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Gun club on hunt for safe, legal shooting site (Click here to view article on Green Valley News website)

· By Jorge Encinas jencinas@gvnews.com

· Mar 27, 2019

Green Valley News

The GVR Hunting and Fishing Club’s quest for a shooting range highlights a bigger problem on open land surrounding Green Valley — finding a safe, legal place to target shoot.

The club wants a shooting range but Green Valley Recreation policy banning guns on its property could stand in the way.

The call for a gun range comes nearly two years after a popular shooting site south of Green Valley was abruptly closed, leaving shooters without a place to go. The site drew 400 to 500 people a week, according to Bruce Tewksbury, who headed the Green Valley Shooters Club.

Since the closure, the loose-knit club has broken up for the most part, Tewksbury said this week. While some former members still meet for breakfast, the lack of a legal, self-regulated place to shoot that can handle a large group leaves them split when finding places to go, he said.

State Trust Land

In Arizona, it is legal to shoot on federal land controlled by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. But most of the open land surrounding Green Valley and Sahuarita is private or belongs to the Arizona State Land Department, commonly referred to as State Trust Land.

Target shooting on private land without permission or on State Trust Land is not permitted.

Whether hunting, working or hiking, a permit is required to be on State Trust Land. Shooting is only permitted when firing at prey — no target shooting — and requires a hunting permit.

Mark Scarp, a public information officer with the Arizona State Land Department, said anyone who violates the no target shooting condition or does not have a permit is trespassing.

The Santa Rita Experimental Range east of Green Valley and Sahuarita is 52,000 acres of State Trust Land. The range, managed by the University of Arizona, has 35 to 40 research projects every year, said Mitch McClaran, a professor of range management who has been involved with the site since 1988.

McClaran said it is common to hear target shooting on the range despite posted signs.

“Since '88, it’s worse,” he said. “I’d say that it’s been at its current levels, probably, for the last five years. It’s something we deal with on a regular basis.”

McClaran said there is an impact in trash, including shells, cartridges and debris from bullet-riddled signs; he's unaware of any injuries to scientists and students on the range from stray bullets.

“Part of that is the advice we give to our users, who includes students, instructors, researchers, that if they hear target shooting, they should not engage the person and move away from the area,” he said. “Because we’re thinking personal safety first and law enforcement last.”

With only one staff member living on site, and being out of the UA Police Department’s range, the researchers rely on the Pima County Sheriff’s Department when there are target shooters in the area.

Pima County Sgt. Garrick Carey, who works out of the Green Valley substation, said he has not noticed an increase in target shooting on State Trust Land.

“We’ve dealt with them a few times. Usually, they are down closer to where Dawson and Santa Rita Roads are,” Carey said. “Most of the calls we get are down there in that area where it’s posted.”

But McClaran said incidents at the Experimental Range are not reported every time and they hold off for when target shooting reaches a critical level or the location is sensitive.

“So, we don’t report it every time,” McClaran said. “Part of it is, would somebody come out, what would they do? We’re pretty strategic about when we decide to report.”

That said, law enforcement is limited when trespassers are caught target shooting on State Trust Land.

“It is not illegal for people to shoot out there,” Carey said. “What it is, is a violation of the land owner’s rules if they’re shooting out there. It’s nothing that’s criminally enforceable by us.”

This leaves the deputies with asking shooters to leave the area when they are called out and if they refuse, they are trespassing, Carey said.

“The land owner is the State of Arizona, but there is no state statute, that we’re aware of, that would say shooting out there is prohibited,” Carey said. “It’s just prohibited by sign.”

Gun ranges

Pima County operates three shooting ranges. One is 6.5 miles north of Ajo. The other two, Tucson Mountain Park Rifle and Pistol Range and Southeast Regional Park Shooting Range, are about 40 minutes from Green Valley.

The ranges are supervised and only paper targets are allowed, said Leonard Ordway, the recreational program manager at the Southeast range.

Tewksbury said shooting at paper targets “gets pretty old,” and many shooters prefer to find places to shoot outside.

“When you don’t have a place to shoot, you do with what you can find,” he said. “It really is not a safe situation.”

Part of the safety concern is that people on their own or in a small group could develop bad habits or become complacent while handling weapons, Tewksbury said.

This can be alleviated with an organized range with oversight and by combining it with the outdoors in a self-regulated range where shooters would designate range observers and clean up after shooting, Tewksbury said.

Tewksbury is not the only local shooter who finds the county ranges restrictive.

Sitting around a table at GVR’s Las Campanas rec center, Richard Toltzmann, Howard Bryan, Tim Cameron and Gary Williams from the GVR Hunting and Fishing Club talk about their need for a place to target shoot.

“The county range out on Houghton Road, a lot of people don’t like to go out there because it’s quasi-military. I mean, if you don’t do something just right they blow the whistle at you,” Cameron said.

In Colorado, Cameron was part of a club where members paid $300 a year for a private range with their own range officers, or self-officered if no one else was present, he said.

“We need a shooting range, I mean, it’s really missing,” Cameron said. “Quail Creek, they’ve got an air rifle range, why not us?”

So far, the Hunting and Fishing Club expressed an interest in getting a range for firearms and another for archery through a survey submitted to the GVR Planning and Evaluation Committee.

However, according to GVR’s Corporate Policy Manual, “No firearms are allowed on your person on any GVR property or in any GVR facilities except law enforcement or licensed security.”

A CPM change would be necessary to get a range.

Securing a range outside GVR is an option.

“When we talk about non-GVR, we have the whole town of Sahuarita and we have Quail Creek,” Williams said. “I mean, there’s a lot of people in this area when you take your mind away from GVR.”

With GVR’s ban on firearms Cameron said it might be the way to go, “Because I think the chances of GVR or the GVR Foundation supporting a shooting range are probably non-existent.”

Bryan said the club is concerned that shooters heading into the desert could reflect poorly on the community.

“The biggest issue is people are, either intentionally or unintentionally, shooting where they shouldn’t and therefore are causing a problem that reflects on anybody who shoots,” Bryan said.

Jorge Encinas | 520-547-9732