Whats wrong with WA shooters?

[NoLeftTurns]

I have to say, all of you west coasters suck at driving. From Canada to Cali, I have yet to see someone speed up to merge properly, use a turn signal correctly, or even drive the speed limit on the interstate. Although hands down Canadians seem the worst. I have seen way way too many people change three lanes at the last second, pull a u-turn in the middle of the road, blow through a red light, and Mexican roadblock the highways. I'm surprised natural selection hasn't reduced the population out here.
On topic, the trash in the shooting areas is terrible. Back in Colorado I know we shot just as many guns but I never have seen the level of garbage I see out here. Luckily someone has put a dumpster near my favorite spot, probably out of their disgust. Thanks whomever, I'd like to buy you some beers! I think we had reduced garbage back home because we had access to outdoor ranges that were unsupervised. That meant we could shoot by ourselves in the Forrest with marked distances, in a safe manner. Imagine that. Also they weren't like 2 hours away from the city. Then all the trash is in one place where it can be cleaned periodically.
Give people a place to go, or they will find a place anyways! You can't legislate out what's ingrained in people.

 

[RVTECH]

Don't like the forest being messy pitch in and help, get groups together

And I did just this yesterday. A group of us went looking for the 'old', little known range between LaPine and Crescent and lo and behold we were able to find it and were pleasantly surprised to not only find it but it has been refurbished and is a very nice setup for a free facility. Two covered buildings with dedicated 100 yard and then what looks like a 300. No doubt funded by state since it is in the 'new' Gilchrist State Forest acquired in 2010. Anyway it was not too bad for cleanliness but after shooting we still filled a trash bag with shot up cans & plastic bottles.

 

[3584ELK]

Agree with No Left Turn as I am from Colorado too. We have our share of idiots in CO, no doubt. Most folks you meet outdoors are either do-gooders or decent real people. There are always gonna be your jackasses who think its cute to take a bottle of Jack Daniels with them when shooting. What I have noticed here in WA is there is nowhere close to Seattle to shoot rifles. 100 yards doesn't excite me much, and when I have found a spot, it is trashed. It's sad, because as mentioned, the USFS will simply cave to pressure from the non- shooters (who strangely have time to pressure the govt but we dont) and close the roads/ areas.

BTW, I love WA state and enjoy everything except the millions of mama- sans who like to admire green lights at intersections.

 

[IheartGUNS]

I live in Washington and cannot disagree with anything you said. Most of the shooting sites I have been to are completely trashed. The only thing I can do besides complain about it is try to rake up a couple of bags of litter and haul it out of there. Pay it forward.

Now the more important question - What the hell is wrong with Oregon drivers!

I agree most americans can't drive worth a damn.

 

[Cuthbert Allgood]

LOL. I totally agree HKF. MY biggest issue with Oregonians behind the wheel is MERGING on the freeway. I got behind a Oregon plate yesterday on i5 merging on the interstate @ 40 MPH. This is almost half the speed limit. WTF !

Yes, and make a mental note of how many of those sorry drivers are driving some type of Subaru wagon. Subaru drivers in this part of the country are horrible. I become extremely defensive whenever I have Subaru drivers near me. There is a real good chance they haven't got a single clue what's going on outside of their vehicle, or beyond the hood of their yuppie mobile.

 

[Brutus57]

Yes, and make a mental note of how many of those sorry drivers are driving some type of Subaru wagon. Subaru drivers in this part of the country are horrible. I become extremely defensive whenever I have Subaru drivers near me. There is a real good chance they haven't got a single clue what's going on outside of their vehicle, or beyond the hood of their yuppie mobile.

But Cuthbert...donchaknow Subarus are made with LOVE?!?!. I agree wholeheartedly.

Brutus Out.

 

[phathom]

This is why every time I go shooting, I take multiple trash bags with me. Normally I bring one with cans and bottles (NEVER GLASS ONES) we plan on shooting, and another 2 for other trash.
I will crush and fill up the first bag with twice as much trash as we brought, and do the same with the other 2.
I think that if everyone did this, bring 1, take out 2 or even better 3 bags, that we wouldn't have to worry about shooting spots getting closed down because of stupid people.
It may be someone elses trash, but it's you who is going to lose access to your spot if it gets closed off for it being abused.

 

[redhippie]

Yeah, there is a also a cultural component here. Growing up camping in the scouts, we always took 20 - 30 min. at the end of breaking down camp to police the area. This has lived on into my daily life. Scouting is a fraction of what it once was.

I paddle on the Sandy River alot. Along the Gresham Rivera, you see mounds of garbage. I talked to a couple of guys I worked with who go down there and they tell me about being back in the old country where there just weren't garbage cans and people were just in the habit of throwing stuff on the ground. I think this behavior becomes infectious. The funny part, was that the russians said the exact same thing as the guatemalians.

I think the best thing is to lead by example and make sure the offenders see you doing it. There should be a sense of shame.

 

[phathom]

Exactly what we did in the scouts too. Our motto was, "Leave it better than you found it" and I live that to this day.
At the end of the trip, we would line up shoulder to shoulder and walk the entire camp site picking up anything in site that did not grow there. Never missed a thing, and sometimes found something of ours that was dropped that we actually wanted to find.
We don't normally have enough people to do shoulder to shoulder camping now, but we do scour the area and make sure it's cleaned of any debris. Same goes for shooting. I normally end up picking up a few pounds of shell casings left by others as well.

 

[jdub75]

man I love my 2nd amendment freedoms, but so many out there do not take the responsibility that comes with it seriously...a complete generation or 2 of entitled a-holes.

 

[Truenorth]

Well I'm happy to report despite the HUGE number of people that camped out on FS 7010 the conditions appear to have improved.
Didn't spend the night but went through the same area on Sunday after the 4th of July expecting the worst.
Either the Forest Service or hopefully the general public spent some time removing the trash piles in the campsites and targets placed on trees.
I did notice some fresh signs posted reminding folks to pack out thier trash and not shoot fireworks inside the national Forest.

We only had to remove a single bag of trash that day. Quite an improvement over our last visit 2 weeks ago.

Sorry for my previous rant. I was pretty upset when we got home. The National forest is our to enjoy and our to lose if we disrespect it.
Glad to see at least someone gives a crap and helped restore some sense of order to a beautiful place to camp and shoot not far from the big city.

Whoever you are. Thank you!

 

[whiskeybill]

And people wonder why access gets restricted to public lands. And it does. I have seen it happen. If these clowns don't clean up after themselves, the FS and BLM have every right to shut down certain areas of public land. Don't blame the Californians, Washingtonians, Oregonians, or the Martians. Don't blame it entirely on the young folks, they learned it from adults. It happened in my native Montana years ago. Local folks had every opportunity to join a gun club or clean up after themselves, and some areas of public lands started looking like landfills. These dirtbags weren't even camping in these places. They figured as long as they were going shooting, may as well haul that old dryer or refrigerator out and have some target practice. Shoot up the empty beer bottles so they wouldn't have to haul that back. My advice? If you see it happening, get on the cell phone and call the authorities. If I have to clean up after these freaks, I'll start with the human garbage. I refuse to have myself associated with them.

 

[meener777]

>> We hauled out 6 XL yardwaste bags full of trash from ONE campsite.

Thank you for doing this. Not only is this just good for the environment and everyone who uses this area, its good for the firearms community to be seen as responsible when it comes to the fight for our rights. Thanks again.

 

[ma96782]

Trashy people are everywhere. But, if I were looking for a solution (renegade shooters), I'd say............

Build more public shooting ranges and they will come.

Aloha, Mark

 

[whiskeybill]

Trashy people are everywhere. But, if I were looking for a solution (renegade shooters), I'd say............

Build more public shooting ranges and they will come.

Aloha, Mark

There are those that will still trash a public shooting range. It may not be to the degree that we see on public lands, but some of these brain donors will try some hi-jinks to some degree, even if it's intentionally shooting up target frames. I see that at private clubs as well.

 

[JackD]

It's not a new problem for sure. Years ago, when I was younger, we (our family) belonged to a club that made it a monthly outing to go to shooting areas and clean them up. It was disheartening to spend a day or two cleaning up an area, only to find it the same way a month later. Exploding gas prices in the 70's/80's doomed our efforts and the club no longer exists, but even afterward my wife and sons and I cleaned up shooting areas that we visited. I'd still do it today, if I had some help. In another forum, I asked for volunteers to put together a working party for just such an effort......NOT ONE VOLUNTEER. And that's just as disheartening as seeing the mess' left behind.

 

[JackD]

Trashy people are everywhere. But, if I were looking for a solution (renegade shooters), I'd say............

Build more public shooting ranges and they will come.

Aloha, Mark

I disagree, Mark. Some might. But I really don't like shooting at ranges except when I need the facilities for sighting in, bench rest, etc. I'd much prefer informal plinking where I can check my targets when I'm ready and not when the range masters says I can. Formal ranges are too restrictive for my tastes. Most don't allow rapid fire....for instance.

 

[Diamondback]

The other thing is, how do we know that some of this couldn't be the other side doing false-flags to make us look bad? It's the kind of thing Scumbag Saul believed in, after all...

 

[whiskeybill]

The other thing is, how do we know that some of this couldn't be the other side doing false-flags to make us look bad? It's the kind of thing Scumbag Saul believed in, after all...

As I said before, if you see ANYONE trashing public lands, TURN THEM IN! It would be particularly sweet revenge to bust some liberal trying to portray us in a bad light. Trail cameras come to mind.

 

[JackD]

As I said before, if you see ANYONE trashing public lands, TURN THEM IN! It would be particularly sweet revenge to bust some liberal trying to portray us in a bad light. Trail cameras come to mind.

They don't really need to trash public lands to portray shooters in a bad light. We do that to ourselves. Trash left behind by someone trying to portray shooters in a bad light would have to have lots of bullet holes in it to be effective and if they go to the trouble of shooting holes in it, that makes them shooters, too. Otherwise it's just trash dumpers....and there are plenty of them, too. A "target" without bullet holes is just trash and is not tied to any particular group.