore says that “This legislation is an important step in expanding access to recreational shooting practice. Americans from coast to coast love spending time in the outdoors, and expanding our ability to recreate on and enjoy our public lands is one of my core focuses in Congress. The Range Access Act would establish free shooting ranges for sportsmen to safely participate in target practice while supporting our wildlife conservation and local economies.”
The bill has been assigned to the House Natural Resources Committee but is not yet scheduled for a hearing. Moore, a Republican, has reached out to Democrat colleagues to co-sponsor the bill but has had no takers. He says that Democrats won’t support a bill dealing with guns and shooting so close to the mid-term elections.
“That’s too bad,” says Moore, because the Range Access Act “cleans up the environment, reduces fire danger, improves public safety, and raises more funding for wildlife management and habitat improvement. Those all sound like solidly bi-partisan topics to me.”
