Possible Closure Of 480,000 Or More Acres To Shooting In Arizona

The Arizona Citizens Defense League sent out the following alert last night. I didn’t have time to blog it then but anytime there is a government proposal that could declare 486,000 acres of desert land off-limits to shooting, it is important.

While I live clear across the country from Arizona, what the Federal government does there impacts me just as much as if I lived in Phoenix or Tucson. I am surrounded by Federally-owned land in western North Carolina. Haywood County is approximately 50% Federal land and there are counties west of me where that proportion is even greater. Federal land managers talk to other Federal land managers at conference while eating their $16 muffins.

Here is the alert from AZCDL:

President 0bama promised that he was going to implement efforts to erase your right to bear arms “under the radar.” Now, he’s brought the fight to Arizona.

Using the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the 0bama administration has proposed banning recreational shooting in the half-million acres of Sonoran Desert National Monument.

BLM has released proposed plans for the future management of nearly 1.4 million acres located southwest of Phoenix, in parts of Maricopa, Pinal, Pima, Gila and Yuma Counties. Of that total, over 486,000 acres are within the Sonoran Desert National Monument. The proposals can be found at: http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/planning/son_des.html .

Two of the possible alternatives (“D” and “E”) propose closing the area to recreational shooters. Presently, some 63 sites in the national monument are used by recreational shooters. The proposed plans also address other issues of importance to shooters and hunters, including the designation of roads and trails for motorized vehicles and areas that could be managed as wilderness.

If you ride, hike, hunt or shoot in the Sonoran Desert National Monument, you need to get involved in this planning process!

The public comment period is open through November 25.
Instructions for making comments can be found at: http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/planning/son_des.html .
Comments can be faxed or mailed to BLM, Phoenix District Office.

At the BLM website (http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/planning/son_des.html) you will also find a series of public BLM meetings, being held in October, to discuss the proposal to ban recreational shooting in the Sonoran Desert National Monument. Meetings will be held in Phoenix, Mesa, Casa Grande, Buckeye, Gila Bend and Ajo. We urge you to attend as many of these meetings as possible.

This is not the first time that the BLM has attempted to close an entire national monument to shooters, making no attempt to provide places for and access to shooting sites. The Ironwood National Monument shooting ban was defeated because of the outcry from concerned citizens (you!).

Together, we can defeat the 0bama administration’s proposed Sonoran Desert National Monument shooting ban!

These alerts are a project of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), an all volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization: http://www.azcdl.org/html/join_us_.html .

AzCDL – Protecting Your Freedom
http://www.azcdl.org/html/accomplishments.html .

Copyright © 2011 Arizona Citizens Defense League, Inc., all rights reserved.

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